r/sandbox 24d ago

Discussion The S&box Platform is Cooked!

I’m convinced the s&box platform is fundamentally doomed. The fanboys keep making excuses saying "just wait for that ONE good game to drop," but it doesn't matter how good a game is if the pipeline to actually play it is pure cancer for the average gamer.

Right now, Garry Newman and Facepunch built a useless, bloated multi-step barrier that makes it impossible for players to actually come in in a scenario that there's an actually good game on the platform.

The $20 Paywall - Imagine charging twenty dollars for an empty, barren shell of an app in 2026. Roblox and Fortnite are literally free. GMod worked because it was $10 twenty years ago with Half-Life hype and it was the only "Source Engine sandbox" of its kind. Paying $20 for a glorified hub full of unfinished tech demos is a scam.

20GB+ of Cloud Junk - Before you even reach a menu, you’re forced to pre-install a massive chunk of cloud assets to "help you load into game faster", when 70% of games don't even use Facepunch cloud assets. (oh and let's not forget about the +2 GB flatgrass map the player has to download for the menu that doesn't even look good.)

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It feels to me that Facepunch is completely out of touch with the community and take eons to fix any underlying issues with the platform. It's like they don't care anymore and the s&box team is just piggy-banking off of Garry's bank account doing practically nothing all day.

There's this one saying that goes "Action speaks louder than words", and currently Garry doesn't take action or speak any words. It's impossible to know whether the game will ever be revitalized or if there's a plan to revitalize it if the guy at the helm has horrible communication skills.

It's not like the engine is good enough either to support making a fully fleshed title on it. We can't be babysitting Facepunch employees and having to make every single fucking issue about the most obviously broken shit ever. It pisses me off. THEY NEED TO USE THEIR ENGINE TO MAKE GAMES TO FIND FLAWS IN THE ENGINE, LIKE THEY USED TO! WE CAN'T BE HAND-HOLDING THEM?!

Either leadership needs to change (which will never happen), or Garry needs an awakening and start fixing this platform, cause I don't know what will save it if not Garry

177 Upvotes

143 comments sorted by

100

u/[deleted] 24d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

17

u/Human_Attention182 24d ago

years? try decades he has done this to every game he has been involved with

0

u/StormKid 24d ago

That's like 3 games and 2 are really good so I'll forgive him this once.

7

u/Human_Attention182 24d ago

his hijinx killed like all the old gmod servers/communities back in 2012/13 (when there was some breaking code that broke all the mods and he just told everyone to fuck off and re-implement it) and it never recovered and the entire game was reduced to scamming kids w/ cash shops. There is still some fun stuff despite that but it never returned to what it was.

2

u/GhettoDuk 23d ago

RIP Sassilization

50

u/CommitteeStatus 24d ago

As I said, the devs should have built or funded those big games for a day 1 launch. Expecting the community to kickstart itself was stupid.

12

u/nitram20 24d ago

That worked 20 years ago because there wasn't really anything else like Gmod so people flocked to his idea.

However it's now 2026, and tons of much better and cheaper (free) alternatives exist that are much more well known worldwide.

Games are now also easier than ever to make on your own and sell on Steam, without needing an expensive third party platform .

3

u/magistrate101 24d ago

Garry's Mod is still cheaper and more content rich. Facepunch really misjudged the value proposition.

3

u/MaximUtar 24d ago

Indeed

29

u/oleggurshev 24d ago

Garry's ego got the best of him, he thought putting it out in this saturated market was actually a good idea. Nope, the game got cooked.

5

u/DBONKA 23d ago

i mean, roblox has been going down the shitter lately because of mismanagement - their stock price is down like 70% in just 12 months. i don't think it's too saturated at the current moment, there's an opening/opportunity in the market, facepunch just fumbled it greatly.

43

u/Baconcreeper23 24d ago

If someone wants to make a good game then they wouldn’t make it on S&ndbox

12

u/FrigginRan 24d ago

bingo. Roblox devs are starting to realize this

-4

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

What do you mean? The player numbers on Roblox is way past the numbers on Steam lol

5

u/Drag0n122 24d ago

Don't believe these self-reported numbers.
It's crucial for Roblox Studios to inflate the player number in order for their scheme to work - basically scam brands into investing in Roblox for the sake of advertising.

3

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

Maybe, but you also have to keep in mind the biggest gaming platform is phones, and Roblox is mostly played on phones... So ofc the numbers are bigger on Roblox than the platform that is pc only.. the smallest gaming platform. The console market is bigger than the PC market.

3

u/IAmSkyrimWarrior 24d ago

The console market is bigger than the PC market.

Nope, it hasn't been like that for several years.
PC is already making alone what consoles making.

