How to Fix Steam in Three Simple Steps
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/19/17 at 03:23 PM CT
Ever since Valve, the parent company of near-monopoly PC gaming hub, Steam, introduced their Steam Greenlight process a few years ago for adding games to their online storefront, the service has been increasingly flooded with submissions. While Gabe Newell seems to be in love with the idea of removing barriers between Steam and people who want to sell their products on Steam, the result has been less-than-spectacular for the PC gamers who use the service. It is well known that Steam’s library has ballooned over the past couple years, and that a significant portion of the new submissions are not the type of thing anyone would actually want to buy.
Last month, Valve announced that Greenlight was going away, to be replaced with a new process called Steam Direct sometime in Spring 2017. While Greenlight leveraged crowdsourcing to approve submissions, Direct aims to leverage recoupable application fees in the range of $100 to $5000 instead.
If the goal of removing Greenlight and …
He’s Everywhere II!: Pokemon Edition
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/05/17 at 03:25 PM CT
Last year, when I roasted Chris for his birthday, I had to cull down the large list of Chris-like videogame characters to a mere 10 for the article. This year for Chris’ birthday, which was yesterday, and in honor of the big ‘Pokemon’ anniversary that took place recently, I have decided to create another list of videogame characters that remind me of Chris, but this time, I will be limiting them to the collectible critters of the pocket monsters universe.
If you ever think you’ve encountered one of these pokemon in the wild, don’t whip out your pokeballs and berries… just run away! It’s probably actually Chris.
10. Darumaka (#554)"It’s small. It’s round. It’s bizarre-looking. It looks inexplicably happy, despite a roaring internal fire. Somehow this pokemon is even more disturbing than Chris, as its Pokedex entry describes how people love to put its hot droppings inside their clothing in order to stay warm. If anyone put Chris droppings in their clothing, …
Review Round-Up: Winter 2016
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 03/01/17 at 02:29 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
This quarter, I finally got the opportunity to play “Pillars of Eternity,” which I had been looking forward to since… 2000? Between that and a few short, Indie RPGs, I got my fix, plus I had a chance to play a truly excellent Metroidvania… and a not-so-excellent one.
“BADLAND: Game of the Year Edition” – 2/5
“Dragon Fantasy (Book I): The Volumes of Westeria” – 2/5
“Dragon Fantasy (Book II): The Black Tome of Ice” – 3.5/5
“Shadow Complex Remastered” – 4.5/5
“Pillars of Eternity” – 4/5
“Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition” – 3/5
“Warhammer Quest” – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
I don’t really know what Chris was up to this quarter. We don’t have that much in the way of coop reviews to double-post, since we all spent the better part of Winter playing the Early Access …
Backlog: The Embiggening – March, 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/19/17 at 03:41 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! Unadilla Bill, Nebraska’s version of the fat woodchuck who predicts the weather, did not see his shadow, thus Wintery weather will be leaving us sooner rather than later. Just in time for a huge glut of March videogame releases! Don’t worry, though. There still aren’t very many reasons to stay inside playing new games rather than doing something less painful.
Shovelware starts us off with “LEGO Worlds,” a new sandbox game based on everyone’s favorite plastic building bricks… and that’s really the most egregious pile to be shoveled. Other shovelware includes an annual release in the ‘MLB: The Show’ baseball franchise and ‘WRC’ rally racing franchise, but purveyors of all things Sport know they have a captive audience that will buy whatever they produce. Aside from those, the only remaining licensed tie-in titles and other garbage all happen to be ports, thanks in large part to Nintendo releasing their new …
Mass-Market Gam(bl)ing
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/12/17 at 04:51 PM CT
As time marches on and videogaming continues its move from niche hobby to mass-media industry, the one guarantee is that old revenue systems will be replaced by new ones, more profitable ones, more questionably-legal ones. Mobile gaming is, as we know, a darling of the folks at Forbes and The Wall Street Journal who don’t care about gaming as a hobby or as a cultural phenomenon, but are primarily interested in the games industry’s ability to generate profits. As faithful MeltedJoystick readers are aware, we don’t place mobile gaming and traditional videogames into the same bucket, partially because of things in mobile gaming that make it feel more like a quasi-criminal attempt at getting fools and their money to part. Hence why MeltedJoystick (and every other videogame site) doesn’t cover video slots, online poker, or any other forms of gambling.
