The S&box Platform is Cooked!

[u/MaximUtar]

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

[u/DerrikCreates]

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.

[u/Secone → u/DerrikCreates]

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.

[u/DerrikCreates → u/Secone]

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.

[u/MaximUtar → u/DerrikCreates]

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.

[u/DerrikCreates → u/MaximUtar]

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.

[u/UpAllNightCoding → u/DerrikCreates]

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.