Weekend Specials Online

[CivCube]

I spent about 12$, the least I've ever spent in a christmas sale. Congrats on your unimpressive deals Steam. There are many games I'm still waiting to buy because I find the 25-50% range of sales to be unworthy of a christmas sale. I babble about this all the time, but discounts were deeper on new-ish games in the early days of Steam sales. Most games on deep discount these days I already own.

Also, I got three items in my inventory this morning. Thanks Steam.

I suspect Steam's customer pool hasn't really expanded. Everyone already has everything from previous sales, so why go deeper anymore?

 

[Rub'Rum]

I suspect Steam's customer pool hasn't really expanded. Everyone already has everything from previous sales, so why go deeper anymore?

The number of people on Steam is increasing super fast and the record number of concurrent users keeps getting beaten again and again.

 

[ls612]

The number of people on Steam is increasing super fast and the record number of concurrent users keeps getting beaten again and again.

I remember in late 2012 there would be 4 to 5.5 million concurrent users during troughs and peaks, and nowadays there are 5-7 million. They almost got to 8 mil during the Holiday Sale at one point.

 

[Red Key]

Since no one has mentioned it... Humble Indie Bundle X is on sale now. The games include:

To the Moon
Joe Danger 2: The Movie
Papo & Yo
Runner2
Reus (BTA)
Surgeon Simulator 2013 (BTA)

Does anyone highly recommend one or more of these games? They don't really look like my cup of tea besides Reus and To the Moon. For now I'm waiting to see what else is unlocked in the 2nd week.

 

[Synobun]

Reus is... okay. I was expecting more from it but I got 3-6 hours of entertainment out of it.

 

[Maniacal]

To the Moon is very good, although only a few hours long. Surgeon Simulator is more of a novelty than a game, I've heard Reus is good for a few or so hours. I don't know about the others.

 

[warpus]

I got 10 minutes of enjoyment out of Reus. I hope they improve it quite a bit.

 

[civvver]

To the Moon is stupid. When you read some of the reviews on metacritic you'd think it's the video game equivalent of the Mona Lisa or something. It's seriously overblown, a cutesy, predictable story presented in video game form. If I hadn't heard anything about it and just played it for the couple hours it lasts I'd probably have a different opinion (like that was an alright game) but I kept waiting for an epic experience that never happened.

 

[Maniacal]

Its not the game's fault you were misled by poorly written and hyped up reviews.

It isn't a masterpiece of course, but its still a good little experience that does some things that most games either don't do or don't do as well. Except for being a game, as it is more of an interactive story experience.

 

[civvver]

It's not a very good game regardless, maybe a 5 tops. Just warning others that the reviews rave about it and it's not deserving.

 

[ls612]

Since no one has mentioned it... Humble Indie Bundle X is on sale now. The games include:

To the Moon
Joe Danger 2: The Movie
Papo & Yo
Runner2
Reus (BTA)
Surgeon Simulator 2013 (BTA)

Does anyone highly recommend one or more of these games? They don't really look like my cup of tea besides Reus and To the Moon. For now I'm waiting to see what else is unlocked in the 2nd week.

Meh. I just got a whole ton of good stuff from the Winter Sale and this doesn't look at all impressive.

 

[civvver]

The weekly humble bundle is good if you don't have either trine yet. Get trine, a beta game and shadowgrounds, some shooter game, for $1, pay $6 and get trine 2 and shadowgrounds 2.

 

[Maniacal]

Dunno about Shadow Grounds, but Trine 1 and 2 are great little platformer games whether solo or cooperative (only briefly played co-op with Rubrum once in Trine 2). There is a DLC for Trine 2 as well which seems pretty decent, although I have barely started it (got sidetracked by other things).

 

[GoodGame]

The number of people on Steam is increasing super fast and the record number of concurrent users keeps getting beaten again and again.

The games they are playing though, are basically DOTA 2, TF2, and Civ5. Sponsoring DOTA 2 probably got them a very large increase in international users who buy up some of the other stuff, but many of them are pretty strictly DOTA players (anecdotally).

