Strictly talking about statistics, it depends on the context. From everyone who bought the game, 39% started it. From everyone one who played the game (so started it) 79% completed the first level.
This could be just a way to track pirated copies. First achievement comes from Steam statistics where the second one is from the game itself. This way you can track how many copies of the game are being pirated.
Not Steam, but interestingly some Microsoft published games will unlock Xbox achievements when pirated, presumably because they built the version sold on Steam to unlock achievements on both platforms. Pirated Psychonauts 2 and got the little under half you get on a casual non achievement hunting playthrough on my Xbox account
With the aggressively anti-user and poorly thought out moves tech companies have been making lately, I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to start using little discrepancies like that to go after people
It would be dumb, way more effort than it’s worth, and likely extremely invasiv… Probably not likely, but I would’ve said the same about a lot that’s happened in the last couple years.
But all the same, in your shoes I’d look into blocking that on the off chance it puts a target on your back
Was years ago when the game first came out, plus am a Gamepass subscriber now anyway so "officially" have a license (yadda yadda, subject to subscription running out or them deciding to drop a game they own from their catalog). But there's always a chance I suppose
As long as you’re not doing it now I wouldn’t worry, you’d need very detailed information to tell you apart from steam. Privileged information I’d never have considered Microsoft yanking a year ago, but a year from now? Unlikely, but not unbelievable anymore
Shooting yourself in the foot trying to punish users seems to be the new SOP for tech giants these days…I no longer would put anything past them
Because someone in the gamedev community once posted about using achievements to measure engagement with users, it caught on, and now there are actual achievements mixed in with standard progress, including just launching the game, apparently.
They are used to measure how far players get into the game so you’ll often see one for starting the game the first time, completing the tutorial, and chapters as well as difficulties. The reason the numbers are off here is likely that achievement was added some time after the game released and those players never returned to the game and launched it again 5o earn that achievement.
I remember some games on Xbox did that in a way that fucked with people who liked to keep an even achievement score, award a nonstandard two point one for starting the game and lock the "corresponding" three point one behind something endgame with the rest being standard multiples of five or whatever
Bit of each for different people I suppose, but for most probably closer to the latter, most achievements being worth a multiple of five making ones that don't stick out. Checking mine, currently ends in 4 so must have run into a game that did something like that at some point, but am not one of the people it bothers
Personally, I love having a ton of them - I wish there were more
I don’t mind standard progression ones, they at least give me a rough idea how far through the storyline I am
But the high end ones are way too few - I like having an unlockable goal to work towards if I’m not done with a game by the time I finish the in game progression. I want them to be hard, maybe even require multiple playthroughs with a severe handicap. Not tedious collecting… But like in Prey when you had to play through with only human, typhoid, or no abilities unlocked. Then you had to save everyone and murder everyone - I had fun trying to combine as many as possible into a playthrough
My problem is that people get upset when 100% is a long and hard road, and a lot of games have lowered the bar to keep them from getting upset. Might as well make prestige achievements that put the total over 100% at this point… Hell if I launch something on steam I might do free DLC just for that
I wholly agree with everything you said. Sometimes you finish a game and want to keep playing but it’s hard to find a “reason” to and weird achievements provide that.
That makes it sound like an addiction but I don’t mean it that way. I wanted to 100% BG3 and got all but 1 or 2 achievements away from doing it I thought eh, that’s enough for now. I’m not trying to impress anyone with my GamerScore™ so if I’m not having fun with one, I’ll pass
Exactly! I left two achievements in Prey because while I loved it, a fourth playthrough was too much - years later I still remember the map intimately
But then there’s games like saints row 4…I loved it, it was just pure fun. I was having such a great power fantasy I even got all the collectables. I tried to keep going, but I ended up just mindlessly jumping around until I faced reality
Or for a more recent example, satisfactory. It was great fun - I restarted just before the endgame to extend the experience. Then I did everything… There was so much more map left and I could’ve built so much more if I just had a reason. They get a partial pass because it’s still in development and mods could give me a second, longer, playthrough but I wanted to enjoy the updates before I burned up all my desire to play
Give me some stat scaled enemies, maybe a bit more basic progression, and a flimsy reason so I can have my fill of the gam
Pretty funny you bring up Satisfactory…I JUST put that game down after making a gigantic factory. I just couldn’t bring myself to build the last two I needed for the final milestone and decided I’d start with a new game once it was finished. I hate burning myself out on a game and resenting it.
…and Prey might actually be the next single player game I play. I have two friends hounding me to give it a spin and now you’re singing its praises. I guess I have to now lol
Diluted implies they were ever worth anything. They were only created as a dopamine drip to keep customers buying their product. Using them for publicly available analytics is great. I love being able to compare the drop off rate of one game to another. Comparing how quickly players dropped of compared to, for example, Dark Souls is fun and informative.
I used to hate achievements when they first came out back in the day and just thought they were dumb as hell. Surprisingly, as I’ve gotten older, I appreciate them as something to do for fun.
