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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.


Source - SteamDB

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.
Tags: Card Game, Valve
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37 comments
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Whitewolfe80 Mar 11, 2019
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.
Mountain Man Mar 12, 2019
OK, Valve, you had your fun. Now how about making the games you know we actually want?
14 Mar 12, 2019
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Quoting: gustavoyaraujoBeing 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.
Zelox Mar 12, 2019
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
tonR Mar 12, 2019
Quoting: mat650In 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.

Quoting: prueba_holaIRacing...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)
IRacing is most logical one for Valve to approach/buy for now.

------[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!
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.
LungDrago Mar 12, 2019
Yet another proof that having a good game doesn't actually ensure you're going to do well. In this instance, the game was largely killed by marketing decisions.


Last edited by LungDrago on 12 March 2019 at 10:23 pm UTC
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