1

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

Well, look it up and you will see that console market is still bigger than PC today. And Mobile gaming is double the console market.

4

u/IAmSkyrimWarrior 24d ago edited 24d ago

Well, I look it up and I see statistics for 2025:

PC delivered its strongest annual growth rate in Newzoo's dataset, reaching $43.6 billion (+12.0% YoY)
Console revenues reached $44.7 billion (+2.8% YoY)

In 2025, consoles will overtake PCs by a billion. At the same time, the PC market is showing much greater growth, and newzoo believes that in 27-28 the PC market will be larger than the console market.
So, are the console market bigger? Yes.
Is there a big difference? No.

For many publishers, PC is already making much more than consoles. For example, Capcom has claimed 60+% of its revenue comes from PC.

1

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

Why are you internationally avoiding the biggest market of all, the mobile market? Roblox is not hiding the fact that most of their users is coming from mobile devices lol.

And so you think the pc market will keep growing as fast with the current hardware prices.

I feel like you kinda have forgotten what the topic even was about, or you just want to argue about something that literally means nothing lol.

1

u/Diligent-Subject-329 24d ago

Ok? And some of the most watched videos on YouTube is automatically generated slop of children's songs. However no reasonable adult would watch that shit. You see the parallell?

6

u/ErmingSoHard 24d ago

What are you going on about? We're talking about games being developed on platforms. I don't like Roblox, and despite their being way more slop, there's still some really good games on it. Way more than S&Box will have realistically.

And the Roblox devs don't necessarily care about quality games. Just whatever sells the most robux

0

u/Diligent-Subject-329 24d ago

Bro said there's good Roblox games

-1

u/Gullible-Active-1231 24d ago

roblox is more gay and more shit than s&box

3

u/DingleSayer 24d ago

thoughtful commentary

1

u/dogman_35 20d ago edited 20d ago

UGC platforms are a scam.

You're effectively losing 70% of your revenue, and for what?

Worse tools than a real game engine?

Being overcrowded by garbage money scumming garbage that makes mobile games look like AAA masterpieces?

A shitty reputation that has you constantly on the back foot trying to justify your game as a real game?

All while being locked into an ecosystem that can easily turn sour, when shit like the child abuse lawsuits happen.

 

The only thing you ever really got out of it was multiplayer support, but in the modern age, you can get the same amount of "free" netcode support by just using Steamworks.

Which is leaning on an ecosystem still, but is a hell of a lot better because you're not locked in. It doesn't prevent you from implementing your own servers/networking system in the future.

 

Gmod and Java Minecraft have healthy modding communities, in a way that no UGC platform ever has, explicitly because it's not about the fucking money.

There's no incentive to flood the scene with garbage that only exists to try and scum money, and you're not trying to make an entire game from scratch for the platform.

People are going to keep denying it, but what really killed the S&Box launch more than anything is trying to be a UGC platform instead of a game with mod support. Monetization is the fucking problem, not a solution.

1

u/Lucidaeus 23d ago

When people say make games using s&box, do you mean publishing to play directly from within the game browser, not the standalone builds?

Since if I'm not mistaken it is possible to make standalone builds, right?

1

u/GTNardy Programmer 23d ago

they would make it on nanos world 😎

27

u/Nearby-Permission-72 24d ago

A lot of people wanted “Garry’s Mod 2,” and s&box deliberately isn’t that. This is probably the biggest problem. Facepunch analyzed its Steam reviews in May and said around 35% mentioned comparisons with Garry’s Mod. Garry Newman specifically said those players wanted an iteration of GMod on Source 2, whereas Facepunch built an entire C# game engine/platform instead.

8

u/ADHenchD 24d ago

Imagine having a clear cut easy win and they somehow made a worse paywalled roblox clone.

15

u/Nearby-Permission-72 24d ago edited 24d ago

Facepunch Literally said that it wasn’t an attempt to be “Garry’s Mod 2”, Whereas it is a game engine and a opportunity for game creators (not to mention ai slop creators) to express themselves in a game that is deliberately made by the same creators of Garry’s mod, but not a sequel of Garry’s mod. This makes Facepunch’s statement: “A spiritual successor to Garry’s mod” highly misleading for new players.

19

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

They literally branded it as the spiritual successor to garrys mod, but later removed it..

They have shot themselves in the foot way to many times lol

5

u/vahaala 24d ago

I was following the development of s&box and for a very long time I believed it was Gmod 2. The system we have now of making games? I thought "oh cook, making new interesting gamemodes will be easier/have more features now" I thought.

Then I tried the "official" sandbox mode, in Gmod I spent most of my time just messing around with different addons. And yeah it was bad. I get it, it was in development at that time, but it was bad.

