Patreon Logo Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal Logo PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
Latest Comments by Liam Dawe
With the Valve Index about to launch and be delivered, Valve held a little private launch party with speeches
28 Jun 2019 at 1:47 pm UTC Likes: 3

Even if Valve do reply about us getting one (or not if they changed their mind), I'm sure everyone would be interested to know some initial thoughts from a Linux gamer - so if you get one feel free to write it up for us ;) - happy to provide a game for someone to do so.

With the Valve Index about to launch and be delivered, Valve held a little private launch party with speeches
28 Jun 2019 at 12:47 pm UTC Likes: 19

Quoting: NanobangAlso, Liam, thank you for taking the time and effort to transcribe Gaben's speech. Transcription, especially of less than stellar audio, is very not-at-all fun under the best of circumstances. Your going the extra mile for we readers is very, very appreciated! :)
Thanks for the kind words, turning it up enough to hear it properly was quite painful on the ears with all the banging and background noise. I thought people would appreciate it though :)

It’s a tough time to be an indie developer, with Steam’s new sale event causing wishlist deletions
27 Jun 2019 at 11:30 pm UTC

Quoting: devnullYou understand there is a difference between a wishlist and something like prepurchase right? :) To me a wishlish is more like an upvote, yes it shows interest but it doesn't really _mean_ much. One can be botted, the other not so much. The flipside of people clearing out their lists are people looking at the items. It would be an interesting metric to see if titles also got more hits, but it's all pretty fluid in terms of SALES.
You might find this interesting: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JakeBirkett/20180425/316924/How_many_wishlists_should_you_have_when_launching_on_Steam.php [External Link]

It’s a tough time to be an indie developer, with Steam’s new sale event causing wishlist deletions
27 Jun 2019 at 10:52 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: devnull
Quoting: liamdaweI'm honestly amazed faced with all the evidence, plus Valve themselves having to release statements, that some still refuse to believe it.

As mentioned, there's always a drop but every developer spoken to has shown the same thing, it has never happened before like it is now. I don't know what it will take for some people to see...
What? Think you missed my point a little. There are other reasons why people would remove an item. Yes, sales are one as is any event. And those people will probably add them back after the event. You're right, Valve did respond lest they have a PR nightmare as developers fail to understand people. The sale itself did not cause people to not want what is in their wishlist any more or any less.

I stand by not wanting that data to be public period. Using it as a metric is just weird statistical masturbation.
I didn't miss your point, I am arguing against it. What has happened is not normal, at all.

Yes it is normal for wishlists to get removed, i've mentioned this numerous times now. If you can't see the difference between this and normal activity with all the evidence then I have nothing else to say on that really.

Developers only see numbers, they don't know exactly who has wishlisted it. Wishlists also affect store visibility and are directly tied to how a game does when it launches. As for not wanting developers to see it, I guess you entirely missed this then.

It’s a tough time to be an indie developer, with Steam’s new sale event causing wishlist deletions
27 Jun 2019 at 10:09 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: devnullBit confused by this, there are many reasons why people would remove an item from their wishlist that have nothing to do with the sale let alone something Valve caused. Simply logging in and seeing things in their list may be enough to clean house a bit. Or valve banned a few botnets, never know.

I'm more surprised that kind of metric is available to developers. How long is the data kept because I know people who added things at Christmas only to remove them later. I'm not personally interested in direct marketing outside friends which is what I thought those lists were restricted to.

People are inferring wayyy too much.
I'm honestly amazed faced with all the evidence, plus Valve themselves having to release statements, that some still refuse to believe it.

As mentioned, there's always a drop but every developer spoken to has shown the same thing, it has never happened before like it is now. I don't know what it will take for some people to see...

Prison Architect just got a nice update now that Double Eleven are keeping a watchful eye
27 Jun 2019 at 8:58 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: sub
Additionally, Paradox Interactive also announced today that Prison Architect has officially sold more than four million copies across all platforms.
I guess they did not say anything about the Linux and Mac share?
Nope, would have noted it if so.

It’s a tough time to be an indie developer, with Steam’s new sale event causing wishlist deletions
27 Jun 2019 at 8:30 pm UTC

Quoting: ElectricPrismLiam, maybe to mitigate the global effect of sales being effected it would be a good strategy to highlight some deals and talk about what's a good deal.

