It will be funny if they make it free to play because they think maximizing player count will translate into more shark card money than box price + shark cards. Not that I think that is likely, just a funny possibility.

I use Appsales to catch sales on paid games: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=appsales&c=apps

Seconding this recommendation. You can find it on the Play store here: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=mini review&c=apps&hl=en_US. And, you can find the website here: https://minireview.io/

If the list on PCGamingWiki is up to date, there aren’t many Epic exclusives anymore (only 26 currently): https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_exclusive_to_Epic_Games_Store

And, earlier this year, Tim Sweeney said that many of exclusivity deals weren’t a good investment while the free games have been “magical.”

So, it seems like a problem that is solving itself over time. Epic will probably still have exclusives going forward, but I would expect them to target a few high-value exclusives like they got with Alan Wake 2. Or, maybe they will just do more acquisitions of games to self-publish, like they did with Rocket League and Fall Guys.

The article says that comment came from a CEO of another game company, not players. Tim Bender, the CEO of the publisher for The Manor Lord, said “Players are happy, the developer is happy, and we as publisher are thrilled beyond belief.” I don’t understand where the post title that says he cited gamer expectations came from.

There are a lot of great suggestions here already, so I will just share Mini Review with you as a discovery tool. I like to use them because they have a lot of filters to help you find a mobile game. For example, here’s their list for free, single-player, offline games with no ads or in app purchases, sorted by highest user score. They also have an app for both Android and iOS with the same info and filtering as the site.

I can’t speak for others, but for me it’s just a nuisance. I’m not furious about it. I avoid buying EA and Ubisoft games too. It’s a small thing for one game on one account, but when you acquire a lot of games across a bunch of different accounts, all those different logins and launchers just become a bother.

I don’t mind DLC that’s done right for games I love. I just know it’s a common complaint for Paradox games to have a lot of DLC. That said, there are games that have produced a ton of free updates with very little DLC, like No Man’s Sky, Terraria, Minecraft, etc. So, I don’t know that it’s always necessary to have a ton of DLC to support ongoing game development. It’s all very subjective and varies a lot from game to game.

I had not heard about Life By You being on hold. That’s frustrating. Paradox games go nuts with DLC too, but some competition is better than none.

Oh okay. A while back, their VP Lyndsay Pearson explicitly said they plan for Sims 4 to continue to exist side by side with Project Rene (aka Sims 5). I was wondering if that had changed. My cynical take on the plan to keep both going is that Sims 5 is probably going to be a live service abomination, which they wanted Sims 4 to be, so keeping Sims 4 might be hedge in case Sims 5 fails hard. Of course, they could also have been lying.

They didn’t need to announce this. They could just fix the bugs and players would start noticing that a bunch of bugs were getting fixed.

Where did you see that they are no longer making new content for Sims 4? The article doesn’t seem to say so and the last I heard they planned to release content for Sims 4 alongside Sims 5. FYI, I would prefer they stop with Sims 4 content.

I’m guessing that they don’t mean a legally grey area. I think they probably mean it’s a grey area for Microsoft because Proton helps people get around needing Windows to play games made for Windows and Microsoft has an interest in keeping people on their OS.

I just want Marvel Heroes back.