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myne t1_j90tg16 wrote

Reply to comment by cambeiu in Ultra-enthusiast hardware is strangling PC gaming by redhatGizmo

I'm fairly sure they look at the steam stats when they make a game and make sure it'll run ok on at least the top 70% of the in-use market.

Sure, you have to turn stuff off/down, but it still should play ok.

It's a volume business. They need sales. They need to target the audience that exists.

I'll note the 1060 is finally the #2 card on steam.

A 6 year old mid range card is still way up there in the market. It'll be hard for game designers to not target it.

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stu54 t1_j911jcu wrote

Games sell hardware. A Nvidia partnership game is made to make the most common hardware obsolete, so new hardware can be sold.

The games industry has split into three, AAA games, free to play microtransaction games, and indie games. The industry wants to kill indie games because they don't generate any shareholder returns. They will obliterate Steam with frivolous lawsuits and givaways, and then the creativity that big corporations can't compete with will go away.

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RecipeNo101 t1_j91xnyn wrote

They're already struggling to move hardware. CPU and GPU sales have plummeted. Steam seems far too entrenched to be ousted when people are tired of multiple launchers and all the others are dogshit. I collect every free Epic game, I have hundreds, and I've never given them a cent.

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kenriko t1_j9214pl wrote

I remember when people bitched an moaned about Steam when HL2 was released. It was evil DRM back then. Ha!

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RecipeNo101 t1_j923nfd wrote

Yup, I remember being so annoyed with Counter-Strike 1.6 on Steam. Waiting to download HL2. The platform was a laggy mess. To their credit, they've come a long way since then, and it seems clear enough to me that other launchers don't have the desire or ability to match even a fraction of Steam's features.

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stu54 t1_j91ze3s wrote

Epic games freebies will win in the end. Distributing digital content isn't very expensive, and it undercuts Steam. New indie developers cannot compete with free games. Your time and hard drive space belongs to Epic.

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charlsey2309 t1_j925q2a wrote

Eh I have epic on my PC to collect the free games……..but I buy games on steam

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amoralhedgehog t1_j926zam wrote

I'm not at all confident in that prediction. Steam's current projections suggest Epic's impact on sales units stabilised last year, with sales expected to recover and surpass pre-Epic figures over the next 5 years. The platform has significant stickiness for millenial gamers, who now have dominating consumer power alongside decade-old Steam libraries.

Regarding indie games, the number of indie titles released roughly doubles every 5 years, meanwhile AAA titles have declined over the long term with the exception of a post-covid release backlog. As for "indie devs can't compete with free games"... at least 20% of the most popular indie games on Steam are freemiums...

Suffice to say, there are many features of the market that point toward the resilience of Steam against loss-leading AAA competitors.

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gamaknightgaming t1_j95mqj8 wrote

There are other things to consider. for example, i got cities skylines free on epic, but the bulk of the mods for it are on the steam workshop. Sure it’s possible to get steam mods to work on epic but it’s a pain in the ass and I’m probably just going to buy the game when it’s on sale on steam

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beef-o-lipso t1_j91n3qb wrote

Agreed. I finally upgraded because a few games I wanted to play wouldn't run on mubGTX970. But I note sims like X-Plane 12 and I think MSFS have the 970 as recommended. So it varies.

I have yet to see a game requiring rtx30+.

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Opposite_of_a_Cynic t1_j91xjsf wrote

KSP 2 has a 2060 as minimum and a 3080 as recommended.

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Head-Ad4770 t1_j9256o4 wrote

What the hell??? Why??? I understand the original KSP is now over 10 years old and not being updated anymore, but why such demanding system requirements for the sequel?

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Head-Ad4770 t1_j925kxx wrote

Is it just a crappy excuse to force us to upgrade our hardware, considering A LOT has changed over 10+ years? Corporate greed? Both at the same time?

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GarbageTheClown t1_j932zlp wrote

Yeah, because we all know that the KSP developers also design and sell high end computer hardware.

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