Paradox games especially like CK3 make me play completely different each time to unlock a different achievement.
The ones I despise are achievements that have a multiplayer requirement tied to it.
How do you feel about hidden achievements? Or ones that are basically riddles, or otherwise unclear from their description how to get it? Or ones that represent a clear challenge far beyond the primary intended path of play (not just “collect all the things”, but accomplish X task in a time period or with a loadout you didn’t think possible)?
Hidden achievements are fine. They let you compare with other people without spoiling secrets. You can’t see them without getting them, which has some issues, but it’s alright. I’m sure there’s a way to view these anyway. The riddles basically fall into this too, except hiding them with a trick rather than a hidden tag.
Challenges are great. They don’t really show progression, but it gives players something to do if they want. I don’t think they add anything personally, but I’m fine with them.
And this boys is why we choose to give money to valve, and as a bonus steam sales are amazing. Valve really knows how to keep a steady income of profit and just dont fck with what works
I was just curious considering the praise angle of the story. Everyone complains about Apple’s 30% cut from their store, but for some reason it’s ok or “praised as a democratic platform” when everyone else does it.
I don’t know what democratic platform means since the two closest democracies to me geographically are total bullshit.Edit: after reading the article I get it. Its visibility of your game that they are praising. They detail how they have to really work to get the game to show up anywhere but on steam if its good, people will buy it and it will show up more.
Maybe if apple allowed 3rd party stores, yet was objectively better than the others then things would be different in regards to them.
Steam has had so many competitors over the years and the only one with any merit is gog. The rest have been so garbage that even if they had better rates, comparatively few people would use them. With the rise of discord pretty much nobody uses steam’s socials any more apart from as an easy way to join a friend’s game. Before that none of the others compared there either.
And nobody is forced to use steam in the first place. Most games on steam are available on other platforms, although I can’t think of a good reason to use any other than got.
The remaining downside to steam is that you are still only buying into a license agreement and not owning anything, though even pulled games are accessible if you bought them. I would know, I have like 2-5 iiirc. For now anyway. Dog only knows if valve’s fucked or faulty future mitigation plans to prevent fucking over friendly customers will actually pan out if gabe dies.
I have like 400 free to own games on my EGS account and the only thing I’ve ever played on it is Fortnite occasionally. I’ll just buy a game on Steam if I want it, rather than checking if I already own in in EGS–it’s that bad.
Hah yeah mine is probably half as many but I’ve only played three, two of them recently. Its tolerable with heroic launcher, but in the case of outer worlds and guardians of the galaxy EGS version on steam deck I still wasted about a day tinkering each to get cut scenes to work on one and something else on the other but Christmas or whenever it was that they were free was like 100 years ago now and I forgot the specifics.
Difference: what does apple do? It has a store that they check the content on. And provide the small app infrastructure. Also they ask for money for you to upload anything.
What does steam do? They provide a huge infrastructure for games with hundreds of gigabytes and then a workshop for mods and multiplayer and controller support and remote play and a general good service.
The epic games launcher sucks and they don’t even provide half of that and they ask for 25% I think because otherwise developers wouldn’t even consider their shop.
I only recently realized how amazing the controller customization is on the deck. Being able to edit your entire control scheme completely on the fly without even closing the game is a real gamechanger.
I remember fighting with third party tools just to get simple shit like macros or mouse control mapped to a controller. Now I can set up complex doodads like button chords and mode shifts, it feels like the future.
Epic’s at a 25% cut now? I thought they still were at 12.
I remember Sweeney trying to convince users games would be cheaper because of the lower cut. Of course every publisher just pockets the difference and gamers are stuck with the garbage launcher.
Not to mention them paying for exclusivity to indie studios, only for the indie studio to make way more money once the game released on steam, despite the cut.
Apple and Google’s 30% not only hits the base price, but every single transaction that happens inside apps as well. Imagine a toll bridge in front of your nearest supermarket where the people working the toll booth inspect every bag of grocery you bought and then charged you toll based on what you bought there.
Apps arent entirely like video games. If you wanted to open a non-subscription based music store or book store or whatever, you’d find it economically impossible to pay the publishers their cut, apple their cut, your server host their cut, and have anything left over for yourself without charging your customers their arms and legs. This is why all those kinds of apps are subscription based. You can cleverly batch and bundle stuff in a monthly subscription fee which gives you room to dance around google and apples high fees and have enough money to keep your lights on.
The app store is the only way to get apps on ios, whereas steam is not the only way to get games on PC.
It’s the biggest one, yes, but no one HAS to use it. It does hold some power by virtue of having the majority of the gaming population as its user base, but no other storefront has even tried. The only one that has any value over steam is GOG, the rest are objectively worse.
Good guy steam. Their family sharing beta is currently a game changer for people like me whose friends have diverse gaming interests and thus, we can try out each other’s games without the need to buy them.
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