Not everything Valve does hits the right spot and it seems the final few nails of Artifact's coffin are being hammered in.
Back in January, I wrote a small bit about Artifact and how it was bleeding players constantly. I said it would probably "die off completely within another three to six months" and it looks like I could be right there. Even back in January, it still had over two thousand regular players and less than two months later it's sunk down to around six hundred.
Recently, it's been reported and confirmed that the legendary designer Richard Garfield, who also created Magic: The Gathering, has left Valve and so any chance of bringing Artifact back to life is firmly in the hands of Valve. With no official update on Steam in well over a month and continued silence from the official Twitter account since December, it's really not looking good.
A massive shame, as the actual gameplay in Artifact is really good but for many reasons players just didn't stick with it. To me, the main reasons were the lack of any meaningful progression at launch and the monetization model which really wasn't great for a paid game. Both of those soured the experience for many, myself included.
It's now sat with a Mostly Negative rating from recent user reviews, which isn't exactly surprising.
There's a number of steps Valve could take to revive it but as always we have no idea what they're up to, as Valve don't particularly like to tell anyone about their plans. I actually hope they do manage to turn it around, so I will keep an eye on what happens.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Its not very surprising the game is failing and soon will be dying.This is not the first time I've noticed that Valve seem to be rather bad at marketing (the first time I noticed being Steam Machines). They seem to think the Steam platform will just do it all for them, and evidently it isn't so. If they're going to start new things and make them a success, they are going to need to spend the money and hire the people (or hire the marketing company) that it takes to get the word out. And you know, I hate to say this because fundamentally I hate marketing and advertising and wish they didn't exist, but this is the world we live in.
If it wasn't for this website I would never have heard of it, if I ask around me even TCG player haven't heard of it. The communication around it have been abysmal. Completely inexistent outside of the Dota 2 community, but I'm not surprised Valve have getting worst and worst with their communication.
In the case of this game, there are various other reasons it failed, which have been pointed out. But I don't think the marketing was really there, either, and I think that's (unfortunately) a big deal.
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They seem to think the Steam platform will just do it all for them, and evidently it isn't so.They're ironically caught in their own trap. I guess many indie devs thought the same way years ago. Like, "Whoa, I made it on Steam! My game's future is secured! Now, which yacht should I buy first..."
And maybe for some of them it worked like that. But things changed a lot and Valve seemingly didn't think it would apply to them as well. But it did. Now they're one of many and have to compete on their own platform, and they were not ready for that.
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Its not very surprising the game is failing and soon will be dying.This is not the first time I've noticed that Valve seem to be rather bad at marketing (the first time I noticed being Steam Machines). They seem to think the Steam platform will just do it all for them, and evidently it isn't so. If they're going to start new things and make them a success, they are going to need to spend the money and hire the people (or hire the marketing company) that it takes to get the word out. And you know, I hate to say this because fundamentally I hate marketing and advertising and wish they didn't exist, but this is the world we live in.
If it wasn't for this website I would never have heard of it, if I ask around me even TCG player haven't heard of it. The communication around it have been abysmal. Completely inexistent outside of the Dota 2 community, but I'm not surprised Valve have getting worst and worst with their communication.
In the case of this game, there are various other reasons it failed, which have been pointed out. But I don't think the marketing was really there, either, and I think that's (unfortunately) a big deal.
I don't like marketing either for a whole lot of reason, but at its basic its a good thing. The goal is just to make your product stand out within a group of similar products. And nowadays we don't lack games to play if a big company want its game to be be at least heard of they need some amount of marketing. I still remember the Left 4 Dead ads. They were not the greatest but that was enough. Even the ARG were a great form of marketing.
A gamin company doesn't need to buy half LA ad space and the biggest show at the E3 to have a successful marketing campaign. Once was a time when "Valve Time" and "Gabe our lord and savior" were great jokes and hiding everything behind secrecy was all they have to do. In essence it was good marketing because when after 3 years a Valve game went out every one would go try it.
But that time has gone Valve have been out of gamers radar for so long that doesn't work any more. Just saying "hey its us Valve we have a new game" doesn't work anymore, because people will look at it and say "its not HL3? pass". If that game had been normaly marketed and presented as the small game it is it wouldn't have been GOTY but people would have played it. I mean that is exactly how heartstone was presented "its not one of out big game we just have left part of our team have fun here is the game take it or leave it we are still working on bigger take that as a side project" and look at the success it had.
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They seem to think the Steam platform will just do it all for them, and evidently it isn't so.They're ironically caught in their own trap. ... Like, "Whoa, I made it on Steam! My game's future is secured! Now, which yacht should I buy first..."
That feeling when your game greenlights on your own store. ^_^
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Just saying "hey its us Valve we have a new game" doesn't work anymore, because people will look at it and say "its not HL3? pass".Well, 1.5kk units sold? That's a huge success by itself for a company that was so long selling hats and not making games. Add to that a niche CCG genre, NO regional discounts (it's a big deal for a lot of countries) and all this "pay to pay" controversy that was already known prior to launch. And still, despite all that they sold so many copies EXACTLY because it was a new Valve game. But now it seems that was the last time it worked for them.
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Being free to play in this type of game is mandatory.
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On topic: I guess there's not many ways left for Valve to fix this. If they want the game to live they have to go F2P and monetize it as usual *tips fedora*. Or it will really die in a couple of months. I personally stopped playing because of the game pace. The timer is too quick and I need to make too many decisions getting all nervous and missing opportunities. I'm fine with RNG, lack of progression, paid cards etc. but I can't play it at this speed. And there's no relaxed play option. Also no casual draft mode which is plain stupid, you can only draft against randoms and not your friends.