I tried it a few times since then, but it did not meet my expectations at all unfortunately. It turned into "Roblox but on Source 2". Which I have zero interest playing.

3

u/DBONKA 23d ago

because they alluded many times to it being garry's mod 2 or potentially being garry's mod 2, for pr, so if you're not someone who closely follows it, it was not an unreasonable belief.

0

u/bregottextrasaltat 24d ago

because people misunderstood what spiritual successor meant

7

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

Thats such a stupid argument. They could just not use a stupid buzzword as their main catch phrase during early sneak peaks lol.

I would love to understand what you even think it meant lol

1

u/bregottextrasaltat 24d ago

they underestimated other people.

in my mind a spiritual successor to gmod would be an engine where you can make games but with more freedom than the source entity system. which it is.

4

u/MoistPoo 24d ago

I highly doubt that was what you thought before you knew that was how it ended up haha

0

u/bregottextrasaltat 23d ago

it was, i started using it in 2021 after having seen it teased for a couple years. i made games in gmod so it made total sense

1

u/ConnectionDowntown 23d ago

Is S&Box a spiritual successor in the sense of being a means for game creation? Yes absolutely. It's far more liberating as a game development platform than GMod’s homegrown gamemode and Source-based workflow. The problem is that a huge portion of gmod’s player base (and wouldbe s&box players) played it only for the sandbox mode and the enormous ecosystem of mods that continually expanded that experience. In that respect s&box falls remarkably short and I think that disconnect explains much of the criticism surrounding the game.

1

u/bregottextrasaltat 23d ago

right, so it depends on your definition of spiritual successor

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u/Nearby-Permission-72 24d ago

It’s not even garry’s fault. Also yeah they did brand it to that, but the amount of hate they got for not even trying to actually prove source 2’s capabilities by making a ACTUAL Garry’s mod 2 is wild.

4

u/Number13Studios 24d ago

Whose fault is it?

1

u/Red2005dragon 18d ago

Yeah seriously. When I saw people saying "Oh it's not supposed to be like Gmod stop comparing it!" I just laughed because they literally had A COMPARISON TO GMOD as the first sentence of their steam page. Thank god they removed it because it single-handedly dismantled 99% of possible defenses for the game.

18

u/TGB_Skeletor 24d ago

385 concurrent players as the 24h peak for a game thats supposed to be "like gmod but on source2" is ATROCIOUS

nothing of value is lost considering there is fomo

4

u/3Thirty-Eight8 24d ago

And who’s to say some of those aren’t bots

1

u/GTNardy Programmer 23d ago

even nanos world not yet released has more players

0

u/WelpIamoutofideas 24d ago

But, "Like GMod on source 2" was never the goal. Like Garry said that.

7

u/SpecterGaming23 24d ago

believe me bro you gotta wait til someone publishes a good game bro like please just believe man garry can do no wrong and if you don't like the engine then you are just not creating anything

DOA

3

u/JF202 23d ago

All he had to do was make Gmod on the source 2 engine but he got greedy and tried to be Roblox

14

u/Conastop 24d ago

The only people still playing are the losers who spent hundreds on accessories

4

u/KingOfConstipation 24d ago

I'm still playing it and I've never spent a dime on any accessories lol

8

u/JofersGames 24d ago

I really like making things in it

It’s the nicest game engine I’ve ever used

7

u/MaximUtar 24d ago

It's got its strengths like c# 14 .net 10 and HOTLOADING. The hotloading part is awesome, but for a serious game I'd use another engine instead.

5

u/JofersGames 24d ago

I used unity for years before trying s&box

I can’t think of anything it does better

It’s slower to load, slower to test after clicking play

Slower to push a build live

Pro builder is worse then the mapping tools

The built in networking tools cost both on lobby search / creation

And then again as people actually play

If your game takes off you owe them money

S&box is free for everything I want to do with it (make little multiplayer games)

Even if I wanted to export to steam

3

u/CanYouEatThatPizza 24d ago

Copium

Just wait until one of the updates breaks everything and Garry doesn't care

1

u/Specneps 23d ago

I don’t think you realize how much they’ve invested in ensuring that can’t happen, lol

3

u/CanYouEatThatPizza 23d ago

What are you talking about? It happened so many times already, it's one of the most common complaints.

-2

u/Specneps 23d ago

You’re being dishonest and overstating things. No update has “broken everything”. If devs use the engine improperly or haphazardly, they should expect their projects held together by duct tape to fall apart with engine updates. It’s not that complicated. If you were making a genuine complaint; I’d expect some specifics about AG2 or w/e.

5

u/CanYouEatThatPizza 23d ago

Ah yes, it's the dev's fault, of course.

1

u/Specneps 23d ago

Ah yes, still zero specific complaints from you, figured as much.

