It is extremely hard. From what I’ve heard sales of ~10,000 units is considered a strong showing in the indie scene.

The whole market is extremely top heavy. You have have a few big winners that see runway success, a slightly larger group with modest “break even plus” type performance and 10,000 of thousands of indie devs that get no coverage whatsoever. In addition to having a well thought out and implemented concept (which is extremely difficult to do), you need a lot of luck.

IMO, the challenge lies in the lack of discoverability; an extremely difficult challenge for any consumer-facing marketplace. The major consumer stores (Steam, Apple, Google) don’t have any real incentive to work on discoverability since it’s so hard and they have a quasi-monopoly anyway. The topics-focused independent communities that were big drivers of discoverability (especially in mid-market and niche segments) in the 90s and 2000s are all dead or dying. You do have youtube which offers a modicum of coverage of niche segments, but then we are back to square one; discoverability of mid-market and niche channels. And Google is more focused on engagement (“the next quadrillion customers!1!11”) and competing with TikTok, there is simply not enough competition for them to care.

I think it really depends on the game (genre?).

I mostly play economic strategy / tycoon games and the forums are pretty chill. The most “controversial” threads revolve around gameplay mechanics discussion or perhaps complaints about lack of updates.

I don’t think I’ve even seen anything approaching what you are describing in economic strategy game forums.

I would most definitely oppose shutting down the steam forums.

Thank you for the good convo as well!

I’m just pondering the idea of if Russia just have their government magically replaced with someone else’s, would the culture you say persist for more than a decade.

I maybe wouldn’t phrase in that way, but I do agree that russians are capable of change. There is nothing inherent or unchangeable about their chauvinism.

I think their current situation (authoritarianism, broad support for genocidal imperialism) is a product of their own choices, not some sort of essential chauvinistic quality of russians.

But to get to a state where they can replace their government, they need to be frank about the root causes of their predicament.

They have to clearly and openly condemn imperialism (including their actions in Chechnya).

They have to recognize that the root cause of putin’s rule is not some external scapegoat. It is the russian people. They elected him in 2000 (widely considered a more or less free election). They elected him again 2004 even after he shut down all independent TV stations. They went with comical medvedev seat warming exercise in 2008, there was no pushback against their invasion of Georgia. They again allowed to him to come to power in 2012 and there was no pushback to the invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

You can’t both claim that the elections are illegitimate, while also partaking in them and calling to vote for openly chauvinist parties that are well know to be directly managed by the Kremlin as fake opposition.

But instead we get some fake platitude about how putin does not reflect the russian people and “What is the EU’s strategy on russia?”

I don’t see any real desire to take actions that would allow russians to nurture their own position on things. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it is.

I’m not sure how territorial\political losses or economical decline would make russians frustrated rn. With a total grasp on local media, Tzar can easily put a blame on other states and for his followers it works. They do sell the myth of capturing others is the way to go, and that it needs some sacrifices.

I am not saying it’s a magical solution. But their only hope for a better life (democracy, government respecting their rights and not being able to just randomly kill people, addressing corruption) is them understanding that their dreams of empire are over and that they will be treated as they treat others (no visiting Europe). They can keep playing the victim, it’s all up to them.

I think you’ve been caught in a trap of thinking russian commoners are somehow different to others. Vatniks aren’t an unique occasion, and it seems a lot of countries are vulnerable to have them, especially if authporitarian states put effort to nurture a culture of useful idiots somewhere else like Russia does in bordering states.

That’s where I will strongly disagree with you. I will even go as far as saying this sort of attitude (and variants) of it is a key enabler of russian degeneracy.

I’ve lived in several countries in North American, Europe and Asia (several years each) and you’re right there are “vatniks” everywhere. However, what is unique about russian chauvinism is 1. It’s brutality and self-important backwardness. 2. The level to which it is universal across any and all demographic group; chauvinism and genocidal imperialism is the defining aspect of russian culture. That is not true for all countries.

Russians are still stuck in an 18th century colonial mindset. They reflexively gravitate towards taking land and forcing occupied people to become russian. While the rest of the world has largely moved on more efficient forms of geolpolitcal influence. And this is true for North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa.

Support for genocidal imperialism has a strong majority across all demographic. You can slice the population by age, education, rural vs urban, income, federal district and still get a strong majority support for genocidal imperialism. Different quantitative methodologies, qualitative research, longitudinal studies; it all leads to dark, black hole of cruel and crude imperialistic mindset that dominates all priorities (even the well being of their own children).

This is not the case for all countries. There is been a lot of news about Hindu-nationalism in India. But even in India (a country much poorer and less education than russia), there is a modicum of internal cultural dynamism. You have the muslim minority. People in the south have their own language and culture. The Bengalis in the west have linguistic and kinship ties with their muslim cousins in Bangladesh.

Or consider the US, you have a lot of “vatniks” there too (I always found it entertaining how such a large portion of American are “experts” on constitutional law), but you still have some sort of internal sociopolitical dynamism. I believe US leadership has apologized for genocide against the native American population? Have you ever heard of any apology russians about the countless genocides they implemented over just the last 100 years?

And the West continues to ignore the russians’ deep rooted and near universal commitment to genocidal imperialism. The West continue to coddle the russians with their child-like fairy tales of the population not supporting putin and genocidal imperialism.

