EvaUnit02 on 1/12/2020 at 09:10
I was looking up the 2nd second pass for Borderlands 3 on Steam and I see the average (
https://archive.vn/EJ76d/) reviews are mostly negative. The season pass 2 content released so far is just a new set of skill trees and a battle royale mode, that sounds like a poor value proposition to me. To review something on Steam you have to have it in your account. Why are people buying this? I see similar for the annual (
https://archive.vn/I3fWC) NBA 2K review averages on Steam and every year the complaints are generally the same (eg content stagnation and rampant cheating in online play on PC).
I can guess with some Borderlands 3 season pass purchasers it might've been a case of casual audience who don't do any research, blind buying content, but with 2K? Almost the same complaints every year, yet they keep buying them (Eg last year's 2k20 has a whopping 53,000+ reviews and (
https://archive.vn/pP8R9) roughly half of them are negative). Surely these 2K customers should know what they're getting into by now?
demagogue on 1/12/2020 at 09:43
Is it so different from people flocking to Michael Bay & J. J. Abrams movies? They want to buy into the hype, not the content anyway. I don't know. I'm sure someone has done a study on it, and the studios understand the psychology of it inside out because it's evidently working very well for them.
henke on 1/12/2020 at 12:32
I guess with some franchises people keep buying the new entries simply to be part of the conversation, if you're in a community where the IP is a hot topic. I'm sure plenty of TTLGers will buy the latest Thief game no matter what, if for no other reason then just so they can complain about it IN DETAIL.
Jason Moyer on 1/12/2020 at 12:45
Season Passes shouldn't be reviewable on Steam until all of the content has been released. They might as well let people review games they've preordered while they're at it.
Shadowcat on 1/12/2020 at 12:47
Quote Posted by henke
I'm sure plenty of TTLGers will buy the latest Thief game no matter what, if for no other reason then just so they can complain about it IN DETAIL.
You don't even need to buy it to complain -- even the name sucks! "Deadly Shadows"?! Ugh.
Jason Moyer on 2/12/2020 at 06:21
If they ever decide to make a third Thief game I'd definitely buy it. The first two were amazing.
heywood on 2/12/2020 at 20:17
I don't give much weight to Steam reviews. I've seen some good games get trashed with a pile of bad reviews immediately after release, before anybody could have even finished the game. Those people move on fast, meanwhile reviews start coming in from people who actually spent time playing the game and the consensus opinion becomes positive.
The people who play the sports franchises are accustomed to keeping up with the latest, if only because everyone else does and they want to have people to play with?
I've never been a game collector with a large backlog, so I'm the wrong person to answer the general question. I guess the impulse buying helps keep the industry going though.
froghawk on 3/12/2020 at 04:49
I'm the opposite. I've got about 400 games in my library. Most of that is from taking advantage of free titles and bundles, so there's a good chunk I'll probably never touch. I haven't pre-ordered a game in a very long time and rarely buy anything at launch. It's not an expensive hobby at all if you wait for sales and bundles. I can't really understand why people want to play a much buggier version of a game for full price instead of waiting for a patched version with all content at a steep discount. Patience pays off.
Jason Moyer on 3/12/2020 at 05:57
I'll buy anything by Arkane or Kunos Simulazioni as soon as I'm able, because those two studios are batting 100% with me. I'll generally do that with Obsidian too unless it's something that doesn't look interesting to me like that Pathfinder card game or the tanks game or Grounded or whatever. Otherwise I wait for bundles and deep discounts (I finally picked up the last 2 Wolf games in the Steam sale, for instance). My general rule is $10 or less and 50% or more off unless it's Arkane/Kunos/Obsidian or the occasional series I really like, like TES or Borderlands.
henke on 3/12/2020 at 06:53
I've actually started impulse buying a lot more small indie games on Steam this year, largely thanks to following this (
https://twitter.com/microtrailers) Steam Trailers in 6s twitter. But also because, having been on the other side of the developer-consumer relationship, I'm seeing what a struggle it can be for even good games to get noticed in the deluge of releases every day. So when I see something neat, I get it right away, play, write a review, and boost it on twitter.
Games I've played this year because of this:
Offroad Mania - minimalist offroad game that plays a lot like Screamer 4x4.
Climbros - arcadey climbing game and honestly one of my games of the year.
Pixel Fixer - fun and relaxing slidey-puzzle game. This game has 1 review on Steam, mine.
Drink More Glurp - physics-based sports game. Not very good.
Spaß Taxi - flying taxi arcade game. Weird as hell and a lot of fun.
Kernmantle - physics-based 2D climbing game. Hard as nails. I've made it further than almost anyone in this, because no one's played it.
LemWars - looked like Lemmings but all about having your lemmings fight the enemy lemmings. A clunky unplayable mess.
RoboSkate - a game where you're an industrial robot-arm on a skateboard. I loved it.
Besides LemWars and Drink More Glurp, these are all good games. And most barely have 10 reviews on Steam. Folks, getting to 10 reviews on Steam is an important milestone for an indie dev, it gives you the "Positive" label if your score is high enough. So if you've got an overlooked gem in your library, give it a review. You really don't need to review popular games with 100s or 1000s of review already, because it really won't mean anything to anyone, but giving a review to small, overlooked game can mean A LOT. :)