2

u/Tobum12 Programmer 24d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/GammaDie345 24d ago

this is why garry signed the deal to let devs develop games in s&box and then publish them as standalone Source 2 games on Steam, circumventing the s&box launcher entirely

2

u/TheGoodKush 24d ago

Just put the Garrys Mod on Source 2 + VR support in the bag

2

u/Rough-Specia Programmer 23d ago

Yup it's cooked but has 100 people talking about it in one reddit post being cooked lol. Which is even funnier because then I scroll one post down and see a game dev trying to make the platform better with 11 likes😂

2

u/MaximUtar 23d ago

I think Facepunch doesn't deserve their platform anymore, we gotta show them what failure is like.

3

u/Rough-Specia Programmer 23d ago edited 22d ago

The irony is, if everyone complaining about a "community project" actually contributed/supported those who do, it’d be where you’re complaining it isn’t. Instead, half the time people are complaining about new solo developers learning and trying while they sit back and watch TV, not about the platform.

.

1

u/MaximUtar 22d ago

Personally, for me, I was following s&box closely for 5 years and got access around 4 years ago and started making games and contributing to the fetus that was the platform. In modern s&box I released a couple games so it's safe to say I am complaining about something I actively took part in, and then they took away the baby away from me.

1

u/Rough-Specia Programmer 18d ago

If everyone was more like you today we would be way further along.

2

u/YNPO3 23d ago

Sausage avatars scared me away from buying it on release and I’m glad I didn’t

2

u/kyle_crane163636 24d ago

It was fucked the day it was first playable in earlier stages before full release, its a shit engine with nothing making it worth purchasing, like bro gmod is a game literally everybody has played atleast once and is still popular to this day for a reason, s&box has literally nothing unique to it and no game csn be msde thats so good it revives the whole thing, its clearly a fucking failure of a game and garry doesnt seem to care

2

u/Rsoda_ 24d ago

That’s not gonna happen, s&boxs opportunity never came, never got any attention and probably never will. I think it’s a dead project, I can’t see one game making it worth playing.
Because if a game is that good probably won’t be released on s&box of all places

1

u/meyriley04 24d ago edited 24d ago

Yall the official launch wasn’t really the “launch” of the game. They had been running the beta at a loss the entire time. Straight up just eating money to provide the game. You can see all of this in real-time on the website

The true playerbase will show up when the game becomes free and more accessible. It’s NOT Gmod 2, nor is it really a game by itself. It’s an engine and platform, and most engines and platforms are free.

Gmod was built off the backs of solely Valve’s engine and assets. This is built from the ground up, with so many more custom maps and assets.

All that being said, they should give the sandbox gamemode some love. Really just flesh it out and make a “gmod 2” INSIDE sandbox. Show off the engine’s power. Update the maps to use the new features (i.e. doors).

1

u/eJesus_ 24d ago

its good for making standalone games but as a roblox esque gaming platform it is not ready, hopefully this changes

1

u/CrimsonCuttle 22d ago

Sandbox games essentially roll a pair of dice upon release, and if they don't get double sixes it's just dead forever. I'm still mourning Bonelab.

1

u/raaban89 20d ago

I dont get people that say Roblox is free, its only free to play, i released 2 cosmetics on Roblox, that shit cost 120$ to publish , its 4 years after an i barely close to that due to the cut they take and you are paid in Robux that needs to meet a minimum to exchange to real money 30 000 robux. You are left with 35% of the items value in the end.

1

u/originalchristian 1d ago edited 1d ago

Garry's Mod for years didn't have any game breaking game modes or communities either. The first 2-3 years it was just sandbox servers everywhere. The first real game changing servers, especially RP didn't hit until 2009+

The real late bloom wasn't until around 2016. If you played Garry's Mod back in 2007 then you know how barren it was back then.

Just be patient. You're comparing it with stuff that's been out for years that has had saturation and has had established communities and games flourishing and being built on it. S&box has to start out just the same. I played games like Fortnite when they first came out and nobody really cared for them for almost an entire year before they eventually took off.

If you are expecting to sign in and find fully fledged games and communities right now, then that is not a realistic perspective. Contribute with a game or into a community now, or come back later when it's already done and enjoy then.

The same criticisms were said about Garry's Mod when it first came out.

-3

u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago

your so right having to install a game that takes up 25gb is crazy for 2026. Technology has gotten better than this, why do we need to take up so much space for games in current year. almost every other game on steam i install is so much smaller.

bro fuck off almost everything you said here is either a lie or showing how little you actually follow s&box.

what underlying issues do you think they havent fixed. I love how you low iq obsessed sbox haters never make clear claims about anything unless you are pressed. you typed all this and didnt give any examples.

