It's not about recommending unpopular stuff, the issue is it recommends UNRELEASED stuff less now. So that dev with an upcoming game that was getting tons of wishlists two weeks ago is now getting a lot less visitors to his page, supposedly.
The same goes to unpopular=/=quality.Popular =/= quality
I guess leading users to big publishers and popular indie games may avoid those to leave steam on favor of EGS, but not sure how homogenitization of the market is good for videogames from a cultural and diversity standpoint.
Popular =/= quality
I guess leading users to big publishers and popular indie games may avoid those to leave steam on favor of EGS, but not sure how homogenitization of the market is good for videogames from a cultural and diversity standpoint.
The same goes to unpopular=/=quality.
We could be all the day discussing this. And right now, Epic only chases popular indies.
Yeah, sorry I misread that last line. :/I never said that Epic does not chase popular stuff, actually that's why I argued many times in Epic threads, that they aim to popular indie/big publishers. That's why I always stated that Epic's model is a doubled edged sword. Instead of making the market more competitive is making it more homogeneous. Valve is reacting, but what people thought to become a competitive field for all these poor indie devs to thrive and raise is actually the contrary.
Yeah, recommending released games instead of unreleased ones seems like a good change to me.It's not about recommending unpopular stuff, the issue is it recommends UNRELEASED stuff less now. So that dev with an upcoming game that was getting tons of wishlists two weeks ago is now getting a lot less visitors to his page, supposedly.
Yeah, recommending released games instead of unreleased ones seems like a good change to me.
K. You know this thread is about the industry / development side right?
I never talked about quality though.
It's also not homogenizing the market, you still get unknown indie breakout hits every year like before. It's just more spread out across several games instead of one making the millions upon millions like last decade. You also have several option at your disposal if you want to discover something new and different.
I really don't see how we can expect Valve to not only push quality games to its users but also quality games that aren't very popular. How can you do that unless you play everything out there? You need some kind of basis in reality to recommend a worthwhile game to a particular user, be it by what his friend list is playing, games from similar genre, or what's popular.
You really can't separate the two though.
And helping game already released and in actual need of resources (more than a game in development) should be a good thing for the development side as well.
That sure seems to be the case for the ones that use Twitter.Indie devs' preferred algorithm:
If (me) = true,
If (you) = false
Having the most comprehensive discovery tools doesn't mean having the best. I'm not sure that many people actually bother to use them, I also don't get the idea the algorithm cares that much for games I've played and wishlisted. It mostly still just shows new and popular games, regardless of if they're of any interest to me, except they also sprinkle in a couple of games from curators I follow in there sometimes.
An indie breakthrough doesn't mean is not following popular trends from other successful products. Is something that happens already enough and this will further exacerbate the issue. If only what deemed popular can succeed, indie devs will likely to follow trends and what Steam recommends to people so they can get in the "recommended" section. Why take risks on genres not popular if Steam is gonna marginalize your game in favor of popular genres and other similar games?
On a industry already hard on risks this is making the problem worse. Precisely, what indie games, specifically succeeded, is to separate itself from what the publishers was dictating and make their own way and games. Steam was the platform that, mostly, allowed that. Not anymore.
Why would a game that's been released need more resources than one in development? It's the polar opposite, especially when the system is recommending popular stuff, which obviously doesn't need resources because it's already successful.
It is not easy to browse or search on Steam unless you already know the name of the game.
As a customer it really frustrates me how Steam works. Often I use other sites to look up games and then when I know the title I can get it on Steam.
This should not be happening.
When I used to buy games in shops years ago there was this concept of browsing, which is like searching, and I don't recall people complaining about this back then.
People nowadays just want everything done for them as they don't want to put the effort in themselves.
This should not be happening.
Browsing and searching are actually completely different tasks.
Steam has literally aisles that you browse, called "tags". And even different store sections as well.Which is weird because browsing in shops is exactly what I was comparing it in my mind to. When I go to the local supermarket I can wander around the aisles and see what is available. On Steam it is like picking items from a ten thousand page catalogue written in small print.
Browsing and searching are actually completely different tasks.
Also what is this bullshit about people wanting everything done for them? Do you have no idea how commerce works?
You can scroll the main page and get a huge amount of games recommended without searching for anything.
Which works great if you want to see every genre/category.
If you select one of the built in genres from the Games dropdown you can't actually browse that by scrolling down
If you choose to look at a popular tag you can't browse that by scrolling down
If you choose to browse more from those pages or do a custom search you end back at the list of games which is not helpful
The problem with the list is that it does not contain enough information on each title and the space given is way smaller.
Why does everything have to be so small?
Which works great if you want to see every genre/category.
If you select one of the built in genres from the Games dropdown you can't actually browse that by scrolling down
If you choose to look at a popular tag you can't browse that by scrolling down
If you choose to browse more from those pages or do a custom search you end back at the list of games which is not helpful
The problem with the list is that it does not contain enough information on each title and the space given is way smaller.
