[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. There's no viably populated servers/active player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
This is a badly made, abandoned Early Access PvP exclusive asset flip (mostly... the developer did hideous voxel assets for the players that don't match the ripped-off low poly asset packs). It's a PvP arena where the players are dumb smileys. There's an array of weapons, character classes, all of which don't really work well, and it's all academic because this was pretty much dead on arrival, and is even deader now.
So, "Cube Conflict" is a dead PvP game. Why did it fail? It's video game autopsy time!
[i]Most PvP exclusive games on Steam fail.[/i] Only a tiny proportion of them "go viral". This game failed for many of the same reasons those others fail. The chief of which is the developer thinking their game will "go viral" without actually creating any reason for it do so.
Competition amongst PvP centric games is extreme, and there's only a finite player base to appeal to. This game failed to reach any kind of critical mass and died as a result. Let's detail why this game failed to appeal to gamers, despite the zero up front cost.
First, there's no meaningful single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the Game. They lost that bet.
Without a huge community or single player content to add lasting value, the game dies.
Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content to a game.
The developers abandoned this 4 years and 11 months ago. It will never be completed; this unfinished game pollutes Steam, making it harder to find genuinely, completely made games.
The game graphics look better than you might expect, but that's just because it looks like some or all of them are "borrowed" from asset stores or wherever. Gamers can tell... and it comes across as insincere.
There's also the old adage: those who lack the budget and talent to make their own assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly.
Now on to pricing and value for gamers.
This is "free" enough (not all "free" games are truly free, there's usually a hidden price tag). At least you won't be expected to spend more money after downloading this, but free doesn't mean good; the cost of a game is more than just financial—your time is valuable.
In terms of public reception, this failed to appeal to the 130 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at just a dozen or so concurrent players, and now there's basically nobody playing it. Even though it's free. This is a dismal public reception, but it's easy to see why gamers rejected it.
All other issues aside (any of which disqualify this from being worth your time), this game relies on other players for viability. Because there aren't enough players, it's dead. I can't recommend anyone downloads this.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
The developer's disgusting, arrogant response is full of lies and denial against facts he cannot refute, but lies about anyway. When developers lie and use dishonesty to mislead and defend the harm caused by shoving appalling asset flips like this onto Steam, it harms the gaming industry. Let's break down the lies.
The developer lies and suggests "bots" are the same thing as content. What utter bullcrap. Would Baldur's Gate 3 be as successful if it was an empty box with bots? His arrogance is astounding; he obviously knows bots aren't content and just flings crap at gamers to hide his inadequacy and failure.
The developer admits the game is abandoned:
[quote]The last update was about a year ago[/quote]
This is deliberate, malicious abuse of Early Access. The guy hasn't touched this for 5 years; a single, token update a year ago is just kicking the can down the road. It's been in development hell far longer than his broken promise to publish the game under his Early Access agreement, yet he wants you to believe it's coming out any day now. If you believe this obviously dishonest and lying developer, I have a bridge to sell you.
The developer brazenly admits this is a toxic, creative, morally bankrupt asset flip, and admits plagiarizing assets of others, trying to convince gamers he created them. If this was done in literature or Hollywood, the guy would be kicked out. Plagiarism is creatively bankrupt and highly unethical, yet the developer admits this is an asset flip:
[quote] some assets come from store packs[/quote]
There it is... like my review already said, this is an asset flip. The developer then lies and pretends this kind of plagiarism is commonplace. It absolutely is NOT. I've played and reviewed over 18,000 games, amateur and professional, and I know for a FACT that asset flipping is not commonplace; it's only done by malicious scammers making fake games, and inept amateurs who shove out asset flip garbage just to pretend they're developers. Judge which kind of flipper this "developer" is, but the fact cannot be denied: this is an asset flip.
The developer DEMANDS his game be as successful as professionally developed AAA games because he lacks the talent or budget to develop games properly. What bizarre rubbish. This statement is an insult to everyone's basic intellect, to gamers, and to the real developers who work for professional businesses and endure long days and crunches to create games gamers actually play. But this guy is the "Main Character," apparently, so nobody else matters.
If I had "worked hard" for years and the result was this godawful game, I'd be utterly ashamed. Hard work doesn't mean quality work, and in this case it highlights incompetence. This is not the flex the developer thinks it is.
For us gamers, for whom games are made (the developer seems to have forgotten), it doesn't matter if GTA:V was made by one guy in a shed over a weekend and Depression Quest took 1000 staff 5 years to make; what matters is the resultant quality of the product. The intellectual dishonesty of the developer is made apparent from their comments.
Finally, the absolute WORST take any developer can have... DEMANDING that nobody criticize a bad game unless they're also a game developer. Only game developers can review games now? What utter bullcrap. [b]You do not need to be a Michelin star chef to know rotten food when you see it.[/b]
Gamers, you can see the developer's disgusting, insulting, and arrogant response here. Take that in line with the woeful quality of this garbage and the absolute fact that SteamDB player counts prove this was utter failure.
Nothing in the developer's pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this asset flip to anyone.