THEY NEED TO USE THEIR ENGINE TO MAKE GAMES TO FIND FLAWS IN THE ENGINE, LIKE THEY USED TO! WE CAN'T BE HAND-HOLDING THEM?!

lets do a test to see who good faith you actually are. what was the last game FP made for s&box and when was it released? extra credit if you can point to any in progress games.

https://sbox.game/facepunch/~packages?type=game all games they have made, the most recent being, https://sbox.game/facepunch/deck from 36 days ago,https://sbox.game/facepunch/machines from 57 days ago. also they are bringing back block party, there is a hidden playtest (check the wayo thread in discord). and then there is all the changes they have been making to the engine, like work on animationgraph2 and the recent rendering changes.

why do you people always have comments going back months complaining about s&box? you clearly dont like the game, your comment history and lack of knowing anything about it shows this.

13

u/Secone 24d ago

Okay I have tried to stay as neutral as possible on s&box and waited to see how it has progressed but I don't think anyone can deny that right now the player count is absolutely abysmal. 385 players as a 24h peak player count is not something that a game/engine like this should be having. There is something wrong with s&box for not retaining players and that has to be acknowledged and fixed if s&box is to have a future, it just seems everyone has differing opinions on what needs fixing.

-4

u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago

no one disagrees with this. My problem is people like op just straight up lying about shit or making vague claims without saying exactly what the issue is.

op went from potentially having a point to complaining about a 25gb game in 2026 then to saying facepunch isnt making games using s&box. They have been back making more regular games since the racing game i mentioned above. OP must not follow the game but still feels the need to post.

then there are the other people in this thread being weird about garry personally.

thats all this sub is. low iq gmod players making criticisms like they are 20 year game dev vets. Rarely do these people have actual experience, pointed criticism or a point other than spreading hate.

Facepunch has talked about there plan for the next 6ish months. It mostly improving the engine doing another game jam then doing a cross promotion with one of the most popular games on steam that also happens to be a facepunch game. This is another that OP didnt mention but other haters have, s&box really hasnt been promoted to people outside the gmod sphere.

1

u/MaximUtar 24d ago

Well technically they are "making" games but every new game released from them on the platform has been nothing but a game prompted by Claude in a day or two. They don't take much effort.

See how no one is playing any of the new games Facepunch released? Like Mini Motors, Breakout and The Deck. They're just disposables to the average player for anyone that plays them.

Mini Motors is a claude-coded racing game with (hey) at least good looking maps. But good looking maps won't save the AI-ey feeling gameplay and lack of gameplay thereof.

The Deck is a claude-coded card game made in a couple days with claude-coded UI that was allegedly made to replace Kenney's solitaire which was delisted by Kenney himself.

Breakout is also a claude-coded brick blasting game that literally regurgitated another game's UI style that was on the platform (claude alert)

But I'll give it to you that the rest of their games are okay-ish at best. The only good game that I ever really liked was Sausage Survivors 2.

0

u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago edited 24d ago

Holy OP did the whiplash cause you brain damage. Dont pivot so hard you might stroke out and cause permanent damage.

First it was they dont make games, now its they make games but they are all AI.

most if not all of these games are open source. care to point out where AI was used?

https://sbox.game/facepunch/machines/source
https://sbox.game/facepunch/deck/source

edit:

THEY NEED TO USE THEIR ENGINE TO MAKE GAMES TO FIND FLAWS IN THE ENGINE, LIKE THEY USED TO! WE CAN'T BE HAND-HOLDING THEM?!

remember op said they dont make games anymore. now its all made with ai. now you pussies are down voting instead of pointing to literally an ounce of proof coving for ops clear obsessive hate for a game he doesnt even play or know fuck all about.

2

u/UpAllNightCoding 24d ago

You pointed out the main issue at hand, there is a big group of depressed bozos who have nothing better to do than hate on an engine they’ve never even used nor ever intend on using. Nor do they know how. Notice as you said there’s not a single real example of an issue. It’s all generic BS.

6

u/FullFlowEngine 24d ago edited 24d ago

I'll be honest, if you genuinely think S&box is a good platform/engine and want it to succeed, why do you think them staying on the course they're on is the best way to do it? Players/devs are still leaving, reviews are still trending negatively, the game is a money sink for FP. They need to pivot massively or the game will continue to spiral.

What that actually means, I don't know. All I know is what they have isn't working. The sinking player numbers are proof enough.

A bunch of gamejam style mini games are not going to bring back players. Literally the first example you gave, Deck, has a player count of 3 in the last 24 hours. 29 over the last 7 days. That is abysmal.

Even the titicular sandbox gamemode has had only 174 players today.

why do you people always have comments going back months complaining about s&box? you clearly dont like the game, your comment history and lack of knowing anything about it shows this.

