Monday news, part two:

Rainbow Six Siege 'leaks site' kicks off an Outbreak ARG
http://www.pcgamer.com/rainbow-six-siege-leaks-site-kicks-off-an-outbreak-arg/
Ubisoft announced earlier this week that the upcoming Rainbow Six Siege year three will feature a new co-op event called Outbreak, headlined by a pair of new "biohazard specialists" who will be added to the operator lineup in the year's first season. That's not going to happen until early next year, though, so to pass some time it looks like Ubi is going to give us an ARG to play with.

Rainbow Six Siege tests player reporting system to combat "toxic behaviour"
http://www.pcgamer.com/rainbow-six-siege-tests-player-reporting-system-to-combat-toxic-behaviour/
Ubisoft is trialling a new player reporting system in Rainbow Six Siege in an attempt to stomp out "toxic behaviour" in the game. The system is only active in the technical test server for now, and for a user to be banned you'll have to provide definitive proof that they're behaving badly.

Here's what's new in Total War: Warhammer 2's Mortal Empires' Reprisal Update beta
http://www.pcgamer.com/heres-whats-new-in-total-war-warhammer-2s-mortal-empires-reprisal-update-beta/
Creative Assembly has detailed the latest changes coming to The Mortal Empires: Reprisal Update beta, bringing a "host of content changes" from Warhammer 1’s Foundation Update to the Mortal Empires campaign in Warhammer 2.

Creative Assembly is making a new, unannounced "genre-defining" game
http://www.pcgamer.com/creative-assembly-is-making-a-new-unannounced-genre-defining-game/
Creative Assembly—the UK-based studio behind Total War and the terrifyingly good Alien: Isolation—is developing a new, unannounced game.
Details of three roles have popped up on the developer's website; lead technical artist, senior meta game designer, and lead systems designer. All three positions are linked to the new IP.

French senator adds further concerns to Star Wars Battlefont 2's 'gambling' controversy
http://www.pcgamer.com/french-senator-adds-further-concerns-to-star-wars-battlefont-2s-gambling-controversy/
A French senator has contacted France's online gambling regulator detailing his concerns about the microtranactions in Star Wars Battlefront II.
According to The Nerd Stash (via GameInformer), French senator Jérôme Durain contacted ARJEL (as well as other advocacy groups, including the organisation that represents France's games industry), proposing that loot boxes could be harmful to children.

Hellblade proves there's "a space between indie and AAA games"
http://www.pcgamer.com/hellblade-proves-theres-a-space-between-indie-and-aaa-games/
In Ninja Theory's latest—and final—developer diary, the studio announced that Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice had successfully proven that there is indeed "a space between indie and AAA games that could work commercially."

Super Mighty Power Man cancels Kickstarter, but publishers are interested
http://www.pcgamer.com/nes-inspired-platformer-super-mighty-power-man-cancels-kickstarter-but-publishers-are-interested/
Super Mighty Power Man showed up on Joe's radar earlier this month with its promises of a "genuine 2D action‐platformer" inspired by classics like Mega Man and Castlevania as well as more recent games such as VVVVVV and Shovel Knight. The Kickstarter campaign that followed has now been cut short, partly because of a lack of player interest—but developer Box Hedge Games said it's close to signing a deal with a publisher to bring the game to life.

Seduce nobles and attend fancy parties in Ambition: A Minuet in Power
http://www.pcgamer.com/seduce-nobles-and-attend-fancy-parties-in-ambition-a-minuet-in-power/
Here's a Kickstarter pitch you don't hear every day: "You play as Yvette, a woman in pre-revolutionary France, using her guile and seduction to advance her position in a time of intrigue, danger, and serial adultery."

>>Here's the Kickstarter page.

Europa is a battle royale game with destructible environments from Chinese firm Tencent
http://www.pcgamer.com/europa-is-a-battle-royale-game-with-destructible-environments-from-chinese-firm-tencent/
Chinese tech giant Tencent is set to publish a battle royale game called Europa, which features 100-player battles on an exotic island with a dynamic weather system and destructible cover.