% wise the Linux base may be a small amount of the pie, but dollar-wise I spent $125 on 12 games.

I think in terms of games purchased and dollars spent we account for a much higher % than we get credit for -- one developer noted us as 11% of his sales during this sale IIRC.
We do a dedicated article for the Steam Summer Sale each year usually, already did for this one.

Steam Play updated as Proton 4.2-8 is out, DXVK also sees a new release with 1.2.3 (updated)
27 Jun 2019 at 8:26 pm UTC Likes: 1

Update 27/06/19: Steam Play Proton 4.2-9 was released as well, to fix multiplayer issues with "Mordhau, SOULCALIBUR VI, and others with problems from 4.2-8".

It’s a tough time to be an indie developer, with Steam’s new sale event causing wishlist deletions
27 Jun 2019 at 7:42 pm UTC

Valve have posted an update [External Link], even they felt they needed to clarify it:
To clarify one point: if your team makes it to the podium and you are randomly chosen to win something off your Steam Wishlist, then we’ll grant you the top item. Just move your favorite item to the top of your wishlist and you should be good to go. There's no need to remove other items from your wishlist -- keep them there so you'll be notified when those items release or go on sale.
They also did a PSA on Twitter [External Link], so yeah it's clear they know there's been an issue.

It’s a tough time to be an indie developer, with Steam’s new sale event causing wishlist deletions
27 Jun 2019 at 5:16 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Patola
Quoting: liamdaweI'll just repeat myself since it's not sinking in..

This has not happened with any other sale to this level. It's a result of the gamification of the wishlist system with people not quite understanding it.
What is "this"? People removing items from their wishlist? But if they were not going to buy the game anyway, it's a moot point, statistically it would also cause an increase in the effect of wishlist, e.g. instead of a 50% chance of people buying stuff on their wishlist, now it would be 60%.

Quoting: liamdaweDo a search for "steam wishlist" and things like that on Twitter and spot all the fires ;)
I don't doubt it, that's why I said it might be a collective perception issue. I can't do the search from where I stand now but I'll do it in the evening, to see if the related comments dismiss my impression.

And, again, I think we're too early in the sales to tell the trends...

Although I will admit something, the "racing" idea does not seem nearly as effective as the last sale "Saliens" game in terms of engagement. It's too complex and the "team" mechanics and randomness of the winners makes you feel you're not in control, so why would you invest on it?
We're talking about developers who have been through 5+ years of various season Steam sales, quite a few of those I've spoken to having their games on Steam for even longer and they've all said close to exactly the same, that there's usually a small spike but this is many times greater. If you think that's a "collective perception issue", I just think you're not listening.

Want to see more?
https://twitter.com/dhindes/status/1144227282061369344 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/tobiasgrf/status/1144290726550921216 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/danthat/status/1144211434454355968 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/puppygames/status/1144239386059558912 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/mrhelmut/status/1144210454186795010 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/Mi_Clos/status/1144214192288935937 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/Olima/status/1144197551996002306 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/PirateHearts/status/1144295014173990912 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/LeSaucierKim/status/1144358962281816065?s=19 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/colorfiction/status/1144357088841359365?s=19 [External Link]

I can keep going for quite a while on this ;)

There's also the issue of wishlist emails also seeing a huge drop in being sent out:
https://twitter.com/GreyAlien/status/1144251143356329987/photo/1 [External Link]
https://twitter.com/RaymondDoerr/status/1144243533513203712 [External Link]

Quoting: Salvatos
Quoting: fabertaweEdit: Also, in regards to the peeps deleting whole wishlists in the wrong belief they need to have just three games in the list for a chance to win them - surely they'll just add back the ones they want after the sale.
I think there can be a valid concern that some indie games will be forgotten when that time comes, especially for people with large lists or for games that were wishlisted a while ago and somewhat forgotten. Even if those were games that were less likely to be bought to begin with, cprn raises a valid point when it comes to wishlist discount notifications acting as publicity.
Which is why it's also concerning for developers to be seeing lower than usual email notifications being sent out too.