PA Steam Review - Analysis

They really need to prioritise their changes.

Meanwhile, this review has been on the "most helpful" for ages:

"Buyers remorse. No offline mode. Bought the beta then the price dropped. Day-1 dlc and not free for those who own the game. Legal but perfectly 'good' business practice and ethics."

I could analyse how every single sentence there is false or was known in advance (like the price drop), but I don't think I need to. All I can do is mark it as "unhelpful" and watch as steam completely ignores it.

This strategy, of releasing unfinished games; then patching them for months…until they’re “fixed”. This must end. I hope Steam keeps the review system as is. Old reviews should follow games…like herpes.

The die-hards hate the reviews; they claim it’s biased and out of date. So let’s track a different kind of review. Check the player numbers from 1.0 launch, to the first sale, and each sale after. The numbers spike, then fall. 5,480 (1-11-15 at 2:00 PM EST) to 1,797 (1-16-15 2:00 PM EST). The numbers after the Christmas sale was even worse. 4,231 (12-27-14 2:00 PM EST) to 956 (1-7-15 2:00 PM EST). The price is enough to draw people in, but they don’t stay. The next step is a free weekend, mark my words, you heard it here first. And when the numbers spike, someone will post them.

Then what incentive does any developer have to improve the game they release if the reviews wont improve therefore will effect sales no matter how much they try to improve the game / fix issues?, not just talking about uber here but any developer?

Or do you believe they shouldn't?

Boring....zzzz, didn't you continually harp on about this in the other thread about peek users, or you just derailing on purpose, as i thought this thread was about steam review system, not about your personal hate issues PA hate issues.

Why are you still here?

And when the holidays have ended and everyone is going to work on monday morning you will post the dropped player count in PA.

If someone wants to post a current review talking about something that happened in the past, that's fine. It's still current & not outdated, because you could see they were referring to past events. The problem is reviews that contain factually wrong information due to their age are being kept up. If everyone hates this game as you keep suggesting, then making the review system not show out-dated reviews won't change anything. What it will change, is how accurate that information is, whether it's for or against the game. Win-win for everyone, including you.

well starcraft 2 seems to have no problem with that ... or heartstone ...
it´s not about "unfinished" games it is about games not ready for release in a playable/enjoyable state ... and my god 2k14 had a lot of them holy corkscrew ...

PA´s problem simply is and i assume we can all agree upon it was released way to early ... if they realy had waited till ... well, now ... it would have been much better even if with GW still not being all too satisfying ..
but we had that discussion like a million times already of weither or not uber had the resources to do so or not ...
it is pretty much a argument vs statement thing with a fair bit of sceptisism ... all we know release was borked
human resources KS failed and people got laid off ... not realy all to positive for uber ...
all uber can do about this is fixing PA to be a fun game both online and offline ... additionaly their next games simply need to be profitable ... cause i see no way PA alone will be that sustainable for them ... i also don´t see them making other high profile games after PA for some time so they will need to play low ball from my POV ...

they however will not be the last company to experience this and god knows there were companies with much higher screwups than uber last year ... a well number of companies ...

PA is not Starcraft 2, different budgets…as the community tells it, whenever anyone tries to make such a comparison. Second thing, screw Starcraft 2, and Blizzard for releasing it…before it was finished. To heck all developers and publishers, that release unfinished games. If Starcraft 2 was on Steam, I would gladly join the flame party. Civilization: Beyond Earth, is also having a very hot party, dido the latest Assassins Creed and Call of Duty. The users at Steam are fair, we flame anyone. If you release an unfinished game, the initial review, will follow you like herpes. And that’s a good thing.

Why is it a good thing for people to not buy a game due to outdated reviews?

Ultimately any money flowing into the industry, especially the RTS genre, is a good thing.

So we should all base our opinions of WoW on reviews from 2004?

First Starcraft 2 now WOW, I was under the impression that WOW was an MMO. I forget how many expansions since launch. I consider myself to be benevolent, and understanding…and kind hearted. My first act of benevolence is this; I will judge PA’s first official expansion, with an open mind.


P.S Cataclysm was good, Lich King was average…Mists of Kong Fu Panda, was a complete joke. Have not tried the latest expansion, but it’s probably crap.

Why does it matter? It's just another game.

There as a difference between rich companies that release the game because they want to increase their income and company such Uber that must release the game, otherwise they can't finish it. Releasing the game, finished or not, is key to turn investment into money.

Thank God for that, PA is much more fun!!!

I'm guessing you've never followed the 'annihilation' branch of RTS games before. The fact PA has a regular player base numbering in the 1000's is actually quite a big deal. It makes it the most successful multi-player game of the series in my experience.

Also most people have *more than one game*. I certainly have built up a fair library on Steam over the years. I don't play every day. So depending on which day of the week / time my statistic won't be shown more often than not. That isn't because I left the game. I usually have other things to do rather than game (being an older player life commitments get in the way), and sometimes you know I like to paly other games too.

I look at it this way: They put the game on sale, lots of people buy it (good thing surely?!). If you buy a new game, well your sure to at least try it. So around the sale we see a big spike in player numbers. Thing is though PA has little in the way of a story mode and such (which the reviews make quite clear, rightly so), so it isn't a game you *have* to keep playing all the time. It's one you can pick up and put down. With each new patch you see a lot of the more casual players come back and play it a bit more.

Whatever you say, most people can't be playing games 8 hours a day, so this behavior is quite understandable. I'm sure if you look at bigger games and sales, the player number will spike then drop back afterwards in the same fashion (just with bigger numbers involved). How this is news to anyone I don't know? Also please answer me *why* you are so keen to prove to everyone the game is dead and has no future? What possible benefit is it to you? You never answered before and I really don't get it... you obviously care enough about the game to follow the discussion here yet every comment I hear from you is like Fraser from Dads Army "We're all doooomed!"

For me the interface kills this game . the revolving planet thing makes the strategic zoom pointless.
The beauty of FA and strat zoom is that you can zoom out and see all the map and your units this does not happen on PA.
As ufarax mentions they are coming but not staying, In my opinion its because its too much hassle to play .
and a more recent review is not going to fix that.

Pa is never going to be for everyone, for 3 reasons

1. Its not supcom
2. Its not supcom 3
3. Planets, "OMG i can be attacked from every direction...", some people will never be able to deal with that.

For me those 3 reasons are why i like PA. supcom is perhaps for some people a better alternative, even if it doesn't get any support any more.

I wouldn't listen to ufarax if i were you, as it will rot your brain.

The reason for early release is of no importance (to me). We are supposed to cheer, when they release a patch, to add a feature expected and promised for launch. Pa 1.0 was not received well, and it deserved that reception. The games current state is stable, and quite good. I will not change my original review, if they release an official expansion, I will review that. At launch 1.0 rated a score of 5.8, Build 76766 rates 7.1. I will not change my review to reflect Build 76766.