I had no idee that so many people play FootMan 2015.

I'm off to work now, bye!

Ciao!

Top games by current player count
CURRENT PLAYERS PEAK TODAY GAME

550,897 819,583 Dota 2
135,067 398,728 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
37,513 61,796 Team Fortress 2
25,842 61,430 Football Manager 2015
18,905 37,741 Sid Meier's Civilization V
15,439 33,255 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
15,107 37,676 Garry's Mod
13,541 21,448 Warframe
12,498 31,522 Counter-Strike
11,504 17,952 H1Z1

That is taken from http://store.steampowered.com/stats which is from "Store -> Stats" inside the Steam client. It is updated more or less in realtime all the time, and the top 6 or 7 games listed are pretty much static ongoing without much variance at all. Occasionally during a big sales promo event some game on sale or a new release of something highly anticipated will skyrocket temporarily up to position 7 or maybe 6 for a day or two or a week or so, but then eventually things return to normal and the above listed games come back to being the top 7. Game 8 through 10 and lower fluctuate a bit more with sales promos and new releases and vary over time a slight bit more, but position 1-7 almost never change and when they do it is very brief before returning back to normal again.

I find it kind of freaky that certain games have that incredible impact on so many people to have multi-year staying power like that, it's really incredible. It especially blows my mind for a single player game to hold a high ranking position for a long time as replay value generally wanes over time in single player games. In that regard Skyrim is a bit of an exception, and it's highly likely that it is due to its rich modding community subculture also.

Anyhow, Steam stats are fun to peek at from time to time, enjoy. :)

Can somebody explain how does the freebie "system" works? Do I have to click on new title only after it shows or is it totaly random and I have a chance to get one even if there are two copies left?

Totally random, as it doesn't really make a difference when you click.

It is random. You just click on Buy Now - if you get it, you get it. No need to try more than once per game.

I have to go away for an hour or two. If Shadowrun Dragonfall appears I would appreciate it if somebody could get a code for me.

When I got my free game (Shadow Man), all I did was click on the buy button. I then got a message saying "critical hit" which meant that i didn't have to pay anything. All you need to do is to click the buy button on any game, Seasoned or Fresh, it doesn't matter how many copies are still left as long as it hasn't run out yet.

Keep in mind that sometimes how games are released isn't necessarily how they were intended, modding communities aren't under the same constraints as developers are so sometimes modding communities can make the games more like how they were intended.

Look at system shock 2 for example. In the vanilla game, the weapons are terribly imbalanced. There is no point in choosing any of the weapons other than "standard weapons" because you just didn't get any bang for your cybernetic modules for putting points in heavy, energy or exotic weapons. There are mods out there that deal with this issue. I can never play SS2 without mods again because I know there are mods with fix the broken parts.

Or Neverwinter Nights. The original campaigns for that game were terrible but user made modules can be much better. I can honestly say if you aren't thinking of mulitplayer or user modules, don't even consider purchasing Neverwinter Nights.

Thanks. It's the fourth day today and I can see no Nox, no sleep and no freebies. I would quote Cartman but I'm afraid I can get ban for that.

For anyone who has been following my camping/sojourn thread, plans changed due to recent infection and allergy. I'm still going, just delayed and to a different location :)

Hmm someone mentioned giveaways didn't they? I'll start with a few codes with trivia questions to clear a few Steam bundles I have before getting onto the "goog stuff" :P This game is pretty easy to play. Fill in the missing letter or number, denoted below, and enter the code in Steam. If you get the message 'duplicate code' then someone beat you to it! My suggestion is to pick a game you know and want first rather than start at the top, unless you know the answer to one instantly. I'll start with some fairly simple questions, that can easily be Google, before upping the challenge level to 9000!

Here's 10 Steam codes for 5 games to start with...Please post if you get one to help others, or don't :P I will assume all of these codes have been used. Some thorough people end up trying them all. I have no way to know if a code has been used with this lot.

A Valley Without Wind 1 and 2 Dual Pack

00QJ4-I8B??-YY07D

English plural pronoun, like us, them, they but not those. You and I are ??

00T99-NMVL7-E!!CY

!! = Internet abbreviation for "cry more", used particularly in MMORPGs and FPS gaming (from my experience).

AI War: Fleet Command

00BNY-2XPYB-@XN4F

@ = On a stereotypical treasure hunt, which letter marks the spot?

00EWI-7??78-CVKRW

?? = Abbreviation for 'high definition'

Bionic Dues

00**Z-MCQY4-C0PZ3

If you've been following my camping/sojourn thread, I just had to cancel my **ight

00TR7-DP9TV-E8C%%

The %% department typically deals with employee management in larger companies.

Skyward Collapse

00??G-3320K-EC62N

?? is in the title. Yes I love chess :)

028FP-6W6C9-4D9##

4x9=##

Volt

00B9L-KI4??-JX3NF

Press the ?? key to reload a web page.

00^^^-YQH0Z-VABMZ

The name of the game is in this code. It is ^o^^

Enjoy, more codes to come during slow periods or when I need to keep myself entertained :)

For people hesitating to buy Xenonauts : for me it's a game I love. I was reluctant to buy it at the beginning (I tried a too early alpha version, and it wasn't... very convincing at this time). But I heard a lot of good of it after and bought it because I wanted a good X-com like and I was really, really impressed by the game : it's very good, well balanced and finished. There is mods too who adds maps and new things (especially the "Community Edition" mod). A lot of thing have been fixed and improved with the succession of patchs. The later branch (1.5) will be the last, and is implementing a lot of (the good) things from Community Edition mod. But there's still bufixes (we're actually waiting for the 1.57 version).

I only tried quickly the first X-Com so I can't compare. But I played one or two dozen of hours into "X-Com Ennemy Within" and this one was frustrating for a lot of things (for me) and I didn't finished to play it : too small teams (with death punishing choices : it's not really a good combination), gameplay choices (movement/shot system with is good but badly used, the way aliens appears on the maps and are triggered, no real gestion of the base...). So I wasn't relly convinced by it.
Xenonauts was the contrary : big teams but not too big, a real gestion and strategy for bases like the old Xcom, an easy to use interface (Ennem, nice visuals, very good atmosphere (it takes place in the 70's-80's). It's what I was expecting, and I have the feeling it's like the old but modernized (so not exactly the same, but not necessarly in a bad way).

This game is good, well thought, well balanced, pretty (I love visuals), and really pleasant to play (and very addictiing).
I advice to buy at this price ! Especially if you like the old X-Com, Jagged Alliance 1&2 and S2 Silent Storm.

Or think of GTA SA. Sorry^^

But it's true, nobody should dismiss a game because it can be modified. Everybody should be grateful for every game that comes out which you still can mod.

There are so many games out there that allow you to be creative, and if it is easily moddable it keeps being interesting for years and years and years.

E.g. Sim City 4 is still the best city builder game ever released, and its community is as astrong as ever because of mods.

Edit:
I just had to mention Fallout 2. It's 17 years old and is still getting modded and patched, last patch came out not long ago.

Yeah, Nox sold pretty fast in both of its appearances so unless you were watching the promo page like a hawk it was easy to miss. There is still a chance to get it when it shows up for Round 3, hopefully this time there will be more copies so folks wanting it can finally get it. As for freebies I know the feeling as in the previous promos I never got a single one either but this time I managed to get two by some miracle, although both of the games aren't really what I hoped for.