Nice not to be alone with this. I can only support these points. But Artifact has become my favourite game. I play it almost every day. I've come to terms with the timer.
That we can't make a draft against a friend is really a pity. A work-around is starting a tournament. But for that you need 4 people. But maybe we could organize something via GOL?
I would appreciate more than F2P if Valve would make Artifact open source or at least heavily modifiable. There should also be an API to register your purchased cards against Steam when playing on a community server. This would allow the community to run its own servers and still make sure that people play with officially bought cards. This keeps trolls away and helps to create a real TCG community.
Until then, I would be happy if we at GOL could perhaps organize Artifact tournaments. I would like to do something for Artifact. It's such a nice game. My favourite game now.
Last edited by 1xok on 11 March 2019 at 6:47 pm UTC
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Kimyrielle Mar 11, 2019
Valve is a company that was/is known for a lot of things, but card games weren't their core competency. Add that to the circumstance that every Tom, Dick and Harry studio is making card games these days, combine with a business model that's absolutely loathed by gamers (paid game PLUS microtransactions) and you get a recipe for a pretty decent disaster.
I can explain that only with the idea that their success must have made Valve quite a bit arrogant in a "Eh, we can do ANYTHING!" way.
I guess they can't, after all.
I can explain that only with the idea that their success must have made Valve quite a bit arrogant in a "Eh, we can do ANYTHING!" way.
I guess they can't, after all.
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prueba_hola Mar 11, 2019
If any Valve employees read this, here's my suggestion:
Please buy iRacing and make it as your own IP Valve.
or
Make your own F2P racing sim with offline capabilities
Why? I'm not totally making any speculation here. But my heart tells me probably F1 2019 may coming to EGS exclusively. Let's be honest, EGS doesn't have so-called proper racing games. So, if Valve secured iRacing (not forget, port it to Linux), the future of Steam (read : money) maybe secured and Valve can continue to be lazy some more after that. :D
IRacing...Asseto Corsa...Project car..
i don't care which one, but I want 1 sim car racing game Native for linux (actually i play Project car 2 using proton)
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Yeah but the writing was on the wall day one when everybody heard valve have gone back into making games people got excited.I think people were like okay they got the fluff annoucement out of the way now wheres left for dead 3 half life 3 portal 3 csgo 2 and TF 3 they are obiviously building to annoucing those, oh thats it thats the first game valve has made in 8 years a card game with microtransactions that costs money upfront. Huh okay let me know if you go back to making games people care about.
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Mountain Man Mar 12, 2019
OK, Valve, you had your fun. Now how about making the games you know we actually want?
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Being free to play in this type of game is mandatory.I think this might be true. It is for sure the reason why I never played it. I did not want to spend $20 on it. I wasn't sure. On the other hand, I put some money into the F2P card game Solforge long ago because I played that game a lot and liked it. Another case in point is Dota 2. At this point, having played many hours, I would be willing to buy the game if I had to. But I don't know that I would have paid the entry fee because I didn't know if I liked MOBA's back then. After playing quite a bit, I put some money into the game. I even enjoy watching the tournaments so much that I buy the E tickets or whatever so that the prize pool is bigger.
Anyway, the cost of entry is the main thing that held me back.
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If you got some spare time I recommend this video.
Speculation on what valve did and maybe did wrong, what they can change to get the players back, and general stuff on the subject valve and artifact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D3OrHL2Lgk&t=4s
Last edited by Zelox on 12 March 2019 at 10:56 am UTC
Speculation on what valve did and maybe did wrong, what they can change to get the players back, and general stuff on the subject valve and artifact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D3OrHL2Lgk&t=4s
Last edited by Zelox on 12 March 2019 at 10:56 am UTC
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In the specific case they should work harder on promoting the steam machine at ESports events and work closer with device manufacturer to ensure top performance of steering wheels, pedals, VR and so on...Agree! And any automakers will absolutely happy from free ads from that game, especially if it can get at least 10,000 online users daily.
IRacing...Asseto Corsa...Project car..IRacing is most logical one for Valve to approach/buy for now.
i don't care which one, but I want 1 sim car racing game Native for linux (actually i play Project car 2 using proton)
------[Seperator, New Comment below]------
Most of PC Clients/Console do have their first party IP for racing sim to attract players to their system. For example, like Gran Turismo (PS Store), Forza (MS Store), Need for Speed (EA Origin) and so forth.
Meanwhile, Valve's first party IP made of bunch of first shooter, a MOBA, a pseudo - Battle Royale, an expensive virtual card game and a second-party adventurer clicker which bought out (Firewatch).
Seriously, I don't think Valve can survive if they don't making any first IP games, let alone Half-Life 3. Nowadays, more game clients are trying do a "EGS" timed exclusives. Even Kongregate, a flash game websites, also already secures 4 timed exclusives games last week. Lowering 70:30 distribution to 75:25 at least also helps too. It's time Valve to act, now!
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orochi_kyo Mar 12, 2019
The game is a flop for many reasons, at least Valve dont hide it. If it was a Epic/Ubi/EA/Blizzard-Activision game they would be twittering stuff like "Artifact reached 5 million of accounts" or some bull5h!t.
If from 1.5 million of users only 600 are playing the game, well, its time to brush this thing under the rug and bring L4D 3 or HL3. Its obvious those 1499400 players doesnt give a damn about the game anymore.
What I want from Valve is single player games with some cool multiplayer options, nothing else.
If from 1.5 million of users only 600 are playing the game, well, its time to brush this thing under the rug and bring L4D 3 or HL3. Its obvious those 1499400 players doesnt give a damn about the game anymore.
What I want from Valve is single player games with some cool multiplayer options, nothing else.
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