PCGamer: Steam's Discovery update is making things worse for some indie developers

Gentlemen · Sep 17, 2019

Plum said:
You can't expect everyone to just ignore the elephant in the room that is the EGS and what it represents when it comes to negative Steam threads like this, especially when there isn't a proper place to discuss the EGS on this site. The community's mostly fine so far, it just isn't what you specifically want it to be.

horseshit

the community can make better choices

it doesn't want to because the Fight Club mentality in PC gaming threads never goes away in no small part thanks to shitposts like 'we disagree on EGS (in this thread that isn't about EGS) and therefore I will disregard your opinion completely.'

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
You actually don't know what you are talking about.

You can browse based on individual tags, multiple tags at the same time and sort them in multiple different ways and are given dozens or hundreds of pages depending on your criteria.

That is in the list view, it displays differently from the front page.

Deleted member 42 · Sep 17, 2019

ArnoldJRimmer said:
EDIT: You know what, it's off topic so forget it.

Too late, I saw it.

The thread you are referring to is the one I made about people threatening to kill me, by the way.

And as I said in there, those are extreme outliers and are not respective of the entire community whatsoever, just like the things I have issues with here, which mainly are peddling conspiracy theories about journalists (in particular one who tends to write 40+ articles a month, none of them about EGS at all) and what I would note as a fairly heartless take from people when it comes to indie devs.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

I also find it strange that when I wrote about my technical issues with EGS nobody batted an eyelid but if I try to discuss a problem on Steam I get personal attacks.

Whats with the double standard?

Vyrak · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
That is in the list view, it displays differently from the front page.

What is missing from list view that is shown on the front page...? It is all the same information.

Spectone said:
I also find it strange that when I wrote about my technical issues with EGS nobody batted an eyelid but if I try to discuss a problem on Steam I get personal attacks.

Whats with the double standard?

Because it seems like your problem in this instance is completely made up?

Alexandros · Sep 17, 2019

trashtabby said:
If Steam would show 50% less games on their front page, but in exchange would have a better design causing more people to actually look at the games it shows on there, plus if like itch they made an effort to show a good variety of stuff on there, then I don't think developers would mind. If anything it'd likely cause people to explore games on the store more.

Agree to disagree? There's no way to be sure either way since we're talking on a hypothetical basis.

EloKa · Sep 17, 2019

Gentlemen said:
horseshit

the community can make better choices

it doesn't want to because the Fight Club mentality in PC gaming threads never goes away in no small part thanks to shitposts like 'we disagree on EGS (in this thread that isn't about EGS) and therefore I will disregard your opinion completely.'

There are only so many attemps that I will undertake to discuss a topic with someone who's not interested in arguments based on facts.
I've explained why the first paragraph of that post was wrong and decided to not go into further details because of that users reputation. No biggie.

eonden · Sep 17, 2019

trashtabby said:
If Steam would show 50% less games on their front page, but in exchange would have a better design causing more people to actually look at the games it shows on there, plus if like itch they made an effort to show a good variety of stuff on there, then I don't think developers would mind. If anything it'd likely cause people to explore games on the store more.

This topic was made because a change whose experimental test saw a 50% increase in unique games viewed, and a 40%+ increase of unique clicks, negatively affected some developers. Affected devs would complain.

Deleted member 2620 · Sep 17, 2019

it'll be cool in the future when creative's basic needs are met and the actions of Valve, Epic, and so on matter way way less

Gentlemen · Sep 17, 2019

EloKa said:
There are only so many attemps that I will undertake to discuss a topic with someone who's not interested in arguments based on facts.
I've explained why the first paragraph of that post was wrong and decided to not go into further details because of that users reputation. No biggie.

then disengage by not posting instead of the childish performative addiction to the last word? Just throwing that out there.

BasilZero · Sep 17, 2019

Htown said:
the article says that it's worse for some devs, better for others, and the same for another group

so... basically what you'd expect with any change in the algorithm

Pretty much

Can't make everyone happy

Alexandros · Sep 17, 2019

Guys, the thread has been humming along with some good discussion. Please don't take the bait.

spam musubi · Sep 17, 2019

Tain said:
it'll be cool in the future when creative's basic needs are met and Valve and EGS' actions matter way way less

Well, yes, but how do we actually do that? There are thousands of creators and a very finite budget of user attention. This is not really a solvable problem. No matter what you do, there are going to be more games that don't succeed than do.