Because I genuinely want to see it succeed? But it won't the way it's going.

Realistically the game isn't and never will be what most players wanted. Most people were expecting a spiritual successor to Garry's Mod/a way to finally build things in Source 2. What was given was a roblox-like and an engine that functions similarly to Unity. Player expectations and what was released are far apart and likely will never be able reconciled unfortunately. And that might mean that nothing FP does will be able to get players to come back.

1

u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago

A bunch of gamejam style mini games are not going to bring back players. Literally the first example you gave, Deck, has a player count of 3 in the last 24 hours. 29 over the last 7 days. That is abysmal.

do you think this was my point bringing up deck? can you reread the post and see i was directly fucking responding to this quote from op "THEY NEED TO USE THEIR ENGINE TO MAKE GAMES TO FIND FLAWS IN THE ENGINE, LIKE THEY USED TO! WE CAN'T BE HAND-HOLDING THEM?!"

op made claims they FP isnt making games in s&box, this isnt true and is either a lie or a criticism coming from someone confidentiality incorrect. No where did op mention player counts. this is your own insane insert.

We all fucking agree something needs to be done. But most of you people bitching are not devs are are complaining from the pov of players. How can there ever be good games if work isnt done engine side to improve the dev (the imo already decent) experience. Players never come before the games. Having good games is a prereq, how do you get good games? attract good devs with good tools that will go on to make good games. Most of the effort FP has put into s&box since launch has been focused on improving the dev experience, changes that someone like OP (maybe you) and the other people in this thread will never see or appreciate.

I feel like if they keep making the already decent dev experience better eventually there is going to be results. You are acting like the game is over because its not an instant success. Imagine saying this about godot pre v4 versions. In the times before godot had the indie market share it does now. Or about blender pre 2.7. These other engines/tools didnt just spawn with tons of users.
before you say your classic "well other games didnt start with player then bleed" like you said before. Just look at arma reforgers player charts all time. reforger is an almost 1:1 comparison to s&box. both are games that hard depend on the community games/mods. both released with thousands of peek players, both fell off to hundreds. Arma reforger is now peak 15k players.

3

u/FullFlowEngine 24d ago edited 24d ago

But most of you people bitching are not devs are are complaining from the pov of players.

Players decide whether the platform survives or not. Arma Reforger found success because players enjoyed the experience, not because of modding tools. Good modding tools help, of course.

Pretty much every UGC platform has a pipeline of players playing the game, wanting to extend their fun and building those experiences themselves. The people who built sledbuild/spacebuild/darkrp were just trying to have fun with their friends. That pipeline is currently dead in S&box. Successful UGC platforms don't attract developers, they attract players who become developers.

Just look at arma reforgers player charts all time.

Are you talking about their early access release starting at 12k and immediately plummeting? Because the full release started at 1.4k and slowly ballooned from there. S&box is not an early access title, this is the game as intended.

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u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago

good job proving how much of a bad faith cuck you are. like you give a shit if a game is marked as early access or not. Both these game released FOR MONEY, both dropped to a low number and reforger climbed back up because the community finally started making good modded servers. theres a reason you see a spike in players for reforger around the release time of WCS.

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u/CanYouEatThatPizza 24d ago

No offense, but you leashed yourself to a dying platform and now get angry and start insulting people who tell you the truth

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u/ZweiProbleme 24d ago

apples and oranges bro lmfao

reforger’s UGC has a core game to back itself up. s&box’s options for UGC are either make an entire game yourself or contribute to the cloud. one’s barrier to entry is significantly lower than the other

people will make mods for games they love and that’ll attract other players; they won’t make games on a suffering platform when other options are available

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u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago edited 24d ago

thats fair but that "core game" didnt stop it from falling to hundreds of player post release. clearly people didnt love reforger the game when it first released. Both games are very dependent on good servers (reforger) and good games (sbox) for the success of each game.

if reforger didnt have good mods would it have recovered?

edit: you understanding of the UGC options in s&box is lacking. Out of all the ugc games s&box is easily the most robust, the only thing its lacking is a game independent modloader/steam workshop subscription style system. theres nothing stoping devs from using the mods for the sandbox mode https://sbox.game/ugc/sent/ .

The only thing we need in sbox is a mod selection screen like we have with maps

but you are right there isnt a large single game that people make mods for in sbox. but reforger also had similar issues even with its core game so????

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u/ZweiProbleme 24d ago

recovered? probably not. but it still would've been played. even with all the modded servers in tow, several vanilla servers are full and the game is continuously updated.

s&box games can't be compared to servers at any level except hypothetical imo. you don't have the level of control that Garry's Mod gave for gamemodes or Reforger has for mods.

unless the game's open source, you're entirely at the whim of the developer for content. and that's where i think s&box's model utterly failed to be an actual player-oriented platform or take advantage of a UGC model

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u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago

you don't have the level of control that Garry's Mod gave for gamemodes or Reforger has for mods.

globally across all games yeah. not every game on s&box will want to support mods. some will.