Watch the trailer for Lonely Astronaut, a game about a skeleton in space
http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-the-trailer-for-lonely-astronaut-a-game-about-a-skeleton-in-space/
You're a corpse in a space suit in forthcoming indie game Lonely Astronaut, and yet somehow you can still move around by farting out orange streams of jet propulsion. The creation of developers Greyson Richey and Nick Lives, it's apparently a one-button arcade game that "highlights the sick joys of skeleton-thrusting". I don't know about you, but that's my money down.

The creator of Double Hitler is making an RPG called Slasher's Keep
http://www.pcgamer.com/the-creator-of-double-hitler-is-making-an-rpg-called-slashers-keep/
Remember Double Hitler? You should, we called it one of the best free online games on PC. Its creator, indie developer Damian Schloter, is back with something very different to the game that revealed Hitler was actually two children in a large coat. Schloter's next project is a first-person dungeon crawler called Slasher's Keep.

Bike of the Wild is like Zelda but you're a bicycle
http://www.pcgamer.com/bike-of-the-wild-is-like-zelda-but-youre-a-bicycle/
Maybe Bike of the Wild having a similar name to Breath of the Wild is a coincidence? That's a reasonable thing to think. Here is the description from its Steam page: "The evil Lord Gearon has kidnapped the Princess Steelda, can our Hero Klink complete the Bike-Force and save Hillrule? Find out in... Bike of the Wild!"

A Road That May Lead Nowhere is your new relaxation game and audio accompaniment
http://www.pcgamer.com/a-road-that-may-lead-nowhere-is-your-new-relaxation-game-and-audio-accompaniment/
Indie developer Ian MacLarty, who is responsible for experimental games including the eye-bending madness simulator The Catacombs of Solaris, has just released something new. This one's called A Road That May Lead Nowhere and it's much less likely to mess with your eyeballs.

Transforming robot ARPG AirMech Wastelands hits Early Access
http://www.pcgamer.com/transforming-robot-arpg-airmech-wastelands-hits-early-access/
AirMech Wastelands is out in Early Access (...) it's an online ARPG, what they're calling, "AirMech reimagined as an RPG where you explore a huge area of the world, gaining power and fame along the way." You can create your own pilot and upgrade your mech, infiltrating enemy bases to steal new gear. It's playable solo or in co-op, though you'll need to be online whichever mode you play in.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance shows off branching narratives, interrogation, bloody murder
http://www.pcgamer.com/kingdom-come-deliverance-shows-off-branching-narratives-interrogation-bloody-murder/
Announced in late 2013, Kingdom Come: Deliverance was first expected two years later. It's now due February 13, 2018, has since grown considerably in scope, and has now dropped a trailer that showcases how its interrogation system, branching narratives and melee combat ties together.

More games released on steam this year apparently than the entire last 10 years. They seriously need better curation. So much junk. 

There was a time when i could look at the upcomming section and think 'oh this cool game is out in two months'

Now I can't find anything properly the 50+ pages in all the bloatware, visual novels shit and so on. Browsing steam is now a chore

And I'm someone who spends a lot of time reading gaming forums and articles. The average joe must be completely lost.

Idk, I feel like steam direct is making some progress at least from my point of view. The entire purpose of steam direct is to make sure the shitty games aren't viewed by the customer unless they are actively looking for it.

Before the steam direct got implemented, I would see plenty of shitty games under "popular new releases" since it would just view essentially the new releases. Now, it really only views what I might like instead of just really anything that came out.

Now the entire purpose of steam direct as I remember is to make it so the shit games don't earn any money if they get released on steam by ensuring they aren't being viewed by people who aren't actively looking for them so that in the future, the developers of those shitty games won't release anymore of them. Not to prevent shit games being released in the first place.

