Eh, that was close enough to a response rather than a frothing rant that I’ll respond.
Plenty of niche games have “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam. Because that is a function of the reviews by those who played it and cared enough to leave a response. Its one of the great things about Steam reviews. I don’t have to adjust a metacritic score because space dogfighting games always score 10-20 points lower than Call of Duty because I know the vast majority of people leaving feedback loved Freespace and are vaguely aware Tachyon existed.
But as far as the wider world? It was almost immediately forgotten. It got a lot of great reviews, but not a lot of play. Which is more or less the case for any arthouse movie. I know it can be hard to keep reading after you see something that MAKES YOU SO ANGRY but you should try. People have a tendency to elaborate on points.
As for Skyrim having “7x the amount of mods that Morrowind has”. First, that ignores how many quests and mods were lost to time. I genuinely can’t remember where we went for Morrowind mods (I want to say a mix of the official forums and back when UESP still had forums? It has literally been decades). But just looking at Nexus is only part of the picture. Hell, I think Nexus came out of Morrowind modding? Or did it only get big with Oblivion?
But also? of course it has more mods. The same way that basically every new game in a franchise SHOULD sell more than the previous one did. The audience for gaming has exploded over the decades.
The website makes me vomit, the citations are weak, and the visualization is just bad. But https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-years-gaming-history-revenue-stream/ gets the point across and looks roughly correct from figures I have seen given in interviews and the like. And the actual specific numbers matter a lot less (and weren’t even recorded in any way that is reliable).
As of 2020-ish, we are looking at approximately 73B according to “Visual Capitalist” (ugh). So if we assume roughly the same market share were playing TES games in both eras (and it is pretty safe to say that Skyrim is a MUCH more mainstream game than Morrowind was…), we would expect at least a 3.5x increase in the amount of mods. Oh, I am also assuming the same percentage of the userbase were interested in hobbyist game dev (ha) and that the tools have not gotten easier to use (TESEdit or whatever it was called was pure hell back in the day).
So… if we assume all else has remained equal (and ignore all my somewhat mocking points about how they clearly haven’t)… Oh, I forgot. Since TES games are basically the only ones with a thriving modding community these days (unless you count roblox and minecraft where monetization is even more standard), let’s also not assume that anyone who would have made an NWN mod or a UT mod or a Half-life mod decided to not make any Skyrim mods.
Oh, and revenue is also a horrible metric due to a combination of inflation and increased cost of game development, but it gives a rough idea of the audience size.
Uhm… where was I? Look, I can’t even keep a straight face on this. 7x is really not the win you are thinking it is. It should be a LOT higher than that if Skyrim modding really is thriving to the degree things were in the golden age of modding (late 90s, early 00s).
And that isn’t a bad thing. Like I said in the first post that set you off: This is just the trend we have seen. When it is literally easier to make a game in Unreal Engine than it is to make a quest mod in Skyrim… what are you going to do? This is why Unreal Tournament 3 flopped so hard. The expectation was that Epic would release a game and modders would run wild with it. Instead, modders were making UE3 games and getting paid. And the same happened with a few other games (arguably Half-Life 2). Neverwinter Nights 2, and CRPGs in general, largely died out for similar reason. People were less interested in paying for a 20 hour campaign that was “okay” if they weren’t going to have really cool user generated content waiting for them afterward.
And… I’ve already pissed off enough people so I won’t say anything beyond: How did Dreams do?
This is pretty long response lol so I’ll tackle each point individually.
Plenty of niche games have “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on…
Your whole argument on niche games getting good reviews, I actually fully agree with. The problem is that those reviews are literally the only metric we have to discern whether or not the people that played it enjoyed it - anything else is pure speculation. Including your point about people not liking it if they felt it didn’t feel enough like Skyrim, or people saying they like it just to appease others. It’s frankly bizarre that you’d make an argument for Steam Reviews not 100% showing the accuracy of people’s opinions, while simultaneously making statements like those with zero anything to back them up.
At the very least the reviews tell us that people who played it say they liked it. That’s just a fact. And considering that that’s all we have, I think it’s fair to use it. Anything else, again, is just pure speculation.
I know it can be hard to keep reading after you see something that MAKES YOU SO ANGRY but you should try.
This was weird lol.
“7x the amount of mods that Morrowind has”. First, that ignores how many quests and mods were lost to time.
No, it doesn’t. Skyrim has over 70k mods while Morrowind has roughly 11k. Even if there were over one hundred missing quest mods for Morrowind, which I doubt, it still wouldn’t affect that massive difference.
But also? of course it has more mods. The same way that basically every new game in a franchise SHOULD sell more than the previous one did. The audience for gaming has exploded over the decades.
This… just isn’t how modding works. Most new games releasing will have some reshades and a trainer, max. Once in a great while you’ll get some nudity. The size of the audience doesn’t change that - most games releasing simply don’t garner much mod support.
By your logic a game like Call of Duty should have a massive modding scene, as the new entry will be newer and have a massive audience, an audience multiple times bigger than any Bethesda game. But no, that’s just not how that works. Hell, even a game like The Witcher 3 only has half the number of mods that Morrowind does.
Also I’m confused as to the point of those links. Are you arguing that gaming has… gotten more popular over the years? Yeah no shit. As I said earlier, numbers going up doesn’t magically guarantee a thriving modding scene.
So if we assume roughly the same market share were playing TES games in both eras (and it is pretty safe to say that Skyrim is a MUCH more mainstream game than Morrowind was…), we would expect at least a 3.5x increase in the amount of mods.