They need to understand that won’t be able to play dumb. They can play the victims and say that “you’re playing into putins hands” or “you’re discriminating against russians”; or they can start thinking on what they need to do change things. It’s their choice.

From the relevant thread comment:

All consoles and** developers**.

Valve to my knowledge doesn’t engage in patent trolling and so it’s not all hardware manufacturers.

And even with Sony and Microsoft? Do they engage in bottom of the barrel patent trolling? If anything MS has definitely been on the receiving end of patent trolls. Do they go after people who stream/make video content with their games?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending Sony or Microsoft. But it’s a bit strange to engage in volunteer PR for a company just because you’re a fan of the Mario series (not saying this applies to you, but this is not an unreasonable statement with respect to Nintendo fans in general).

There are many developers (indie, AA and even AAA) who don’t engage in this BS. They focus on … wait for it … making good fun games that sell well!

Imagine that!

Far from unique is irrelevant.

It would take a strong defeat (e.g. loss of occupied territories not only in Ukraine, but also Georgia, Moldova and loss of Belarus). They are unfortunately really petty and it would piss them off to no end if our countries became successful and independent.

Perhaps I am too biased against russians, but some sort of global ostracization would be helpful. Not allowing russian citizens into EU, US, Australia.

And most importantly a prolonged period of economic decline.

Yeah, Navalniy and his crew have zero influence inside the country and they are not really looking to do anything beyond YT videos. They don’t really want to fight. They are malicious grifters that at best run an online discussion community for somewhat liberal leaning russians.

Their pride stems from imperialism and “being feared”. They are no where near recognizing that they have the capability to build a better world for themselves. Not to mention they just can’t stop themselves from digging a deeper hole, that exponentially increases the cost of action.

I am surprised it’s not already banned. They were going to ban Duolingo because of presence of animated LGBT characters. Duolingo caved and made a custom “LGBT free” version for the russian market.

Engaging with russian victim-hood polemics is not going to help bring about any positive change in russian society.

Pretending that russian society does not consist of a strong majority of genocidal imperialists. Coming up with fantasies about how “everyone is just afraid” so they are just pretending to support imperialism. Turns out you can estimate preference falsification and it is relatively minor at ~10% with the impact being a change in support from ~75% to 65% (still a strong majority) for the full scale invasion of Ukraine.

Not putting Navalniy on the pedestal. He was a committed racist and imperialist. He was also a fool who decided to go back to russia, got himself put in jail and got himself killed. If the russians can’t find a better leader, then that’s on them.

Inviting Navalniy’s wife to high end forums where she comes up with stuff like:

What is the European Union’s strategy for Russia?

What is your (the russian opposition’s) strategy for russia? Everything you’ve done so far has been a massive failure. Your organization is in exile and your husband foolishly decided to go back to russian prison where he was killed. What are russians going to do next?

Finally, there are those who advocate for the urgent “decolonization” of Russia, arguing to split our vast country into several smaller, safer states. However, these “decolonizers” can’t explain why people with shared backgrounds and culture should be artificially divided. Nor do they say how this process should even take place.

You killed 5% of the civilian population in Chechnya, including in brutal targeted attacks and you speak about artificially divided? If 7 million russian civilians (roughly 5% of the population) were killed, would you be taking such a cavalier attitude?

If the russians do want to change their society for the better, they need to first confront the issues above. They will never achieve anything if they keep playing dumb. There is no reason to choose a “putin lite” over the real deal.

It’s not going to clear, because the russians won’t change.

Not because there is something inherently malicious about them/their culture. That’s bullshit.

It’s the choices they make. And they will continue to make the choice to support genocidal imperialism because they have zero incentive to change.

Western coddling about “they are just afraid, what can they do?” is a massive disservice to the russians (not to mention the countries on the recieving end of their genocidal imperialism).

You’re overthinking it. There is no logic in russian law. The Tsar says something and that’s the law.

I can’t even watch russian movies or listen to russian music (even artists that have openly opposed the full scale invasion). It just gets me in a bad mood.

Any time I see a russian flag on the internet, it’s like seeing a nazi flag. I start thinking “Why the fuck is this here?”.

Russian users can still use workarounds to purchase from the steam store. I believe this is a big business for some enterprising users in other countries.

It will most definitely be banned (they even shut down one of the few Ukrainian language libraries in russia before the full scale invasion) and likely it won’t be available in russian anyway.

Thanks for the review. I mostly play abstract (top down) economic strategy games, but this one piqued my interest.

Beating beggars is harsh though. Carrying passed out customers is cool though.😅

From a gameplay perspective it would be nice to not have manual ale quality (I hate QTE type elements); although it looks like eventually employees can make ale? Adding a time speed option to select the ratio of in-game time to real world time would also be a nice feature. For single player games, I don’t see why players shouldn’t be able to play on their own pace.

I doubt it.

Did not know about this about the open source engine rebuild. Will have to try them the next time I feel like playing Dune 2.

I don’t mind the easier difficulty. 😀

I remember trying to replay Dune 2 a few years ago.

The lack of many QoL/UX refinements made it really difficult to play.

You mean like updating unit selection in Warcraft 2; it is limited to ~9 units per control group from what I remember.

I would definitely play Warcraft 2 remastered. I’ve played the version on GOG and it was solid, but a remastered version is always nice.

Haven’t played Warcraft 1 in over 25 years. Wouldn’t mind trying it for fun.