The Epic Store is definitely a band aid to the curation problem on Steam, but it isn't a solution. If the Epic store takes off even a curated store will get overloaded and discoverability will be a problem again. I don't know if another new curated store will be the solution. Not sure what it is.
I actually had an idea about Steam and maybe what they could do with the whole curation and discoverability problem. I was going to make a thread about it in the future with a really drawn out and detailed idea of what I thought they maybe could do. Chances are that I'm not thinking things through enough or other people might find a bunch of holes in my idea.. but well, here's the short version:
I think Steam should give us the ability to make our own store. There could be the Steam store as we all know and love it.. and "My Store" which is completely curated by us. Essentially, on all the store pages, there's the ability to click once to add the publisher/developer to "your store." After adding them to your store, they, along with all the games they've released and upcoming releases, are only found on "your store" from then on. After adding the pubs/devs that I want on my store, the main store actually becomes easier to parse as a result. When I browse the main store, I'm actively looking for games that I might not know about.. from devs/pubs that I haven't added. When I'm looking at "My Store" I know I'm looking for games and new content from devs and pubs that I already like.
Thus both "tabs" become easier to parse and find new content from more developers. Essentially I could keep adding pubs/devs until all that's really left of the "main store" is the titles which I'm not interested in. And even on the chance that I decide to look through it for new stuff and hidden gems... there's less games mixed in, so those games will be more visible.. especially the good ones. That works for "My store" as well, from devs and pubs I like. It's easier to see when those devs release new stuff.
And the beauty of it is that if I don't want to add anything to "My Store" the main store just acts as it always has. This way the people that complain about too much junk, can actually do something about it. And everyone can happily continue to release games on a singular store.
Another thing is that Valve is completely falling short of using screen real-estate effectively. There's so much more that could be presented on the sides of the store column.. Devs probably see that and are thinking.. "why the hell can't we be on the front page instead of 3 pages in if there's all that room on the sides" lmao.
Anyway, that was just my idea.. there's probably some reason that it's bad, but in my mind anyway I think it would work wonderfully for me.