Why does everything have to be so small?
True you can do that but the only way to see all titles is by looking in Most Popular which sorts only by Most Popular (you can't refine this list)You can click on "show more" at the bottom of a tag or a genre list and get the adequate list of games with hundred of pages. You can do that based on new release, best selling, popular or upcoming.
True you can do that but the only way to see all titles is by looking in Most Popular which sorts only by Most Popular (you can't refine this list)
hmm maybe something can fill the gap and help the visibility these indie games.
like some kind of gaming sites?
Dunno about best, each has plenty of problems. The PlayStation Store is incredibly slow and bloated, I don't have an Xbox One so can't comment on that store, the Switch eShop is basically just a list of everything which tbh is more than other stores do but still isn't great, EGS has the same problem except it's worse cause it's literally just a giant page, Steam has a bunch of different systems but none really do a great job recommending stuff beyond what's already popular and it expects too much effort from the user before it really does anywhere near a decent job featuring stuff you might like.
This page does most of what you want, I think:True you can do that but the only way to see all titles is by looking in Most Popular which sorts only by Most Popular (you can't refine this list)
I think it should be more like the content in the top banner (a bit smaller) but browseable. Steam wants to give me a list with small tiles and little information about the game.
True you can do that but the only way to see all titles is by looking in Most Popular which sorts only by Most Popular (you can't refine this list)
I think it should be more like the content in the top banner (a bit smaller) but browseable. Steam wants to give me a list with small tiles and little information about the game.
Only two of those are actual awards they won though. Neither of which get much attention from the general public (how many people here have even heard of the Gamescom Indie Arena? Looking it up on Youtube shows that videos about it don't get much views also). The others are just for being nominated, in one case it's just for having been showcased at an event.
To be straight up I don't know what you expected.Waking up and seeing how the discussion has gone overnight in this thread is very disheartening to me on a personal level.
Waking up and seeing how the discussion has gone overnight in this thread is very disheartening to me on a personal level.
Dunno about best, each has plenty of problems. The PlayStation Store is incredibly slow and bloated, I don't have an Xbox One so can't comment on that store, the Switch eShop is basically just a list of everything which tbh is more than other stores do but still isn't great, EGS has the same problem except it's worse cause it's literally just a giant page, Steam has a bunch of different systems but none really do a great job recommending stuff beyond what's already popular and it expects too much effort from the user before it really does anywhere near a decent job featuring stuff you might like.
I think itch.io's front page is surprisingly good. Of course the site mainly only sells niche indie stuff already so that's all it's going to show anyway, but they do a good job showing a variety of fun and interesting looking games on there. It's also just simple and clean.
I don't think that's a bad thing. I think the more important thing also is that itch.io's front page design isn't a bloated mess.Itch.io does looks nice but it also features half as much games as Steam's front page. Right now I counted 53 games on Itch.io's homepage compared to 106 on Steam (without going into the infinite scrolling section).
It might not inherently be "better" for consumers as the algorithm isn't inherently trying to make their experience better, butto get the consumer to buy more game (not to imply that this is evil or bad. They wouldn't be implementing this feature if they didnt think it would aid in them getting more money)
I think indie devs have just as much right to voice complaints about a sudden change in business that affects their livelihood and they're marketing strategies, especially with a algorithm they have literally no control over.
Indie devs' preferred algorithm:
If (me) = true,
If (you) = false
Its his schtick. He starts a thread about steam, and if it doesnt go his way he screams, bad community.
Waking up and seeing how the discussion has gone overnight in this thread is very disheartening to me on a personal level.
Which is weird because browsing in shops is exactly what I was comparing it in my mind to. When I go to the local supermarket I can wander around the aisles and see what is available. On Steam it is like picking items from a ten thousand page catalogue written in small print.
Browsing and searching are actually completely different tasks.
Also what is this bullshit about people wanting everything done for them? Do you have no idea how commerce works?
Steam got heavily (!) criticized from basically every Indie Dev in the world for promoting hand selected games, basically choosing the winners and losers.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.
Topic turned into another EGS vs Steam topic for some pages, which is fucking annoying and not at all on topic.Why? Everyone is being polite and there's substantive discussion.
I don't think that's a bad thing. I think the more important thing also is that itch.io's front page design isn't a bloated mess.
That's pretty uncalled for. Regardless of if you think the thread went the right way or not, this seems pretty close to a personal attack. :/
More on-topic, here's a way to deal with discovery and the number of games per month being released on Steam:
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, 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.
It would be a start, at least.
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.Sure, but how do you think that developers would feel if tomorrow Valve announced that it's cutting the number of games on the front page by 50% for the sake of making the page cleaner? Itch.io can afford to be cleaner because no one is counting on itch.io for their livelihood.