Blame Google, that's what it costs to use their api. Once upon a time geoguessr was free but Google and their infinite money took it away from the few people who even played the game back then
Haven't looked into this but if steam is the exact same game as the web version then it's worth the subscription fee. In fact geoguessr and tidal are the only two subscription services I pay for. Studying the map makes you way smarter
Geoguesser is way too proud of their product to be charging money for it.
I've been starting to use Geostatic instead, it looks like a really nice alternative to Geoguesser, their economic model looks a lot nicer.
I had to look way too hard just to figure out what the fuck the monetization scheme is on that article that kept repeating the headline 3 times, holy shit
I think it was obvious that it was never going to be a free game again. The problem is making it look like it's free to play and then hitting the player with a paywall after a few games. Also, the subscription model is shitty. I would readily put down a onetime payment for something that works as least as good as the web version, which is a lot more polished than the free alternatives I've seen. But I refuse to buy into this subscription model.
You can thank Google for that - they are charging for every API call. A one time payment would either have to be ridiculously high, or it could ruin GeoGuessr.
Players can only access the lowest rank of competitive gameplay for free, and access to any higher levels costs a subscription fee of $2.50 a month. That's right, you'll need a subscription to play GeoGuessr on Steam, for some reason.
Not only is this price point bizarre for a game that you can literally just hop into similar browser versions and play for free, but [...]
GeoGuessr has required a subscription to actually play for a while now. I think they had a very limited Free tier until 2024, but it was not a great experience. The developers claim that they need to charge a subscription fee because they need to pay Google for the Streetview API access. To me, that seems plausible and would justify a subscription model (as opposed to a one-time purchase).
On the other hand, OpenGuessr seems to be a free alternative that offers a very similar game. That certainly seems like a better alternative if it's sustainable.
Geotastic is another great alternative that is funded by donations and ads (which you can remove by donating once)
They also show you how much API calls cost you incurred, which is nice. That way I know how much of my donation only offsets what I use and how much I actually donate to development
I understand the subscription model is required since every player is bound to cost them money for every round, but apparently even if you're already subscribed to GeoGuessr you have to pay again for the Steam version which is absurd to me.
Yeah, that seems quite weird and not customer friendly at all. I was wondering if it has something to do with Steam's in-game purchase conditions (mostly the fee).
I'm not sure if it's just because Ubisoft has a special contract but for Trackmania I'm able to pay the subscription either through Ubisoft directly or through Steam.
The steam version of trackmania is quite weird - I looked for a way to pay for it through steam for a while before resignedly going into the Ubisoft payment in the overlay... Only to be directed to steam for payment. I'm not sure if it's even possible to pay through Ubisoft when launching it from steam.
Yeah I enjoyed GeoGuessr and wishlisted it in Steam when it was announced. Got an email from Steam saying it was available and opened the store page to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews.
I've played OpenGuessr and it's pretty close to the same experience, I never do versus or anything, just a casual player. I did notice it tended to put me in the same countries quite often, like 8 instances of Brazil and 3 in the Philippines in 20 rounds, but still enjoyable.
A flat subscription fee is blameless.
Don't make it sound like they added $50 hats.
People, their service has material costs, and the fee is minuscule.
This is a completely above-board business model. This is not the bottomless pit of "microtransactions" that needs to become illegal. It's how you're supposed to fund a thing that costs money to run.
I'm assuming it has to do with paying for the Google map api calls. If that's what it is they should say so if that's not what it is they are scummy
i wonder if they could use one of the open alternatives
Playing a game like this involves a heavier server load compared to normal use, right? Would that incur a significant cost to said alternative? (I don't actually know how the magic box works.)
since its open i'm assuming you can download the data and host it yourself, freeing the regular public server not made for these requests. and that it would probably be cheaper than paying google for api calls.
don't quote me on any of that though, quite a bunch of assumptions off the top of my weary head. i'm not versed on the specifics of this magic box either and was hoping for someone who does to chime in.
I don't think there's a way to get the street view images that are needed. Those are owned by google.
shit yeah you are correct. i was thinking about just mapping.
in my defense i'm sleep deprived and stressed out.
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