Plum · Sep 17, 2019

Gentlemen said:
horseshit

the community can make better choices

it doesn't want to because the Fight Club mentality in PC gaming threads never goes away and shitposts like 'we disagree on EGS (in this thread that isn't about EGS) and therefore I will disregard your opinion completely.'

That poster simply decided not to engage any further, which is personally fine if they decided that they didn't feel that they could have a productive conversation. Honestly it seems like they made the "better choice" (which was to disengage) yet you've decided to drag it on longer than necessary.

And like it or not but when you've had a lot of experience with a specific user then it's very easy to see where a conversation will end up; the only unorthodox thing that poster did was actually say that they're going to ignore the other person instead of just ghosting them or using the site's own ignore feature.

trashtabby said:
If Steam would show 50% less games on their front page, but in exchange would have a better design causing more people to actually look at the games it shows on there, plus if like itch they made an effort to show a good variety of stuff on there, then I don't think developers would mind. If anything it'd likely cause people to explore games on the store more.

That would still hurt some developers because a "good variety" will still exclude many, many games. Nobody's saying that there's nothing to be improved (I think everyone can agree that finding a way to highlight upcoming titles would be great) but, in the end, someone is going to have to lose because the supply is too large and the demand is too low. There's no feasible way to make everyone happy, and the only options are to either try and get better (Steam) or throw money at certain developers to make it seem like you're better (EGS).

Pixieking · Sep 17, 2019

EloKa said:
Steam got heavily (!) criticized from basically every Indie Dev in the world for promoting hand selected games, basically choosing the winners and losers.
Thats the reason why there is no curation on Steam anymore because everyone deserves an equal chance of winning.

Mass_Pincup said:
That would give Steam even more power in picking out the winners, also I think they're already pretty good at highlighting popular games, the issue here is that some developers are negatively impacted because they're showing popular games even more.

An IMDB/Goodreads of gaming would probably be pretty similar to what Valve is already showing.

Valve - or Epic, or EA, or Ubi, or someone - needs to start the Goodreads and IMDB of gaming, police it strictly for racism, sexism and hate, and allow editorial independence so that recommendations for every PC store can be shown. Trailers and video content on one, interviews, news, and reviews on the other.

Seriously, I'm not saying give Valve more power and I'm not saying it's what they're doing now. Like, have y'all checked out Goodreads? Whilst you can tailor it so that you can have "Buy this book from: Amazon" rather than B&N or Kobe, it's probably a powerful force for good across the entire book industry, and afaik has independence from Amazon.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
What is missing from list view that is shown on the front page...? It is all the same information.

Because it seems like your problem in this instance is completely made up?

The list view doesn't show tags and has a smaller image. You can get more if you mouse over the image but it is small and you can't do that on Android or iOS

Also why are you so defensive of the Steam store that you can't see it being improved further than it already is?

eonden · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
The list view doesn't show tags and has a smaller image. You can get more if you mouse over the image but it is small and you can't do that on Android or iOS

The list view shows tags exclusing/inclusion in the search function for me (right side, on browser)?
It would be best if you just link it so that we make sure we are talking about the same stuff

Mass_Pincup · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
Seriously, I'm not saying give Valve more power and I'm not saying it's what they're doing now. Like, have y'all checked out Goodreads? Whilst you can tailor it so that you can have "Buy this book from: Amazon" rather than B&N or Kobe, it's probably a powerful force for good across the entire book industry, and afaik has independence from Amazon.

Yes I know Goodreads but I don't think it's going to help as much as some indie devs would want. It's probably going to first showcase the most popular books, which is the situation they're currently complaining about on Steam.

Vyrak · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
The list view doesn't show tags and has a smaller image. You can get more if you mouse over the image but it is small and you can't do that on Android or iOS

So your problem is that you don't get all the information unless you hover over the game (Something that is literally the same as the main page by the way) and that the information is not shown on the Steam App specifically on Android and iOS... Yeah definitely refer to the second part of my post to better understand the "personal attacks".

