This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The concurrent player record could be inflated. It's a new IP by a foreign studio and while covered by culture war circles before its release, it was only after release and the record-breaking numbers that I saw it brought up among normies. A good comparison is Cyberpunk 2077, its peak was
250Kjust over 1 million, from a somewhat-established IP, the at-the-time preeminent studio, Keanu Reeves, and years of hype.That said, if it were bad, Steam would show it, and the negative reviews I see are mostly "Game too hard", with a complement of "My computer can't run this." Some have better criticisms, "Invisible walls everywhere," "Buggy AI", "Repetitive", "Poor world design" and "Not enough variety in attacks." So probably a mix: something was done to inflate the numbers, but for a very good though not paradigm-defining game.
How do you fake Steam numbers? You have to pay Valve a cut for every copy sold and they control who can buy, download and play it. This game is mostly popular in China which had already seen massive Steam numbers for games like PUBG. The Chinese friend I made on PUBG is playing this game right now and it's playing numbers crater when China goes to sleep and skyrocket when they wake up, though it's still quite popular in the West and big name streamers are playing it.
The numbers aren't inflated, it's just that the Chinese are hyped for a good Chinese game.
Low regional pricing (currency, Steam regional prices are set by currency,) discounts/e-rebates for store credit, free keys. Valve isn't freewheeling in China, Steam China operates through Perfect World.
But I just saw I was wrong about Cyberpunk's peak, SteamDB has it at 1.05 million. The difference isn't so stark now, and like I said above, the game is clearly very good, and I'm sure I'll play it eventually.
It can also be true that something other than the even very high quality of the game as responsible for its popularity. 2 million concurrent is incredible but I want to know is this a single player experience truly worthy of those numbers, or is it something else. I think we'd be seeing those numbers soaring among western gamers if it were paradigm-defining. It might be, in a month we might see over 3 million, with a million playing in the west. Maybe not, but even if it just playing to market, that's absolutely valid. MiHoYo of Genshin Impact, Honkai, Zenless Zone Zero, play to the western market in having attractive women and no hamfisted politics in their games. China could do nothing but publish AAA knockoffs with fanservice and no politics and devour the market, and they'd be valid to do it, but that wouldn't make the games amazing themselves, and that's what I'm interested in.
More options
Context Copy link
I see two ways to do this. One would be to abuse the refund feature and the other would be some combination of aggressive regional pricing and/or handing out coupons for the game in a region you wouldn't make much money in anyway, in order to gain exposure in regions you care about making real sales in.
Now, I don't believe this is what's happening but it's absolutely possible to do. Much more likely is that the game just is very popular in china.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link