With that being said, yea, Valve really does need to do something about the bad games being released but so far for me, I havn't seen many terrible games on my home page compared to how many there were before Direct got implemented. Yea I see a lot of hentai vns but I am actively looking for those so...

All in all, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done but as far as I can tell... Steam Direct is certainly an improvement. I think they should have kept Greenlight though.

I haven't seen the video, but we all knew that the $100 fee to publish a game on Steam wouldn't work. It needs to be at the very least $500 if not $1,000, and keep an eye on the publishers to catch who is trying to cheat the system and kick them out.

But first of all, Valve needs to hire more people for Steam, to move from a reactive attitude towards an active one, pursuing the ones that harm the system because, if they don't, they run the risk of turning Steam into a problem for PC gaming.

$500 seems like the middle ground, while 1k is just a bit insane of a price entry fee to go for. We already know that price fees of getting a game on consoles can be high, but charging the same, if not more on PC would just drive indie devs away.

We already see some known indie devs complaining that their game isn't getting a full spotlight of attention, which has led to them praising Switch/XB storefronts. Charging up to 1k would just solidify their choice of where to release their game, and it wouldn't likely be Steam.

The thing that bothers me about some of those indie devs, is that they have made it clear that they dislike competition, they dislike having to market their own game, and they dislike having to work hard for their game to get noticed. They praise Switch/XB storefronts because there is far less competition, and in some cases, they have their marketing done for them, so they kill two birds with one stone.

meanwhile we have other indie devs out there who just do what they can to sell their game. I don't see why the other devs cannot do the same, it just comes off as being entitled and lazy to me. You work to sell your game, not having others do it all for you. You compete or you get out.

Yes asset flippers need to go, but even if they were to vanish, the marketplace would still grow each year, as more and more devs hop on board, and then we'll go back to square one, where some devs bitch about not getting enough spotlight.

Valve definitely needs to suck it up and hire actual people to do the job of seeking out asset flippers and promptly banning them from the store. Yes the chances are high that the scummy flippers will just create another account and repeat the process, but that's why we need more people to catch them out each time, until those flippers quit for good.

The entry fee is a really easy to fix problem by making it scalable: for your first game make it $100, for the second one make it $500 (after all, if you come back with another one it's because you've made money, right?) and for the rest, $1,500. That will make it affordable for those that are new, while preventing those that only launch garbage to abuse the system.

About indie devs, I think the problem here is that there is an abuse of the term. I mean, it can't be that, and I'm going to use two successful games to make it fair, Stardew Valley and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are both considered indie titles. It's not fair because only the first one is a "real" indie game, being the first game made by a small studio (1 guy) and without any help, while the second one has been made by a nearly 15 years old studio with who knows how many staff. And yet, because no publisher backed Hellblade and they did it by themselves, they're now an "indie" studio. Yeah, sure...

And that difference is the reason why some can get media attention and afford to make some marketing, while others simply can't, having to rely on others (like some youtuber that likes their idea and talks about the game, for example) for help. And these are the ones that have a harder time with the Steam bloated system that we have now.

That's because indie is meaningless term when it comes to size of developer, it only refers to them being independent of publisher.

I much prefer bedroom/garage developer moniker, like back in days, with small one/two men teams who were (primarily) coding for C64, ZX and similar computers.

There's no need to go that far back in time

But yeah, "indie" is too generic. There should be another term to talk about small studios with no help of publishers... or big studios that decide to go on their own.

That's why I lost a good chunk of trust in Jim Sterling. For some reason he thought Steam Direct would be better than Greenlight and even defended the low entry fee. To this day I don't know what drugs he took to assume that it would be in any way better when they roll back the almost non existent oversight. It was obvious from the start that it would be a shit show and any hope otherwise was completely misplaced.

I don't think $1000 is too steep of an entry fee. A proper indie developer has spent way more than that on his game before it's even ready to release on Steam. And compared to other businesses it's a pretty low fee to pay. It's the norm for businesses to go into massive debt before they turn a profit. A business isn't a charity.