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

eonden said:
The list view shows tags exclusing/inclusion in the search function for me (right side, on browser)?
It would be best if you just link it so that we make sure we are talking about the same stuff

No I mean each game is given a set of individual tags and you can't easily see that in the list view, you need to mouse over it to get that information instead of being able to read down a list.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
So your problem is that you don't get all the information unless you hover over the game (Something that is literally the same as the main page by the way) and that the information is not shown on the Steam App specifically on Android and iOS... Yeah definitely refer to the second part of my post to better understand the "personal attacks".

It is a user interface issue yes. The software can be improved. This will improve discoverability.

Vyrak · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
It is a user interface issue yes. The software can be improved. This will improve discoverability.

You still haven't explained the actual issue.

Pixieking · Sep 17, 2019

Mass_Pincup said:
Yes I know Goodreads but I don't think it's going to help as much as some indie devs would want. It's probably going to first showcase the most popular books, which is the situation they're currently complaining about on Steam.

Okay, but anything that helps is better than what we have now, right? "Perfect is the enemy of good" and all, and it would be better than nothing. Plus, editorial content is something that you can't really guess at - you're assuming popular games would be the ones mostly featured, but maybe they wouldn't be.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Also please don't make it out to be that I have some serious problem with Steam as I never said anything like that.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
You still haven't explained the actual issue.

Ok lets say I give you a list of items. Then I supply you with a further description of that item.

In the first instance you need to mouse over the item to see that further description
In the second instance the further description is written next to each item

Which is easier to read through?

Vyrak · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
Ok lets say I give you a list of items. Then I supply you with a further description of that item.

In the first instance you need to mouse over the item to see that further description
In the second instance the further description is written next to each item

Which is easier to read through?

Except this is literally the case in BOTH instances, the list view and the main store page. Your initial claim was that this was a distinction between the list view and the main page, it isn't, you are wrong. The only distinction is that as opposed to showing all screenshots at once on the main page, it cycles through them in list view. Otherwise they provide identical information.

ArnoldJRimmer · Sep 17, 2019

BronsonLee said:
Too late, I saw it.

The thread you are referring to is the one I made about people threatening to kill me, by the way.

And as I said in there, those are extreme outliers and are not respective of the entire community whatsoever, just like the things I have issues with here, which mainly are peddling conspiracy theories about journalists (in particular one who tends to write 40+ articles a month, none of them about EGS at all) and what I would note as a fairly heartless take from people when it comes to indie devs.

You personally? That sucks, I'm sorry about that. I understand where you are coming from, but that definitely colors your attitude about things like this and EGS, IMHO. I think it's easy for you to see legitimate complaints as attacks... I mean no wonder if you've been the target of death threats yourself. I can't blame you, but it can come off as one-sided when we're discussing ERA where such things don't typically happen.

Anyway, my apologies, I think my take was more personal than it should have been and I don't want to derail.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
Except this is literally the case in BOTH instances, the list view and the main store page. Your initial claim was that this was a distinction between the list view and the main page, it isn't, you are wrong. The only distinction is that as opposed to showing all screenshots at once on the main page, it cycles through them in list view. Otherwise they provide identical information.

If I look on the main page under risk of rain 2 it says Early Access, Roguelike, Co-op, Multiplayer. If you search for that title the list view does not show that without a mouse over.

EloKa · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
Seriously, I'm not saying give Valve more power and I'm not saying it's what they're doing now. Like, have y'all checked out Goodreads? Whilst you can tailor it so that you can have "Buy this book from: Amazon" rather than B&N or Kobe, it's probably a powerful force for good across the entire book industry, and afaik has independence from Amazon.

Wouldn't in your case the equivalent to Goodreads be basically every gaming news outlet out there that recommends and tests games?

I could see Steam doing something like the free ICO Steam Newsletter (which I could recommend) that lists every released game within the last 7 days and orders them by the amount of user interaction, in this case the number of comments. But you would still end up having the same problem that unpopular games will still have less exposure because they are at the bottom of all lists - or that Steam would have to select games that are getting more promotion and by doing so manually selecting the winners and loosers.

Deleted member 42 · Sep 17, 2019

ArnoldJRimmer said:
You personally? That sucks, I'm sorry about that. I understand where you are coming from, but that definitely colors your attitude about things like this and EGS, IMHO. I think it's easy for you to see legitimate complaints as attacks... I mean no wonder if you've been the target of death threats yourself. I can't blame you, but it can come off as one-sided when we're discussing ERA where such things don't typically happen.

