Netherverse

[quote][b]Warning: Microtransaction Infested Game[/b] This game is infested with a mobile app like cash shop for unlocking in-game currency and features. Whether these are purely cosmetic or they alter your gaming experience significantly, this gamer gouging practice is unethical and insulting to gamers, especially when applied to such a low quality shovelware game. Gamers should be cautious and consider avoiding this game for that reason alone.[/quote] [quote][b]Warning: Dead PVP Game[/b] This game has no meaningful single player content, and no playable PvP servers. There is no functioning PvP population, it's a dead game, and cannot be played as intended.[/quote] Netherverse is an abandoned 3v3 arena shooter with some kind of sloppy "cyberpunk" theme to it that failed hard, it never attracted any players. The game has a cash shop where everything costs $999. That's right, the developer wants SEVERAL THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of empty microtransactions in their dead game... is this some kind of scam where they were just hoping someone would randomly click on DLC and buy it to get nothing in return? This kind of thing is NOT OKAY. Putting that aside, let's go into the rest of the reasons this was a train wreck. The focus of the game is pure PvP, there's no single player content. The developer gambled that other players would be an acceptable substitute for adding storytelling, level design etc to the game. The vast majority of PvP-only games fail because they don't "go viral", and without players, or single player content to add a lasting value to the game, the game dies. The developers made the fatal, lazy mistake of believing that PvP, other players, would be an acceptable substitute for doing the difficult job of adding single player level design, storytelling, NPCs and other rich aspects of designed game content to the game. As a result of this choice by the developers, the game has little to no actual interactive game content. It's a little considered fact that the vast majority of PvP only, multiplayer only games [b]fail[/b]. Developers must learn that other players are not an acceptable substitute for doing the job of game developers and building a game filled with content. PvP only games must have a [b]huge[/b] player base for them to "go viral" and succeed. But with no single player experience to add lasting value to a game, the developers instead chose to bet against all odds that their game would "go viral" without any actual reason for players to want to play the game. Predictably, they lost this bet. Compounding this problem, the developers made the terrible mistake of launching a multiplayer only game in Early Access. This is almost certain to kill the game. Most gamers will evaluate a game only once. If they do so when the game is incomplete, they will check it out, then abandon it (just like the developers did). When (IF) the game eventually does get around to release, there will be no players, because the developers burned the first impressions through their faulty Early Access experience. Players who saw the game and didn't like it because it was incomplete [i]do not come back[/i]. Multiplayer games must have a large population if they are to go "viral" and succeed, especially without single player content to fall back on. Releasing a multiplayer only game into early access kills the game population, and thus the game, before the game even launches. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 7 players (just enough to create one 3v3 match... once). This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 100,000 games for gamers to choose from, the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. So, should you download this game? Is this one of the best of the 100,000+ products on Steam? Obviously not... from what I can tell, with the way the cash shop is set up, this is just some weird attempt at a scam. It's unplayable and dead. It should be removed.