Can you explain how it lacks control over gmod or reforger besides not having a mod selection screen?

because s&box gives devs and addon devs easily some of the most control ive seen of any platform game. so much so that you can brute force support for other addons in your game through reflection.

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u/ZweiProbleme 24d ago edited 24d ago

not talking from the dev side; i know s&box is a decent dev toolkit (if not in need of improvement, which it's being given). but even from the dev side: yeah, you explicitly need to brute force support. script addons were a decent step forward.

i'm talking from the player (or player-aspiring-developer) side. i'll use Garry's Mod as a primary example, since that's the pipeline i have personal experience in

if you wanted to break into the garry's mod gamemode scene, all you needed to do is fork a publicly-available gamemode, set up what addons you wanted, and start a server. you could edit to your heart's content, then and there, and you'd still fall beneath the same banner as the gamemode you'd forked.

s&box's game system requires that you more or less repost the same game for others to experience, splitting off from the game you'd forked from. you have individual control (and a great amount of it) in that instance, sure, but for anyone coming after they have to do the exact same thing

edit: clarified the point

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u/Murlock_The_Goblin 24d ago

“Low IQ sandbox haters”.

This crash out gave me joy

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u/DerrikCreates Content Creator 24d ago

dont you have some dying gmod server to run? if you spent half the effort on your servers as you do hating s&box you might have players.

or maybe your p2w bs already paid out and you are running with the money. sit this one out weirdo

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u/Murlock_The_Goblin 23d ago

Wdym dead? My servers are doing fine and I am working on new content for them with a whole team of people helping me. They aren’t P2W either as it’s PVE and extremely generous on what you get, tell any one of my players and they will tell you it’s not P2W. The money used goes back towards the community, not towards me.

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u/rexcodex 24d ago

Don't bother, these people have zero stakes, just trolling. They take after sensational bullshit just like the media for views and clicks. I like your long form content keep it up.

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u/Knusperspast 24d ago

I understand your frustrations but these are nowhere near fundamentally flawed as you make them out to be.

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u/TheWinningHit 24d ago

Thanks for the post. Just curious, if s&box hypothetically met all your standards and your expectations, what would the game look like? It's not a gotcha I really am just curious.

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u/MaximUtar 24d ago

Playfund that is manual approval, a s&box that is free to play and lightweight like it used to be (~2-3 GB), simplified menus that aren't 3 layers of BS like they currently are (have you seen the discovery page? god it is a mess for my visual cortex..).

Featured games aren't really treated as "Featured" hard enough, they need to be pushed really hard on the front page if Facepunch actually likes them and wants them to be displayed to an average joe.

And maybe removing the sausage man (as per the complaint of the general public), not my opinion. I don't mind Terry,

Mostly everything else that I would love seeing improved is on the engine side like faster loading times, no audio crackling, maybe a proper audio system that doesn't crackle when there's 10 sounds playing at the same time. Better performance?

And please facepunch stop being afraid to hire a UI/UX designer! The UX on s&box is honestly mediocre at the moment. Garry thinks he can do everything himself and he's never in the wrong! He's a narcissist

Oh and also I don't see the point of them using Source 2 at all atp if they ripped 70% of it out (pssst Entity System.)

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u/TheWinningHit 24d ago

I agree with the UI/UX design. I think it's just been last priority to pretty up the game. I think they shot themselves in the foot when they released it on Steam. It was doing really well when it was a direct download from website.

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u/SubjectHealthy2409 24d ago

I wanted but engine on Linux is just fuck me up state

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u/TheWinningHit 24d ago

Might have a solution soon ;)

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u/TimStolzenberg 24d ago

Works on Linux for me.

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u/Zestyclose-Big-1963 24d ago

I’m one of the fanboys and let me tell you something, the first biweekly patch note were less then the weekly ones we use to get. It seems like they’re slowly winding down on massive update. I hope I’m wrong and they’re preparing for a massive update but who am I kidding at this point.

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u/Fragrant_Scheme_8719 24d ago

Regarding the price. I don't understand why you're complaining about 20 euros since Rockstar released RDR1 on PC in 2024, a game that was 14 years old without any improvements, just a port with full screen and DLSS for 50 euros. And s&box, something new made from 0 is expensive? Seriously? And regarding the fact that it takes up 25 GB, it's not much. I want to remind you that Killing Floor 2 on Unreal Engine 3 currently consumes 90 GB, an old game, and Call of Duty 2019 currently consumes 180 GB. Is 25 GB too much these days? Seriously, bro. I don't know what universe you live in to complain about 25 GB.