Anyway, my apologies, I think my take was more personal than it should have been and I don't want to derail.

Please do not speak to me again.

Vyrak · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
If I look on the main page under risk of rain 2 it says Early Access, Roguelike, Co-op, Multiplayer. If you search for that title the list view does not show that without a mouse over.

Aside from the fact that if you are using list view, you are almost certainly already searching by the tags you care about and not searching for a specific game only to be dissuaded from it because the tags you already know are there aren't immediately shown... Your argument seems to be that this meaningless distinction is going to greatly change discoverability? That you have to hover over games in list view to see tags? That is the problem?

Metroidvania · Sep 17, 2019

Hmm..I'm also not sure of just what would be considered an acceptable 'solution' by Indy devs at this point?

Valve already tried the direct curation route, and got blasted for 'promoting winners and losers'....but then when they use/tweak algorithms to try and figure out what people want to see/buy, that results in (some) Indy games getting less exposure....which then results in more backlash?

The nature of the market means that unless you go the 'unlimited exposure' route, and/or Steam starts offering ad exposure for cash (which is worse in multiplei instances for Indy devs compared to AAA publishers), there's gonna be some that fall through the cracks.

It sucks, because I've definitely found some great games from digging through tags and/or non-advertised titles, but aside from tinkering with the algorithm, I'm not sure how steam can come even close to satisfying everyone at this point.

There's also the possibility (albeit probably not the main thrust) of tweaking the alogrithm to focus less on upcoming/unreleased games as to either avoid more situations like Metro and/or give Tim Sweeney less information about what games to try and snatch up, but that way lies the whole Steam vs Epic slant, which isn't the focus here.

Spectone · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
Aside from the fact that if you are using list view you, are almost certainly already searching by the tags you care about and not searching for a specific game only to be dissuaded from because the tags you know you are searching for aren't immediately shown... Your argument seems to be that this meaningless distinction is going to greatly change discoverability? That you have to hover over games in list view to see tags? That is the problem?

This is an issue I have on an almost weekly basis with Steam. I see something like Weeklong Deals. I click on it and try looking through the list but it is very hard to tell what game is what.

Maybe I just use these aspects of Steam more than others. Maybe others just don't care. Maybe others have similar issues and just give up looking.

It is not just the text but also the size of the thumbnail image. If you go to humble bundle they have much larger images in their lists. GOG does too but often has small ones in their sales lists.

SigSig · Sep 17, 2019

Will it eventually stop or will every thread about anything to do with Steam at all keep being this garbage "Steam can do no wrong and Sweeney is the devil" shit?
I mean, at least keep it to instances of Sweeney actually being a devil.

Vyrak · Sep 17, 2019

Spectone said:
This is an issue I have on an almost weekly basis with Steam. I see something like Weeklong Deals. I click on it and try looking through the list but it is very hard to tell what game is what.

Maybe I just use these aspects of Steam more than others. Maybe others just don't care. Maybe others have similar issues and just give up looking.

Well aside from being able to just hover over them, you can literally sort this entire list by multiple tags. I honestly can't imagine a system that would be better for devs in this scenario... To triple the size of every game's block and write a short description? Turning 50 pages into 150 pages? This is somehow going to help discoverability, burying games deeper?

Plum · Sep 17, 2019

BronsonLee said:
And as I said in there, those are extreme outliers and are not respective of the entire community whatsoever, just like the things I have issues with here, which mainly are peddling conspiracy theories about journalists (in particular one who tends to write 40+ articles a month, none of them about EGS at all) and what I would note as a fairly heartless take from people when it comes to indie devs.

PC Gamer has definitely had a pro-EGS editorial stance, so questioning the integrity of an article like this is fine in my eyes. Frankly I don't see how you can be pro-EGS whilst simultaneously believing what Steam is doing to be a bad thing; there has to be some level of cognitive dissonance there and if people want to discuss that then fine.

And what are the heartless takes? If someone's saying "fuck 'em, they deserve to starve," then, yeah, that's heartless, but simply declaring the reality of the situation is anything but. Some games will fail, and some games are simply uninteresting to the wider populace; as long as the supply is as high as it is right now Honestly I think the notion that this isa problem that can be 'solved' instead of merely made better is much more harmful to indie devs than a more realistic approach because it creates a false sense of hope that some higher force can fix all their issues for them.

