Backlogs are never ending. (Always filling?)
It’s been a long (long) time since I’ve done a r/SurvivalGaming catch-up (not my much smaller r/SurvivalGames).
Between the karma farming, WHAT SHOULD I PLAY, WUT GAME IS LYK VALHIEM, and the rest… the random Rust asks are still my biggest wtf. 🤪
Gaming
Catch up on the latest survival game updates in this week’s Survival Roundup.
It’s on Reddit: simple, public, and low-friction to share. 😘
My brain is fever-fried, so I encourage you to check out the Reddit Survival Roundup (above) and the Hashtag content (in the block below) for your big brain stuff from the past week. I DO want to examine a couple of small articles, though.
Fuck yer consoles! (Jk.)
Automaton brings us the aptly titled, “Palworld developer Pocketpair requires game designer candidates to provide screenshots of their Steam libraries and playtime, according to the CEO.” In a nutshell, the CEO says that they’ll pass over anyone with a Steam play history of 0 games (sorry, console players!), to focus those playing indie games that are only available on Steam. The goal isn’t just playtime, but how candidates think about games:
Turns Out ‘Forever’ Is Expensive
I can’t really speak from the “I lost access to Anthem” camp - I cancelled my preorder after the public test. Still, I liked the idea of Anthem, and it sucked watching it die.
(I wanted to fly!)
That’s why this quote from GOG’s managing director stuck with me. “If we put too many barriers on game creators and what the end-of-life cycle looks like, we might get fewer games… because people will be scared of the long-term upkeep,” he said. “That might cause there to be fewer cool games for gamers.”
I’ve been on Steam for over 20 years and haven’t personally lost anything that hit me hard. But my sister was genuinely devastated by the death of City of Heroes. I know there is (or was?) some kind of fan-made version that popped up, but those tend to live in legal gray areas at best. (I also vaguely remember reading about a Matrix game that had a big send-off??) The only live-service game I actively play is World of Warcraft…and I’m pretty sure it’s going to outlive me.
Maybe, to an extent, I’m insulated from this problem because I mostly live in the indie survival space. (I’ll avoid my snark about how many games die in Early Access!) These are usually one-and-done experiences that can be revisited indefinitely or simply finished. I expect them to sit on Steam until Steam, or the internet itself, ends.
So where do you land? Should live-service games come with an end-of-life plan, or does that just trade one kind of loss for another?
Simply Hashtag
Steam Curator Updates - Join Us!
I’m digging into the pile and updating the ENTIRE curator - yesss, that’s roughly 400 blurbs. This (as you can imagine) is a huge time sink, so it’ll take me a bit. (I started from the very start and made it from page 18 to page 15 before I quit for the day.)
The following game blurbs were drastically updated: Frigid, Subsistence, SCUM, Bromeliad, Winter Survival, Road to Eden, Deadside, Retreat to Enen, Outbreak Island, Far North, Mist Survival, The Gold River Project, Derelicts, FEROCIOUS, SERUM: Toxic Survival, and Jaws of Extinction.
I keep a Steam Curator list tracking survival games flying under the radar - some of these deserve way more attention!
A few recent Hashtag Survival posts, embedded below for easy scrolling:
I’m still messing around with “stare directly into the camera like a weirdo” videos, here’s one from last week.
Support Hashtag: Patreon keeps the lights on. If monthly subs aren’t your thing, consider Ko-Fi for one-offs, a Steam gift card, or share the newsletter link!
Create & Code
“Hooded Horse's 'standard' contract with the developers it partners with gives 65% of revenue to the studio. The publisher does say it takes a larger slice of the pie if it has partially funded the game. It also has no recoup, meaning that it isn't the first in line to take back the money it has spent from revenue.”
Fixated is using a $50 million investment to build a creator development ecosystem. What sets its model apart? (Tubefilter)
Mohanad Ibrahim’s Redirectable VAT Destruction bridges the gap between fully baked animations and expensive real-time destruction, delivering directionally-responsive destruction at a fraction of Chaos's performance cost.
Look at this adorable site creating a library of free shaders for folks working in Godot. (Honestly, there are a couple other good links in this Reddit thread.)
Tool Talk: Storm HydroFX v1.0 has been released, Blender 4.5.6 LTS & Blender 4.2.17 LTS released.
Any other creative types thinking about giving Apple’s Creator Studio subscription a try? I love that Final Cut Pro offers a free month, but I burned through that ages ago. Kinda tempted to jump back in for a month and see how it stacks up against DaVinci now that I actually understand DaVinci a bit better.
Community!
Aww, appreciate the +1 from BooniverseGaming on this Reddit post about keeping up with survival game updates and news! If you ever recommend or name-drop us, let me know - virtual hugs guaranteed.
A good conversation sparked in the comments of my article on the survival zombie game players are actually asking for, with one reader pushing back on how far realism and consequence should go. Feel free to weigh in!
Random things this week
Report reveals that OpenAI's GPT-5.2 model cites Grokipedia (Engadget)
Vimeo lays off most of its staff just months after being bought by private equity firm (Engadget)
How Sunwise Games Is Building a Sustainable Player-First Studio (80.lv)
Modder Combines PS5, Xbox Series X, And Switch 2 Into A Single Machine (Gamespot)
Not looking forward to the electric bill (or the slightly smaller paycheck), but I didn’t mind the snow day on Monday. Hope you’re all safe and warm!
Jordan
Survive, Thrive, Game On!
P.S. I read and respond to every email, so send questions, feedback, or criticisms my way. And a big thank-you to our Patreon subscribers ❤️