 

[Sonereal]

The games they are playing though, are basically DOTA 2, TF2, and Civ5. Sponsoring DOTA 2 probably got them a very large increase in international users who buy up some of the other stuff, but many of them are pretty strictly DOTA players (anecdotally).

Only 15% of Steam users online right now are playing DOTA 2, TF2, CivV, CS: GO, FBM: 2014, DayZ, Rust, CS:S, Skyrim, Counterstrike, and L4D, the top ten games right now.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Only 15% of Steam users online right now are playing DOTA 2, TF2, CivV, CS: GO, FBM: 2014, DayZ, Rust, CS:S, Skyrim, Counterstrike, and L4D, the top ten games right now.

But don't forget probably more than half of users online right now aren't playing anything at all (and if they were, they might be playing these top games). GoodGame does have some point, but in any case, even if these new people mostly play the top games, I'm sure many of them also buy other games, which they play (but maybe less than the top replayable games). So I think their market is expanding nonetheless.

 

[ls612]

According to the Community Home and the Stats page right now there are 1.425 million people in-game right now. Of those, 454 thousand are in Dota 2. After that, there are 75k in CS:GO, 57k in TF2, and 43k in Skyrim, after which the numbers get smaller quickly. So about a third of people ingame are playing Dota 2, and an additional 15% or so are playing the next few most popular games, leaving about 50% who are playing everything else on Steam.

 

[Dell19]

With League of Legends I would usually leave myself logged in even if I wasn't playing at the time so presumably that inflates the users currently online count.

 

[civvver]

Whoa the humble bundle weekly is pretty sick. Arma2, Arma gold, Arma tactics, couple games I don't recognize called ufo: afterlight, alpha prime and take on helicopters for $1. Pay $6 and you get arma2 arrowhead, dayz mod (it's a free mod, dunno why it's in the premium package here) and carrier command gaea mission. I've never played arma but have heard it's really good.


As far as steam numbers and sales, concurrent numbers doesn't really matter. People buy games and don't play them all the time or have a steam account to check out some free games, don't play them. If an good indie title goes on deep discount they might purchase it and start playing. I think all that matters from a sales variety perspective is how many users do we have and what percentage of those already own the title on sale.

I don't know what to make of the current gamer numbers except they seem low in general but the top titles doesn't surprise. Most are multiplayer titles cus those hold the most replay value. Once you beat batman arkham asylum there's not much point in still playing it. Also most of the top titles are pc only. Skyrim is a big pc hit but an even bigger console hit. Most skyrim players are on an xbox. Civ5 is very unique in that it's a pc only mostly single player game with tons of replay value. Not surprised it's one of the most played titles.

 

[mechaerik]

Whoa the humble bundle weekly is pretty sick. Arma2, Arma gold, Arma tactics, couple games I don't recognize called ufo: afterlight, alpha prime and take on helicopters for $1. Pay $6 and you get arma2 arrowhead, dayz mod (it's a free mod, dunno why it's in the premium package here) and carrier command gaea mission. I've never played arma but have heard it's really good.

I believe that the Day Z mod is included there because Operation Arrowhead (which is required to run Day Z) is part of that tier, so that you know you need that to play it. Its not very clear though.

From what I've seen, UFO: Afterlight was a more modern clone of the original XCOM games released before Enemy Unknown was a thing.


Also, it is Wizards of the Coast weekend on Gamersgate, so you can pick up some RPG classics for 75% off. Of particular note is the Dungeons & Dragons Anthology: The Master Collection, which has Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (the originals, not the new Enhanced Editions), Icewind Dale 1 and 2, The Temple of Elemental Evil, and Planescape: Torment.

The Neverwinter Nights Complete pack is also good, with both Neverwinter Nights games and all their expansions and such. It says that it doesn't run on 64-bit OSes, but it runs fine on my system (had to set it to XP SP3 compatibility mode).