Spectone said:
If I look on the main page under risk of rain 2 it says Early Access, Roguelike, Co-op, Multiplayer. If you search for that title the list view does not show that without a mouse over.

I don't think that would be a bad idea, but how would that improve discoverability? You're still going to see the same games, you'll just have a slightly higher chance of clicking on them.

SigSig said:
Will it eventually stop or will every thread about anything to do with Steam at all keep being this garbage "Steam can do no wrong and Sweeney is the devil" shit?
I mean, at least keep it to instances of Sweeney actually being a devil.

Steam can do wrong, but considering the alternatives the claims the notion that this is a massively pressing issue is hard to take particularly seriously, especially when so much of it ignores the realities of the situation at hand. Like the user I replied to above has gone on record as saying there's "no issues" with PC gaming, yet in this thread Steam is suddenly a 'bad guy' when it comes to indie developers. With things as heated as they are I really can't fault people for not taking things at face value as much anymore.

BronsonLee said:
Please do not speak to me again.

If you want the community to be better then just ignore him instead of posting stuff like this.

Pixieking · Sep 17, 2019

EloKa said:
Wouldn't in your case the equivalent to Goodreads be basically every gaming news outlet out there that recommends and tests games?

Not really, because games review sites are a) subjective when it comes to reviews, and b) can't keep up with all releases

EloKa said:
I could see Steam doing something like the free ICO Steam Newsletter (which I could recommend) that lists every released game within the last 7 days and orders them by the amount of user interaction, in this case the number of comments. But you would still end up having the same problem that unpopular games will still have less exposure because they are at the bottom of all lists - or that Steam would have to select games that are getting more promotion and by doing so manually selecting the winners and loosers.

No, because this again skews the results. Like, go to Goodreads, and when you're logged in, you have "Browse" at the top. This is split into:

https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2018

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway

https://www.goodreads.com/new_releases/2019/9

https://www.goodreads.com/list

https://www.goodreads.com/book (that's Explore Books)

https://www.goodreads.com/news

And I'm not sure if people just don't understand when I say independent. An issue PC Gaming has its reliance on Steam - a change in Steam affects so many things. So a central, independently curated website that can recommend games from across every store - itch, Origin, EGS, Steam, UPlay, GOG - with recommendations based on every game you've played across the PC gaming ecosystem, like Goodreads has for books:

Recommendations by Shelf ?
You have no recommendations based on your bookshelves yet.
Recommendations by Genre ?
Fantasy 33

Fiction 21

Science Fiction 19
More Actions
Recommendations from Users

Give Recommendations

Ask for Recommendations

Books Marked as 'Not Interested'

People are trying to find the perfect way for Steam to help developers, and no such thing exists. As has been pointed out, it's a zero-sum game, with someone always losing. So, move away from Steam as the central tool by which new games are found in the PC ecosystem.

Alexandros · Sep 17, 2019

SigSig said:
Will it eventually stop or will every thread about anything to do with Steam at all keep being this garbage "Steam can do no wrong and Sweeney is the devil" shit?
I mean, at least keep it to instances of Sweeney actually being a devil.

Steam can do several things wrong. It's just that "killing indie gaming", as one developer tweeted, is most definitely not one of them.

spam musubi · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
Okay, but anything that helps is better than what we have now, right? "Perfect is the enemy of good" and all, and it would be better than nothing. Plus, editorial content is something that you can't really guess at - you're assuming popular games would be the ones mostly featured, but maybe they wouldn't be.

steam has editorial content in the form of curators

Spectone said:
If I look on the main page under risk of rain 2 it says Early Access, Roguelike, Co-op, Multiplayer. If you search for that title the list view does not show that without a mouse over.

in this very thread people are saying the UI is cluttered already. This would add more clutter so it's not a universal solution, and also it means each item takes more space so you show fewer games.

Pixieking · Sep 17, 2019

spam musubi said:
steam has editorial content in the form of curators

And it's pretty bloody shit. Their curator system sucks. Hopefully it'll be improved in the impending UI overhaul, but...

Deleted member 1055 · Sep 17, 2019

Vyrak said:
Aside from the fact that if you are using list view, you are almost certainly already searching by the tags you care about and not searching for a specific game only to be dissuaded from it because the tags you already know are there aren't immediately shown... Your argument seems to be that this meaningless distinction is going to greatly change discoverability? That you have to hover over games in list view to see tags? That is the problem?

