Of the two games mentioned, one has kernel-level anticheat, the other is "you guys don't have phones?" The entire industry can go fuck itself.

I sincerely doubt the anti-cheat is why Wildgate failed. It's a multiplayer extraction shooter, that's just a tough market to break into, and their gamble didn't pay off. Sunderfolk on the other hand, you're probably right. A tabletop RPG, made for couch coop (although you can play solo and just control everyone), that you need a phone/tabled app for? And it's $50/50€? That was never going to be a massive seller.

My friends and I played the Sunderfolk demo. The phone thing feels like a gimmick and doesn't add anything. We play Jackbox games and those make use of the phone. You vote on trivia answers, you draw something, everyone writes an answer and then you guess who wrote what. In Sunderfolk, you use your phone to move your character. They could have just made it a normal game like Baldur’s Gate. The reason why they didn't is probably because the lore and gameplay are ridiculously simple. It seems like it's meant to be a party game anyone can play, but it's also something you'd play over multiple sessions. It's like they wanted both casual and table top audiences and got neither instead.

A Twitch streamer I like got into streaming Wildgate, I don't hate watching it but it's not interesting enough for me to buy myself. I've never gotten into multiplayer extraction shooters though so I'm not really the target audience. I'm on Linux so I probably can't play it due to the anti-cheat regardless.

> I’m on Linux so I probably can’t play it due to the anti-cheat regardless. Looks like this actually works on Linux. Steam Deck rating is Playable, with ProtonDB rating as Gold. Not that this changes the other part, where the game doesn't look interesting to you.