Recently, I stumbled across a short, interesting article from 2012 about how Japanese mobile games make money. While it is true …
Gamers Divided
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 02/05/17 at 04:21 PM CT
With the election of Donald J. Trump as the current President of the United States, the divided nature of Western civilization has come to something of a head. Protests in the streets, abuse of power, cronyism: All of these things have been symptomatic of a problem for decades, but they are significantly worse right now.
“Why are you talking about political bull feathers in this column?! I come here to read about vidyagaemz!” you might say.
As a microcosm of society in general, and as one of the fastest growing forms of media in terms of visibility, popularity, and social justice pressure, gaming is something like the proverbial canary in the coalmine. Things seemed good in gaming for several decades. After the Videogame Crash of the early ‘80s, when gamers reunified, we were a fairly monolithic block of culture. The same games were generally well-regarded by players and critics alike. There were no overwhelmingly vocal, yet minisculely-niche groups demanding that every …
Backlog: The Embiggening – February, 2017
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/29/17 at 04:45 PM CT
Welcome back to another look into the near future! February is still Winter, and it’s still horribly cold and unpleasant here at the MJ HQ, but that’s okay, because we can sit inside where it’s warm and play videogames… can’t we? Are there any new videogames coming in February that we’ll want to play? Let’s hope so!
Three pieces of licensed shovelware start us out this month. Chris can’t stop salivating over Telltale Games’ take on his favorite TV show, zombie-schlock “The Walking Dead,” which is getting a new installment. Anime fans are also getting yet another ‘Naruto Shippuden’ game as well as a new Musou game based on the ‘Berserk’ manga.
In the realm of ports and remasters, things are relatively sedate compared to how they have been recently. The PS4 is getting a physical release of “Pac-Man Championship Edition 2” (to go with last year’s physical release on XBONE) as well as a port of “Earthlock: Festival of Magic.” The 3DS is …
What are Japanese Gamers Playing?
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/22/17 at 05:46 PM CT
Quite some time ago, I wrote an open letter to Japan’s gaming industry as a whole, asking, “WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” Naturally, I never got a response, but in working with Chris and Nick on MeltedJoystick in the intervening years I’ve noticed some interesting trends that might actually help explain Japan’s problems.
First of all, the top selling games in Japan and the top selling games in the wider world look much, much different from each other. Handhelds, specifically the 3DS, dominate Japanese charts, as do exclusives, with but a single non-exclusive and Western-developed game among them. Western charts, on the other hand, are, predictably, shooters and sandboxes and sandbox shooters with one sports game (soccer, because Europe) and a number of double-listings for multi-platform titles that artificially make the list even more homogenized.
What’s interesting about the lack of Western games being played by Japanese gamers is the fact that a not-insignificant …
Bait and: Switch Reactions
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/15/17 at 02:57 PM CT
This week, Nintendo finally held their long-awaited Switch reveal event. Lasting just over an hour, Nintendo spent a lot of time painstakingly showing us what the Switch is, seemingly as an overcompensation for their confusing messages regarding the late WiiU around the time of its own launch. Unfortunately, despite all that showing and telling, Nintendo still failed to explain some of the core nuts-and-bolts features of the Switch, such as whether or not the (Western) games shipped on cartridges will download and patch the game ON the cartridge or whether the Switch’s official, meager 32GB of storage space will be used for 20GB patches like every other platform.
Regular readers of MeltedJoystick’s blog column will no doubt remember my list of 5 Ways the Switch Could Sink. After watching the Switch reveal event, I’m very saddened to report that Nintendo has managed to nail 3 of them. The gaming media is surprisingly even-handed regarding the Switch, though there is still …
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