It’s interesting how these things work, I actually dislike the lack of KB+M style granular movement controls in games with first person views (FPS or otherwise). Games that weren’t made for computers often just have strange feeling first person controls.

I might just be showing my age here. :)

I would argue that HL2 and EP1 are not retro, the core FPS experience in HL2 still seems to reflect modern standards.

A acquaintance in their early 20s mentioned playing HL2 for the first time recently and they said it didn’t feel like a game that was almost a quarter of a century old.

20+ years seems like a solid cutoff point.

I would say anything before circa ~2000 is definitely retro.

It does get more complicated with the release platform.

PC games can be updated and can even take a life of their own, while console games tend to be tied to a specific console/generation and the associated gameplay experience.

One good example is Simcity 4, even before decomp/recomp’s got big, the community modded it to such an extent that it wasn’t really the same game as the one released in 2003. Simcity 2000 is definitely a retro game though with Simcity 3000 being somewhere in between. Recent decomp/recomp have added much needed modding capabilities to Simcity 3000, but a lot less people play 3000 versus 4 (and the modding scene is a lot smaller).

Totally! The market has spoken!

It just so happens that all major service providers have the same 30% figure irrespective of their specific vertical focus, the geographic component of their industry or even the developments in their vertical over the past 20-25 years?

That’s how a market works! Right?

P.S. You can also set it to 100% (you physical can if you want), that’s not what we are discussing though.

I meant market in the real sense not the American polemical form.

A real market-driven price/cut is determined by supply and demand, the 30% figure was chosen by some American oligarchs that Valve decided to copy.

Have you ever wondered why it’s not 29.1% or 34.5% and the 30% figure never changes (other than than for well connected insiders?). How can market driven price never change, especially in a highly dynamic globalized market like gaming?

Steam/Valve are not the good guys, they seem more normal because they are not complete shit like all other large gaming companies.

The 30% cut is clearly not market driven. Network effects are not an inherent property of Steam itself.

They also pioneered lootboxes and tried to do their best to scam on refunds (typical American bullshit).

Steel Soldiers felt like a more typical RTS game from that era.

Looking at OpenZ, the gameplay feels more distinct.

I will give it a go one of these days. Seems like it won’t be too difficult to get into.

Looks cool, never played the original Z, just Steel Soldiers. I remember it being not particularly memorable in terms of the gameplay experience (there was a lot to choose from in terms of RTS game options at that time).

It’s also been 25 years or since I played Steel Soldiers, so my memory could be off.