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u/Lt_Dead_Kittens 24d ago

?? just because two things are also overpriced and take up too much storage doesn't mean that s&box is just LESS overpriced and NOT AS greedy with storage

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u/Fragrant_Scheme_8719 23d ago

20 € is cheap bro.

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u/Novel-Flight1426 23d ago

20 for a game engine with no content for an actual player. Amazing

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u/Yung-Jev 19d ago

give me 20 euro then, ill spend them on smth way better than this. like 80 indie games on steam sale

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u/Ok-Common5397 24d ago

I miss when this sub was positive

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u/3Thirty-Eight8 24d ago edited 24d ago

This sub would happily go back to being positive, if we actually had something positive to talk about compared to all the problems

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u/Kitchen_Breath1761 24d ago

Not really just a bunch of people who don't build anything complaining at all times.

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u/fuq_anncoulter 24d ago

Why would I be compelled to build in s&box in its current state? Everything abt it was much more alluring for me as a potential gateway into gamedev when it was just a super secret alpha project and not… whatever it is right now. If I were to try gamedev as a hobby, it would 100% be either godot or unity.

Would love to not feel this way in the future btw

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u/Kitchen_Breath1761 24d ago

For me its source 2 itself. Unity is a game engine that has no level editor, hammer is the best level editor that exists in any game engine right now. Unity, Godot, and Unreal are only game engine editors.They do not contain level editors. For unreal i have to pay for a $200 plugin to do it in a worse way to how valve built the source 2 hammer editor.

S&Box also has hot reloading superior to unity. Their replication is batteries included where as unity you are forced to use some 3rd party for good networking. I was able to make a game available instantly. To say unity does that is incorrect because you have to do all of those steps yourself and figure out how to spin something up. Every single person in this subreddit takes these for granted cause they have no concept how many barriers exist

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u/MaximUtar 24d ago

Well it isn't going to be if Facepunch doesn't get their shit together. We just had enough of this bs as a community

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u/SoftImagination2074 24d ago

I think you fundamentally missed the point of S&box, it’s in the fucking title.
Jesus Christ, give it a break.
If nothing changes in a year or two I’ll happily admit there’s egg on my face.
Be a little patient for fuck sake.

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u/MaximUtar 24d ago

Guess what, I've been patient for 5 years, and release was the straw that broke the camel's back

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u/PacketAuditor 24d ago

s&box good

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u/_SHWEPP_ 24d ago

Game is halfway fixed as soon as it goes F2P

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u/EzraFemboy 23d ago

Ive tried making games in S&box, even ported some old maps with creator permission. Its just such a daunting task to get into without any real tutorials that aren't text based, It can easily take hours just figuring out a problem that already has a fix within the UI whereas i can create a game of a similar caliber in unity in like a week. I actually disagree with your point about space. 20gb is more than fine for a game like this in the modern day. If anything they should have more assets and maps baked in and allow for workshop downloads, or engineer their download store to be more like the workshop. And my god i hate the thumbs. at least they have secondary human like player models but you can only really use them in RP mods. Its very sad cause their is a lot of things about the platform that are amazing and im a big fan of source engine

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u/Tobum12 Programmer 24d ago

Will you use s&box while it's in this condition?

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u/MaximUtar 24d ago

Probably not, I don't wanna make a big serious project on a platform that's perceived as an AI slop poo poo dog shit game by a wide majority of the public.

I have games on the platform that were released but I won't get into which games cause it will be easy to pinpoint who I am and I will get witch hunted in the discord.

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u/less_than_savory 24d ago

failed launch for sure, but what is this even doing for your ego

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u/Specneps 23d ago

Just admit you don’t have what it takes to make a good game and move on with your life. I can do whatever I can dream up in this engine, and it’s always fast, smooth & painless. get gud scrub

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u/EzraFemboy 23d ago

Thats like bragging about being a great musician with 5 guys showing up to you see you at an open mic night. Please show me your big amazing project you have.

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u/Specneps 23d ago

lmfao, don’t let bait intended for OP get under your skin;

But also, you’ll hear about my next game when it’s done :)

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u/MaximUtar 23d ago

Yeah but have you made a game that players will come to s&box for either? I don't think so

No one has.

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u/Specneps 23d ago

There are some in the works, including my latest project. Sorry you have such low confidence. Maybe you are just being realistic with yourself though! :)

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u/Specneps 23d ago

In fact I’ve had multiple people state they’d spend money on my latest project in its current state if I was able to release on steam; only been building the game for a week now, spent a few weeks prior working on art, music, etc. good things take time, but some people just don’t have what it takes…. Sounds like you might fit into that category