[quote][b]Note: Dead PvP game[/b]
This game contains no meaningful single player content. There are no available servers and no player population. This game cannot be played as intended.[/quote]
LUNARBALL is a dead PvP game. Why did it fail?
[i]Almost every PvP exclusive game on Steam fails.[/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 that 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 go into some of the reasons this particular game failed to appeal to gamers, despite the zero up front cost.
First and foremost, 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 of players or single player content to add a lasting value to the game, the game dies.
Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for adding content to a game.
This garbage ripoff of Rocket League without the cars.. or anything... heck wait a minute, this is just a crap soccer game. But wow... the greedy cash grab monetisation here is pure cancer. Under no circumstances should anyone consider this train wreck free... which is probably why it failed so hard, or at least one of many reasons, incompetency from the developer being the other side of that coin. A coin they gobbled up themselves because they love money so much.
The graphics aren't great... that will understandably be a turn off for a lot of gamers, and it's a big contributor to the failure of the game to attract gamers despite having no up-front cost. Gaming is a primarily visual medium, and if developers want to succeed, they must understand that it's not an area for compromise. You deserve better than compromises.
On pricing and value for gamers, this isn't really free as the game is infested with mobile app store like microtransactions. This is a consumer hostile model that we don't need to see on PC. It's deceptively priced to gouge gamers, and that's a reason in itself to avoid this.
There's also NFT-like Steam Marketplace items that the developer farmed up plenty of himself to try scam gamers out of on the marketplace... a bit like that crappy "banana" clicker.
Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 7 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.
Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?
Nope. This isn't worth downloading. While this didn't cost me any money up front, I still feel ripped off.
[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" of this failed, dead train wreck of a "game" (really, an attempt to make an "NFT" farming scam) attacks me and my review for being "Ragebait".
What an odd thing to say.
Why would an honest and factual review make anyone angry? Oh yeah... when someone is caught doing something they know is wrong and unethical and the spotlight is shone upon them. The developer is angry because he got caught, and he tries to attack me as if I am somehow responsible for his failed scam.
I mean... just take a look at what's happening here.
Remember, SteamDB shows this failure only had 7 concurrent players and that only happened once.
The developer can't even be honest about the fact that his "cosmetic" NFT scam failed.. obviously the Steam Marketplace "NFTs" are an attempt from the developer to get rich quick from a crap product. The developer doesn't want you to know he gets a cut of every item transaction on the marketplace... we all know exactly what's going on here, and it's not okay.
But see how the developer breaches Valve guidelines, in the words of the bard, "to protest too much". I mean yeah, it's possible he was incompetent and failed to farm up his own items (holy crap, learn how to run a scam properly!!!!), but that's ridiculously unlikely. I mean... take a look at this developer guideline breach... sure, he failed, but we all know what he was trying to do.
As always, fellow gamers, judge developers by their actions, not their lies. You don't infest Steam trashware with marketplace "NFTs" unless you intend to profit from that.
Nothing in the developers pointless breach of Valve guidelines changes any of the objective facts of my review. My review stands unaltered. I cannot recommend this failed NFT scam to anyone.
Comedy edit: The developer has VAC bans and cheats in online games. What a fricken joke.
