I do keep an eye on what normies are doing as part of my research as I frequently tell people. I am constantly baffled looking at the top sellers list on steam because these games look unbelievably boring and I have to wonder what type of person plays this and enjoys them and yes I am being a raging elitist about what types of games people play like a judgemental music autist.
CS:GO 2, lethal company and BG3 I kind of get because those are real games even if I despise how average they are though I'm fairly neutral on lethal company. Warframe? Okay, I guess but how damn grindy are F2P games even by modern standards? Don't want anything to do with it and if you play those kinds of games you obviously need real hobbies.
How many of these games like War Thunder do people play properly? Or is it just bored teenagers and normies massively bumping up the games up the list because they're free to play?
I may have shat on simulator games but if those are involved enough I can understand why people would play them for a chill session kind of like when it comes to survival building games even if I don't necessarily always like them. The EA sports stuff is just completely fucking bizarre and I wonder how many of those are just mentally ill addicts addicted to the micro-transactions a bit like with CoD skins.
At least with GTA V I know exactly the types of people who will play it and it's usually Playstation owners and Russians. Having a bit of a time working out the demographics of other games.
They are F2P, which means they are constantly being played by Russians and South Americans on their 19th new account. Same with every F2P game. They are free, often low on requirements, and usually offer a chance to make money by grinding/selling. Not to mention, they are almost all multiplayer and thereby being played by massive groups of friends who need something to do that is free.
Its really not that hard to figure out, but considering how many times you prostrate that you particularly don't get it or agree with it tells me you never really tried. You just wanted to shit on people who aren't you.
I don't think he cares much about what the customers want. remap keys? I don't get it, the preset keys are perfectly functional!
The kind of mindset that leads to everybody's favorite type of dev:
Can't wait for him to ban mods to the game because it strays from "the vision".
From my time playing CS:GO I can tell you that people would often idle those bullshit F2P games just to make their account look legit. Dead giveaway for a hacker.
You'll need to keep Warframe and War Thunder out of the equation as they inhabit the niche of f2p that gets CONSTANT updates. Plus they both appeal to their markets even with grind, Warframe with power simulator and War Thunder with military enthusiasts.
GTA V, CS:GO 2 also need to be discounted as they are legacy games with a thriving player base, you know what you'll get when you play and you know there's a ton of players there so you aren't buying a dead game.
EA sports games.......I got no defence other than they are gambling addicts with how EA monatises those games...
The standouts really are BG3 and Lethal Company. BG3 getting high praise, been waited on for years and didn't turn into crap (at least till act 3) explains this one. Lethal Company might show how big the influence of simple game design as well as streamers have on the gaming market considering how much this game is steamed so could be another Among Us example.
Multiplayer, uh, stuff is the industry. Stuff like BG3 and Total War just break into the tops as single player games every now and then. A really popular single player title will hit the leaderboard. Otherwise it's whatever people can download to waste time for cheap/free.
Funny, I think we've had a very similar discussion previously. One of the elements you're failing to account for is pretty simple: Multiplayer.
All games are to some extent repetitive; games are in large part, even if voluntarily, constrained by genre. The "least repetitive" game would be an absolute chaotic mess spanning multiple genres...and probably not very fun.
For context, I personally don't even play any of the games you mentioned, but I've played plenty of other very repetitive games; MOBAs, shooters, ARPGs...even turn-based tactics could be considered repetitive. Again, most games have a very straightforward gameplay loop.
For things like MOBAs and shooters, the fun and challenge comes from the other players. The gameplay itself might be repetitive, but the fact that you're up against other people, and can actually lose (which is pretty absent in most at least modern singleplayer games, outside of roguelikes/lites) is what keeps things interesting.
It's like asking why people could play so much chess. It's not the raw gameplay itself, it's the fight and the ability to improve your skills and overcome.
MOBAs I at least get, because they're sort of like simplified RTS' and yes a lot of the challenge is in micro-ing like crazy and managing your abilities really well. There's also the fact that MOBAs are at least balanced to a degree, CoD and Apex Legends are also reasonably well balanced since they had the sense to stick with cosmetics only in order to make sure the game isn't pay to win.
Given that immediately attracts way more players it makes sense especially with the disgusting amount of money they make off skins why they'd go that route. What I can't understand is shit like War Thunder which is clearly designed as a typical F2P grindy. I suppose that's maybe something I could try to see what all the fuss is about but eh, I enjoy Battlebit so hard to feel motivated with that one.
War Thunder is popular for the same reason the other games you mentioned are popular. You're really hung up on not liking a game.
I don't play on steam. I don't actually have much time for games at all and get a bit jealous at times of people like you who do.