I believe that they are talking about the difference between this (from here):

and this (from here):

And if so, then I have to agree. The top one does require more vertical space, and hence will require more scrolling, but the logos are a lot easier to read (on my monitor) and the tags makes it easy to decide if a game might be worth exploring without having to hover over every title, which is also something that you cannot do on mobile.

EloKa · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
And I'm not sure if people just don't understand when I say independent. An issue PC Gaming has its reliance on Steam - a change in Steam affects so many things. So a central, independently curated website that can recommend games from across every store - itch, Origin, EGS, Steam, UPlay, GOG - with recommendations based on every game you've played across the PC gaming ecosystem, like Goodreads has for books:

Tbh I rather have a (too) huge amount of websites that recommends games than just a single central recommender.
Bias has a lesser effect if you distribute it amongst many different curators / websites and literally everyone has some bias.

Komo · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
And it's pretty bloody shit. Their curator system sucks. Hopefully it'll be improved in the impending UI overhaul, but...

They are aware and are thinking of ways to change it.

Hellsing321 · Sep 17, 2019

If I'm browsing the recommended section it's because I'm looking for a game to buy now. Not one that might be available to buy in a years time.

PepsimanVsJoe · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
And it's pretty bloody shit. Their curator system sucks. Hopefully it'll be improved in the impending UI overhaul, but...

Hey I do my part.
My curator has 300+ reviews. All of them link to full 1000+ word write-ups with no memey bullshit*.
I'm well aware that the system is screwed, believe me. I used to write for one of the top 10 largest curators. They do a lot of scummy stuff to keep their spot.

*well maybe a little

Pryme · Sep 17, 2019

Komo said:
It is. EGS has sponsored PCGamer multiple times. PCGamer is a insanely crappy and biased outlet.

Why would you post something like this?

Schlorgan · Sep 17, 2019

Pryme said:
Why would you post something like this?

They want to push a narrative to discredit any of the complaints in the article.

kylecoley182 · Sep 17, 2019

The fact that people are getting so trigged by game store is just immature. You ether like it or you don't simple. People treating death or hacking someone's home is just wrong and should be banned permanently from this site have the cops called on them.

Plum · Sep 17, 2019

Schlorgan said:
They want to push a narrative to discredit any of the complaints in the article.

Conflicts of interest don't discredit, but they definitely reduce the validity of the site's editorial conclusions. That isn't a "conspieacy theory," it's one of the basic tenets of journalism.

Wok · Sep 17, 2019

Pixieking said:
Amazon owns both Goodreads and IMDB. Amazon (the store) pushes recommendations based on purchases and browsing of specific items, but it also pushes upcoming books and movies/TV via Goodreads and IMDB. At the very least Goodreads sends out a monthly email picking out the top books of each genre for the coming month, and that's just the basic newsletter. IMDB pushes trailers for upcoming movies and TV series alongside interviews, random shit and "Upcoming".

Where is the PC gaming version of this? Youtube? Fuck Youtube, with its shitty algorithm and stressing of creators to churn content and clickbait.

Valve - or Epic, or EA, or Ubi, or someone - needs to start the Goodreads and IMDB of gaming

Good suggestion. However, only Valve has the data required to do what Amazon does for books and movies. I would argue that Valve has even more data per user than Amazon, so the results should be even better.

EloKa said:
Steam got heavily (!) criticized from basically every Indie Dev in the world for promoting hand selected games, basically choosing the winners and losers.
Thats the reason why there is no curation on Steam anymore because everyone deserves an equal chance of winning.

It would be crowd-sourced. One can already do that with SteamDB using the little user data which Valve allows to be publicly available.

For instance, which games should I watch for on Tuesday 24th September? Noita, Surge 2, Sanders, etc.

EloKa said:
Tbh I rather have a (too) huge amount of websites that recommends games than just a single central recommender.

I agree with you that it is better to have more independent voices. However, you are missing a point, which is that Valve has an incredible amount of user data, which nobody has access to but them. They just have to pick an algorithm in that list and get everyone some personalized results:

PCGamer: Steam's Discovery update is making things worse for some indie developers

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