State of My Games (2020/02/27)

Plane Mechanic Simulator pretty much bored me, so I left it and didn't play it again. 

Did try Everspace, and it was not bad. Some of the interface does take a bit of getting used to, but every game is a little different, as things are randomly generated. That time pressure feeling is nice, as you can't always dawdle in the area. Will keep playing. 

Tried one game in Total Tank Simulator, which is like a parody version of World of Tanks where you setup two armies using X number of points, (from hyper-heavy down to infantry). Not sure if I want to try again. It's kinda underwhelming even in tutorial mode. I think it's because the game decided to flip on and/off no-harm mode even though it's a shooter. 

Started playing PC Building Simulator and couldn't stop, and ended up playing like 3-4 days straight. You play a guy who just took over your uncle's PC repair shop and if you do well you can buy out his stake in it. Had to learn the intricacies of the game, even though I am a computer engineer and probably knew PCs better than most. :D  

Tried the demo "WH40K Dakka Squadron" where you pilot an Ork fighter and fight other Orks. I didn't like the gamepad interface, and IMHO, it's a bit difficult. 

Tried Mindustry, where Factorio (factory assembly line) meets tower defense. You are one ship dropped onto an alien planet with just one home hub. You need to setup mines to get yourself more resources to build things, setup defenses to protect your area from enemy attack waves, and so on. It gets a lot more complicated due to multiple types of resources, processing plants to convert them, and expanding tech tree that you need to unlock by making new materials. It's complicated, and it's interesting, if a bit exasperating due to lack of a good tutorial mode. 

Playing Battlevoid Harbinger, a rogue-lite in space where you, commanding your warship, needs to travel the local cluster of systems, survive, destroy enemy bases, help local bases with their missions, and generally, destroy an alien mothership or base in the area. But you can't do it immediately, as you need to build up your own ship, get 2 other companion ships, and improve your weapon loadout, by taking on enemies and getting loot and upgrade points. It's more difficult than it seems. 

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What's next? Probably going back to PC Building Sim, Everspace, try the other Battlevoid game: Battlevoid Sector Siege, where you need to command your starbase and its defensive network against an invading horde of enemy ships. Between that, try some games I owned but never played, like Little Big Workshop, Automachef, and Angel Wings. 

Can You Get Free Games on Steam? Sort of...

As a gamer, who had built up a huge collection (close to 1400 games, and probably about 100 unredeemed keys...) it is important to save money. So when someone asked, is there a way to get free games? I can answer that. 

Yes, but there are some... caveats. 

1) Demos and Previews and Prologues

There are many games on Steam in early access where they just want some reactions from gamers. The game is incomplete or has other problems, or just get some hype going. Public Alphas are also possible. 

Two such games I found in December 2020 were Learning Factory Alpha, and Fights in Tight Spaces Prologue, both of which are free previews. 

2) SteamGifts.com 

SteamGifts.com allows people with extra game keys to give them away for other gamers to enjoy Many people buy bundles at a great discount, but end up with games they would never play. And many people would choose to gift them to friends and family, or to complete strangers via SteamGifts. While the name is familiar, this is NOT affiliated with Steam, a Valve service. I've given out over 100 games from here in the past month or two so I know this works. On the other hand, with each giveaway gathering hundreds, perhaps thousands of entries within 24 hours, chances of winning is quite small. But at least someone is a winner, right? 

3) Keep track of give-aways. Many distribution platforms (UbiSoft, Steam, GOG, Origin, etc.) give away games as promotion for another game in the series or tied to specific events. You just need to go claim it when it happens. 

Do you know other legitimate sources of free games? Leave a comment below! (No hacks, pirate sites, or illegal / unethical tricks please, such as "fake being influencer and beg developer for eval key")

Garbage in, garbage out

PC Gamer - Complete History of Gaming (Photo credit: Defragged)

When you want to prove something, you have to prove it with data, not bogus extrapolations.

There was an article on Gamersblog back on November 2011, that claims PC games, due to digital distribution like Steam and such, is going to destroy the consoles. Their "proof"?

Battlefield 3 PC outsold Battlefield 3 PS3, close to BF3 XB360

Wait, where did they get *that* idea? They said they "extrapolated" it. Through these steps

1) VGChartz got the figures:

Xbox 360: 2.2 mil­lion
PlaySta­tion 3: 1.5 mil­lion
PC: 500,000

As of October 2011.

2) They "estimated" that 75% of sales are made digitally, which is NOT counted by VGChartz (who only counts retail), so the "real" PC sales is actually 2 million

3) They "estimated" 75% because "Accord­ing to Techcrunch as of 2010 it was esti­mated that over 57 per­cent of PC gam­ing sales are done dig­i­tally and that num­ber has only grown"

Sounds reasonable, but what does the Techcrunch article actually say, as they didn't link to it? Well, I found it.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/20/pc-game-digital-sales-have-now-outpaced-physical-sales/

It actually says: "According to the all-seeing, all-knowing NPD Group, there were 11.7 million digital sales of PC games during the first half of 2010. That compares to 8.2 million physical sales. "

First of all, using early 2010 data to extrapolate sales in late 2011 is pretty bogus. furthermore, BF3 is only sold on EA's Origin, which doesn't exist until June 2011. Which makes it even more bogus.

Second, that survey is for all games, casual (like those hidden object games, or simple games like Drop, Zuma, bejeweled...) AND big AAA titles. And this is TOTAL SALES. You can't use this to predict ONE game's distribution of digital vs. physical sales!

To give an example: 100 vehicles are sold at dealership A, and 80 vehicles are sold at dealership B. Five vans were sold at Dealership B. How many vans are sold at delaership A?

The answer is: you don't know. You have to ASSUME that both of them are equally adept in selling vans (thus, the van to vehicles sold ratio is same at both dealerships) to get an answer.

Same with the game sale stats. You don't know what is the distribution of sales is in both sales mediums (retail vs. direct online). So you can't use that to extrapolate!

Third, TechCrunch didn't do any predictions, but actually linked to its source: a Gamasutra article and what does THAT say?

"... the tracking firm [NPD] appears to lack agreements with the majority of digital retailers. This means that the figures cited are extrapolated from third-party tracking. The firm attempts to divine PC game purchase habits from surveys, using anywhere from 8,000 to 180,000 individuals on the NPD online consumer panel, depending on which of its methods it chooses."

In other words, the data is NOT reliable, but are very rough estimates! They have a large margin of error! And it does NOT predict any trends and such.

When you use it to predict trends, or to "prove" a trend, you get GARBAGE. Garbage in, garbage out.

Which was borne out when EA released sales figures recently...  It says that Origin, during 10 months of existence, pulled in 150 million.

Consider the fact that catalog of EA PC games sold by origins includes the SIMs (all permutations), and many other games (it numbers 202, as of May 2012, so should be over 100 back in October / November 2011)

Consider the fact that EA serves ALL consoles (Wii, PSP, PS3, PS2, NDS, Xbox360) on Origin, in addition to the PC

Given that the retail price of BF3 on Origin is 59.95, to sell 1.5 million copies of BF3 on Origin (75% of sales ought to be digital) would account for... 90 million of that 150 million revenue, or fully 60% of ALL games sold by Origin.

Clearly, it is NOT possible. Thus the extrapolation is wrong. And the premise is NOT proven.