But reading your post, I just wanted to add a comment. I understand that mobile is a totally different scene.. But if you scroll through the popular games there, you will find that the majority of them are mind numbing.
I think that regardless of the source, most people are stupid and want games they don't have to think about. If they are offered a simple, cheap game they will grab it. Even if they don't play it much.
What I'm getting at is that I don't think steam is manipulating much. Maybe throwing a few in their view creates a feeding frenzy. I always try to remember that although individuals can be smart, people are stupid.
I actually have an incredibly ironic problem these days of being unable to play video games because I'm too busy coding them believe it or not lol. Playtesting is going to be excellent fun though when I get round to it.
That is a conundrum and I wish you later success.
For me, I started my own electrical business a couple of years ago. I get an hour or two each week that I can unfocus and play a game or two. I look at the new baldurs gate and wish I had half the free time it would take to get involved.
F2P usually have a fun tutorial portion, then there is a sweet spot between the tutorial and when all of the pay mechanics are introduced and when you run up against the first serious "pay or wait" wall.
You get to enjoy an hour or few of a high budget production game with possibly interesting mechanics, and maybe keep playing if the grind is enjoyable enough.
I played the hell out of Firefall and DDO when they want F2P. I even spent a bunch of money on DDO, not as much as I would have spent if it were still subscription and I played for the same duration but still more than the zero they would have gotten if the F2P hadn't encouraged me to give it a try.
From what I've seen Warframe has fun mechanics and visuals. I tried to play but they reject my revocable email addresses in making an account.
Warframe's grind doesn't get too bad until you get to the roughly 30% of the game that absolutely requires co-op to progress. That's when I dropped it, it's not a game my friends who just play CoD can get into and Darwin proved that random are descended from raccoons.
Randoms in Warframe aren't bad. It's not like you need old-school MMORPG raid-level knowledge and coordination. You can brute force all the high-end stuff so even a raccoon can do it.
The problem with raccoons is that they tend to scamper off. It's pretty difficult to get randoms to join because most high level players have moved way beyond the old quests. They changed a lot of the tile sets in the game without changing the quests to match.
https://i.imgur.com/desuDAf.png
Look, I've posted this before, but I wouldn't be shocked if I was actually autistic even though I've not been diagnosed with anything lol
The only truly negative thing I'll hear about Warframe is how unabashedly pozzed the dev team are. A tranny character, gay relationships, and they have Pride™ pfp's you can get every June.
For a F2P game, it's one of the best I've ever played. Unobtrusive "buy Plat" messages in the background, and 99% of content is purchasable with premium currency you get from trading stuff to other players, which you get from just playing regularly in the first place. Some of the real money stuff you can buy is just skins for the individual Warframes, and most of them are hideous anyway.
I have played assorted free to play games, be it on PC (Warthunder, MechWarrior Online, World of Tanks, Crossout, League of Legends, Fortnite) or mobile (practically any game now, though Brawl Stars is the first that comes to mind), and I have found enjoyment in some form or another from each.
To echo another poster, the F2P grind is fun until it is not. From that point, the player can choose if they want to quit, continue to grind or give the devs money to lessen the grind but not remove it entirely.
For me, paying money to speed up the process or have an extra edge tends to kill the enjoyment I was getting from the game, as though I have cheated. For others, paying is the point, for why grind when you can pay to win?
Why do I play free to play games at all? Usually, I want a little something new/different as I do not want to burn myself out on what I am currently playing, nor do I want a new game that is going to take over my gaming schedule. Furthermore, I absolutely do not want to invest my money in a game that could be garbage, so Mega Killfest Mecha Rumble is downloaded, played for a bit as a break, then deleted so I can get back to whatever I was playing refreshed and ready to go.
Oi! I play war thunder. Used to play Warframe too but honestly, quittin for over a year and coming back i did not know where to continue.
It's either a combination of being a good game like BG3 that eventually cycles out of the top list, an enduring game like GTA 5 or Counterstrike, or a free multiplayer game that you can run on any computer built in the last 15 years.
What's so interesting about these stats to me is they base it on 'revenue' rather than units sold. Which I feel is a bit annoying because I should be able to have a separate list that tells me by itself how many copies a game has sold and if not it should be off the list by default. That would then indicate actual interest in the game itself rather than people with addiction problems constantly bumping up F2P games to the top of the list by buying skins.
I don't know that I've ever looked at top sellers on Steam. I find interesting games on the "recommendations based on what I play" list, or by recommendations on this forum.
I'm trying to understand the normie mindset.
Consoomers and normies are the reason why western game industry got this bad in the first place, you can argue the whole game industry but they are still problem for me as they call incomplete game BG3 game of the year and the one devs have to learn from.