Since we discussed The Rebel’s developer having a meltdown on Steam, I decided to take a look at the game and see just how it attained a 75% positive rating (at the time). Strap in and pull your seat belts tight, this is going to be a bumpy ride.
The developer is offering the rights to this game for $500 if anyone is interested.
If there is any sympathy for Capcom over Umbrella Corps, you’d have to look long and hard in order to find it. Umbrella Corps, the game that was met with severe skepticism and ultimately negative reviews, appears to be dead in the waters just a few weeks after launch.
According to Steam Charts, the game averages less concurrent players than your average Battlefield server. Just 20 as of this writing and an overall peak of 45 over the last day or so. Steam Spy’s figures paint an even more dismal picture. The tracking service estimates that the PC version has only sold around eight thousand copies, with only about 35% of those playing over the past two weeks.
Perhaps Umbrella Corps should take a page out of Evolve’s playbook and make a sharp turn toward free to play territory. There is no guarantee of success, but at this point there isn’t much left to risk.
The Black Death is a 14th century survival game set in western Europe ravaged by plague and sickness. Currently in early access, The Black Death promises realistic professions, a huge open world with hundreds of NPCs, hundreds of items, and a large scale multiplayer.
Below, check out the latest trailer showing off the beggar class and other recent additions to the game. For more information, visit The Black Death on Steam.
[Update: we have received notice from Digital Homicide that the issue below is due to an error in the Steam API, and not part of any deliberate decision by Valve. We apologize for the error.]
The game above is Daisy’s Sweet Time Cupcake Mania, one of numerous clone games up on Greenlight by esteemed developer Digital Homicide. This title, along with nearly a dozen others, were submitted on June 2nd to Greenlight only to be marked as incompatible on June 3rd.
Very quickly after, someone at Valve marked the game as compatible on June 6th. Evidently, the Valve employee who allowed the title is at odds with another, because the game was marked as incompatible again on the 9th, only to be marked compatible again the same day, to be marked and then unmarked again on the exact same day. The same thing happened on the 10th, the 15th, the 21st, the 27th, and again today on the 5th of July this cupcake game has been marked incompatible with Greenlight.
And, as always happens to be the case, the story gets stranger. This back and forth marking/demarking is present on virtually every single one of Digital Homicide’s current Greenlight games. In fact, in the time it has taken me to write this, someone at Valve has already re-marked the games as compatible.
Who are these two employees, locked in an endless struggle over the fate of Digital Homicide’s Greenlight titles? Are there people arguing over the Valve office coffee machine about the artistic merits of Not In My Crapper?
Just take a gander at the history of Daisy’s Sweet Time: Cupcake Mania and recognize that this is pretty standard for DigiHom’s games. I looked through a massive amount of other, random titles on Greenlight and the only other games with this history of back and forth have been removed.
Wildstar has been on Steam for nearly a month, and it looks like the population has remained pretty stable since the initial launch day. While the game doesn’t look like it’ll be topping any sales records, it looks like Steam has introduced new life to the previously waning MMO.
In its first month on Steam, Wildstar peaked at five thousand players. As the chart shows, it’s been pretty stable since then with an average of 1.5 thousand concurrent users and a daily peak of about three thousand. Concurrent users predictably rise and drop over the course of each day, with the low points in activity during overnight periods in the west.
The community seems mostly pleased, with 77% positive reviews on Steam.
Conan Exiles is begin delayed, and for good reason. In an announcement posted on the Steam Early Access page today, Joel Bylos has revealed that additional funding has allowed the studio more flexibility in getting the game up to snuff before putting it on the store.
We have come to realize that we would like to spend a little more time creating our vision of Hyboria before we release it into Early Access. Having very recently secured additional funding for our studio which has made our financial situation much more flexible than even just a few weeks back, we want to take advantage of that and move Early Access to January 2017. With the extra time in development, we believe we can make a better game for you, the fans.
(Source: Steam)
MMO Fallout would like to issue a public service announcement to remind our viewers that the Steam Summer Sale begins June 23rd and runs through July 4th. In preparation for the sale, we’ve listed some tips to help you spend wisely.
If you have any tips of your own for Steam shopping, leave a comment in the box below and let us know.
Developer Juvty Worlds has announced that their open world sandbox MMO Wild Terra has successfully been voted on by the Steam Greenlight community. Juvty thanks the nearly six thousand users who voted to pass the title, bringing it to the top 5 voted games and winning the approval from Valve.
With all of the recent hubbub over developers fraudulently buying votes and reviews, it’s good to see a small developer that can be trusted. I’ve had a few chances here and there to play Wild Terra and have found the game to be very enjoyable.
More coverage of Wild Terra to come.
(Source: Juvty Worlds press release)
Say hello to the new Digital Homicide.
Electric Zombies got a very small nod here at MMO Fallout last week where we discussed the game Zombie Rush and how it was definitely buying reviews. I mentioned at the time that the legion of bots were busy farming time on a game Electric Zombies by Rai Studio Games. I made a note to keep an eye on Rai Studio Games over the weekend, knowing that sooner or later the chickens would come home to roost and we’d be seeing a tidal wave of positive reviews for their games.
Well the weekend has come and gone, and it’s time to check the hen house. Electric Zombies is now available for purchase, although you can’t buy it. In fact, you can’t buy any of Rai Studio Games’, uh, games. Over the course of the weekend, the purchase button has been completely removed. Unfortunately that means no more Base Squad 49, no more Lands of Devastation, or Rapid Squirrels either. Presumably, RSG’s current list of Greenlight titles will not be eligible for release.
Some more good news: The apparent leaders of the bot group are this guy, this guy, and this guy. The group that the bots congregated around is gone, however the bot accounts are still present with many having been given community bans.
There has been some speculation that these games are being used for money laundering purposes, the game Lemurzin has a $100 DLC that does basically nothing.
MMO Fallout will be keeping an eye out on the legion of review bots (that we know of) and will keep you abreast of any updates as they arise.
MMO Fallout 