As I went over before, no. Lol absolutely not. I don’t believe that you actually think this could possibly be true. Lets apply your logic to other mainstream games releasing nowadays and see if that logic holds water (hint, it doesn’t).
Eh, that was close enough to a response rather than a frothing rant that I’ll respond.
Plenty of niche games have “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam. Because that is a function of the reviews by those who played it and cared enough to leave a response. Its one of the great things about Steam reviews. I don’t have to adjust a metacritic score because space dogfighting games always score 10-20 points lower than Call of Duty because I know the vast majority of people leaving feedback loved Freespace and are vaguely aware Tachyon existed.
But as far as the wider world? It was almost immediately forgotten. It got a lot of great reviews, but not a lot of play. Which is more or less the case for any arthouse movie. I know it can be hard to keep reading after you see something that MAKES YOU SO ANGRY but you should try. People have a tendency to elaborate on points.
As for Skyrim having “7x the amount of mods that Morrowind has”. First, that ignores how many quests and mods were lost to time. I genuinely can’t remember where we went for Morrowind mods (I want to say a mix of the official forums and back when UESP still had forums? It has literally been decades). But just looking at Nexus is only part of the picture. Hell, I think Nexus came out of Morrowind modding? Or did it only get big with Oblivion?
But also? of course it has more mods. The same way that basically every new game in a franchise SHOULD sell more than the previous one did. The audience for gaming has exploded over the decades.
The website makes me vomit, the citations are weak, and the visualization is just bad. But https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-years-gaming-history-revenue-stream/ gets the point across and looks roughly correct from figures I have seen given in interviews and the like. And the actual specific numbers matter a lot less (and weren’t even recorded in any way that is reliable).
Going off https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/history-of-gaming-by-revenue-share-full-size.html so I can see it (and I am specifically citing the URL because I would not be shocked if it was actually different than in the article…), in the year 200 where was approximately 20 billion in PC revenue. And while Morrowind DID have an xbox version… it really didn’t.
As of 2020-ish, we are looking at approximately 73B according to “Visual Capitalist” (ugh). So if we assume roughly the same market share were playing TES games in both eras (and it is pretty safe to say that Skyrim is a MUCH more mainstream game than Morrowind was…), we would expect at least a 3.5x increase in the amount of mods. Oh, I am also assuming the same percentage of the userbase were interested in hobbyist game dev (ha) and that the tools have not gotten easier to use (TESEdit or whatever it was called was pure hell back in the day).
So… if we assume all else has remained equal (and ignore all my somewhat mocking points about how they clearly haven’t)… Oh, I forgot. Since TES games are basically the only ones with a thriving modding community these days (unless you count roblox and minecraft where monetization is even more standard), let’s also not assume that anyone who would have made an NWN mod or a UT mod or a Half-life mod decided to not make any Skyrim mods.
Oh, and revenue is also a horrible metric due to a combination of inflation and increased cost of game development, but it gives a rough idea of the audience size.
Uhm… where was I? Look, I can’t even keep a straight face on this. 7x is really not the win you are thinking it is. It should be a LOT higher than that if Skyrim modding really is thriving to the degree things were in the golden age of modding (late 90s, early 00s).
And that isn’t a bad thing. Like I said in the first post that set you off: This is just the trend we have seen. When it is literally easier to make a game in Unreal Engine than it is to make a quest mod in Skyrim… what are you going to do? This is why Unreal Tournament 3 flopped so hard. The expectation was that Epic would release a game and modders would run wild with it. Instead, modders were making UE3 games and getting paid. And the same happened with a few other games (arguably Half-Life 2). Neverwinter Nights 2, and CRPGs in general, largely died out for similar reason. People were less interested in paying for a 20 hour campaign that was “okay” if they weren’t going to have really cool user generated content waiting for them afterward.
And… I’ve already pissed off enough people so I won’t say anything beyond: How did Dreams do?
This is pretty long response lol so I’ll tackle each point individually.
Your whole argument on niche games getting good reviews, I actually fully agree with. The problem is that those reviews are literally the only metric we have to discern whether or not the people that played it enjoyed it - anything else is pure speculation. Including your point about people not liking it if they felt it didn’t feel enough like Skyrim, or people saying they like it just to appease others. It’s frankly bizarre that you’d make an argument for Steam Reviews not 100% showing the accuracy of people’s opinions, while simultaneously making statements like those with zero anything to back them up.
At the very least the reviews tell us that people who played it say they liked it. That’s just a fact. And considering that that’s all we have, I think it’s fair to use it. Anything else, again, is just pure speculation.
This was weird lol.
No, it doesn’t. Skyrim has over 70k mods while Morrowind has roughly 11k. Even if there were over one hundred missing quest mods for Morrowind, which I doubt, it still wouldn’t affect that massive difference.
This… just isn’t how modding works. Most new games releasing will have some reshades and a trainer, max. Once in a great while you’ll get some nudity. The size of the audience doesn’t change that - most games releasing simply don’t garner much mod support.
By your logic a game like Call of Duty should have a massive modding scene, as the new entry will be newer and have a massive audience, an audience multiple times bigger than any Bethesda game. But no, that’s just not how that works. Hell, even a game like The Witcher 3 only has half the number of mods that Morrowind does.
Also I’m confused as to the point of those links. Are you arguing that gaming has… gotten more popular over the years? Yeah no shit. As I said earlier, numbers going up doesn’t magically guarantee a thriving modding scene.
As I went over before, no. Lol absolutely not. I don’t believe that you actually think this could possibly be true. Lets apply your logic to other mainstream games releasing nowadays and see if that logic holds water (hint, it doesn’t).
This comment was truly a trip, thank you.