Nah, Dear Esther was the first game to receive that label because all you do is walk around and listen to a narrator.

A bit of an oversimplification. The exploitation of this deal meant that fewer people were able to buy pizzas because a minority of customers were taking them all. There’s a finite amount of pizzas, after all. So, everyone who wasn’t exploiting got screwed.

I’m not sure why it’s being described as a walking simulator if that’s the case. It sounds like it has gameplay.

One could argue that a game needs to give players goals, obstacles to achieving said goals and enough tools and agency to overcome said obstacles. In that regard, it’s fair to say that walking sims aren’t really games. They’re more like superficially interactive experiences. Again, not an inherently bad thing but I…

Surprised Talos Principle 2 isn’t on this list. It’s a very good and very chill first-person puzzler with a philosophical narrative. The pacing and structure make it perfect for casual play too. You can just hop in and solve a puzzle in under 10 minutes (assuming you’re decent at puzzle-solving).

The term “walking simulator” still seems grimly bogged down by a pejorative misinterpretation, so I use it carefully to describe Polish developer Starward Industry’s extraordinary recreation of this tale of planetary exploration, nanotechnology, and the human drive for survival.

Some of the IP I listed are relatively new. Lost Ark, Eternal Return, Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact, etc, are not decades old. Hell, Ark and Fortnite are only 5 years old.

The original Deus Ex did it too and the gunplay was pretty awful in that game too. It’s one of those ideas that seems reasonable on paper but plays terribly in practice.

Yeah, it’s only an issue if you play a bunch of big games at the same time. I’m hopping between Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, Cyberpunk, Talos Principle 2 and Alan Wake 2 right now and those 5 games take up a combined 470+ gigs of space.

Feels like they’re just seeing what sticks. It’s the mobile strategy of churning out games in the hope that one becomes a big hit. It seems stupid but if a single game does become a big hit, it’ll make more than enough money to recoup the development and marketing costs of the other games.

Valuation is entirely relative. If you buy multiple games a year and have a budget of $100, spending $20 on a skin seems ludicrous. For $20, I could buy several PC game bundles and get like 20 games.

Sure, PC gaming has always had a lot of issues that stem from particular hardware/software combinations. Starfield’s performance drops aren’t one of those issues, though. They exist across all hardware and software combinations.

They’re small compared to the biggest live service games (CS, LoL, Fortnite, etc).

Gonna need some actual data on that. As far as I can tell, live service games still dominate the top-seller lists on all platforms.

That’s not entirely accurate. Look at the top games on Steam/PSN/XBL and the list is dominated by live service games. Not just the biggest ones, either. Smaller ones like Dead By Daylight, Warframe, Naraka, R6: Siege, Rust, etc, are still going strong. Live service games still make far more money than SP games and…

Destiny is far from the reigning king of live service games. Off the top of my head, CS, Apex Legends, LoL, Fortnite, Genshin Impact, etc, are far more popular and that’s just in the console/PC.

Nobody said you should be invisible. There are tons of stealth games that don’t force you to move a snail’s pace. Hitman, Splinter Cell, Thief, Desperados, Shadow Tactics, Shadow Gambit, etc. All of those have far better stealth than any BGS game, Starfield especially. The amount of noise you make by moving and/or the…

Fair point. I have a bad habit of jumping between big games. Currently playing Cyberpunk, Starfield, Alan Wake 2 and Talos Principle 2. Just finished Jusant. I really need to commit to finishing at least one of these games before installing another.

Yeah, it’s a poorly designed system. I’m not going to strip naked and crawl around at a snail’s pace just to remain hidden.

Agree with skin pricing, disagree with requiring fake currencies. Fake currencies obscure the actual value of the item and devs/pubs never let you buy the exact amount you need. You always have to buy bundles/packs with more than you need.