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Game devs praise Steam as a 'democratic platform' (a bastion in our panic mode industry)

Fabieter

Member
You are not addressing any points being made. Constantly hating on a brand just for the sake of hating it is just as stupid.

I just hate the hypocrisy. Look a example a few years ago ea faced one of the biggest shitstorms with gamble in video games. Valve had gamble in their store for years with their loot boxes and skins worth hundreds of bucks. I know some people really fucking addicted with their loot boxes. It was never a shitstorm. In fact people praise the market place but whatever let the famboys do what fanboys do ;).
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Pretty likely it's a paid ad article. There are thousands of devs complaining about getting less and less visibility and sales on Steam every year, they should ask one of them.
This statement is so absurd. Thousands of devs games can’t be highlighted or made visible on a service.

I have FAR MORE games suggested to me than Xbox or PlayStation. Every time you launch you see stuff, you have your suggestion queue you can scroll through. It’s super easy to pick a genre and see games, etc.

Whiny indie cunts have no sense of business. Nobody is obligated to feature your game among the thousands that get released a year on Steam. Make a good product, do some form of self promotion, etc.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
Pretty likely it's a paid ad article. There are thousands of devs complaining about getting less and less visibility and sales on Steam every year, they should ask one of them.

They should make better games then.

Games like PalWorld, Valheim, Lethal Company, and Manor Lords were all made by complete unknowns - yet all hit it big on Steam.

There are no participation trophies in this industry.
Steam has sections devoted to New and Trending, Popular Upcoming, Top New Releases, and Recommendations based on the Games You Play.
There’s no weak excuses.
 

Fabieter

Member
This statement is so absurd. Thousands of devs games can’t be highlighted or made visible on a service.

I have FAR MORE games suggested to me than Xbox or PlayStation. Every time you launch you see stuff, you have your suggestion queue you can scroll through. It’s super easy to pick a genre and see games, etc.

Whiny indie cunts have no sense of business. Nobody is obligated to feature your game among the thousands that get released a year on Steam. Make a good product, do some form of self promotion, etc.

Visibility is clearly a problem. Why can't some steam users just admit stuff to try to make it better Jesus.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Visibility is clearly a problem. Why can't some steam users just admit stuff to try to make it better Jesus.
The problem is the sheer amount of games. There’s no reasonable way to provide visibility to thousands of games released every year.

They have a feed for newly released games, one for top sellers, loads of stuff shown on the store page that change, a suggestion queue derived from what you play…

Do you have anything specific to say about my posts or nah?
 

Topher

Gold Member
I just hate the hypocrisy. Look a example a few years ago ea faced one of the biggest shitstorms with gamble in video games. Valve had gamble in their store for years with their loot boxes and skins worth hundreds of bucks. I know some people really fucking addicted with their loot boxes. It was never a shitstorm. In fact people praise the market place but whatever let the famboys do what fanboys do ;).

Eh....I don't see any less hypocrisy in focusing only on the negatives and completely ignoring the positives. "Haters do what haters do" works just as well.

Visibility is clearly a problem. Why can't some steam users just admit stuff to try to make it better Jesus.

And how would you solve the problem given the volume of games being released on Steam? Thousands of games cannot be treated equally at the same time. So what is your solution?
 

Fabieter

Member
Eh....I don't see any less hypocrisy in focusing only on the negatives and completely ignoring the positives. "Haters do what haters do" works just as well.



And how would you solve the problem given the volume of games being released on Steam? Thousands of games cannot be treated equally at the same time. So what is your solution?

The only difference is that "haters" always get dismissed with valve while fanboys well yes we know how that stuff goes. Look at the post you just liked ;).

Maybe hire some people to actually highlight some of the stuff coming instead of just automatically do everything and let the community do the rest.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Maybe hire some people to actually highlight some of the stuff coming instead of just automatically do everything and let the community do the rest.


Your solution doesn't address the problem at all. Now you've introduced the possibility of claims of bias.

Edit: Did not see your edit. What about the post I liked? You referring to Roronoa Zoro Roronoa Zoro ? What about it? He made a valid point. Me liking a post triggers you now? lol
 
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SmokedMeat

Gamer™
The only difference is that "haters" always get dismissed with valve while fanboys well yes we know how that stuff goes. Look at the post you just liked ;).

Maybe hire some people to actually highlight some of the stuff coming instead of just automatically do everything and let the community do the rest.

Steam’s front page has several sections devoted to new and upcoming releases, as well as recommendations. It is up to the community to do the rest.

I’ve never seen you bring up game visibility as a concern, so maybe you can suggest a store that’s doing a better job -that Steam learn from?
 

Fabieter

Member
Steam’s front page has several sections devoted to new and upcoming releases, as well as recommendations. It is up to the community to do the rest.

I’ve never seen you bring up game visibility as a concern, so maybe you can suggest a store that’s doing a better job -that Steam learn from?

Yea thats called whataboutism. I get it no negatives allowed ;).
 

Topher

Gold Member
Yea thats called whataboutism. I get it no negatives allowed ;).

Kill Me Smh GIF
 

simpatico

Member
Steam is the only thing that makes it hard to quit gaming. Just imagine, a landscape without Steam. It would be pretty easy to put it down if our only options were Uplay, EA ShitSandwich, Rockstar Launcher, EPIC Game Turd, etc.

People want to talk about being scared of Valve selling or going public, I say bring it on. Free me from this frustrating, tinge of shit smelling coil. Please.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Visibility is clearly a problem. Why can't some steam users just admit stuff to try to make it better Jesus.
Name one platform with better visibility. You are being ridiculous as Steam has by far the most tools for visibility.

You can filter by numerous tags, languages, use AI labs, look at numerous categories around selling and much more.

Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Epic stores are completely lacking in comparison. All the crying about visibility is ridiculous and shown up by small games hitting it big constantly.

Yes, good games get lost in the shuffle but that’s also because too many games get released and devs just don’t know how to market.
 
I think the word "democratic" is perfect to describe steam, thanks to steam I can use linux and are not forced into windows monopoly to play all my games, every game can get attention not just big productions, big publishers are forced to compete and win good will from gamers to be more visible in the platform instead of accepting blackrock money to make a terrible ESG product pay for publicity in the platform absent or controlled reviews and in the face of the customers unaware of other options

every competing store wants steam's place but they are not willing to do what steam did and keeps doing to be in its place a very simple formula yet so difficult for them to reproduce
 

bender

What time is it?
Curation is a double edged sword but I think we are quickly approaching a need for it on a lot of storefronts.
 

Sentenza

Member
Curation is a double edged sword but I think we are quickly approaching a need for it on a lot of storefronts.
I remember when Steam used to be a curated store how COUNTLESS shovelware developers cried incessantly about it.
Then it was Greenlight ("get noticed and upvoted by the community and we'll let you in") and someone STILL whined that 100 dollars to go through the certification process was (I shit you not) "an unfair price for poor indie devs".

Then Valve basically said "Fuck it, we are going to accept basically anything that isn't straight up illegal and we are just going to do the 'curation' side of things just on what we will show and promote to people.
And there's STILL developers whining about it today, because apparently self-identify as a developer should be already enough to have people bend over to help you succeed.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
Not only that, but I also tend to forget about my free games and they just sit there never getting played. Collecting dust in the free bin.

Same here. I have a ton of games in my EGS library but I can't recall a single one that I've actually played.
 

bender

What time is it?
Epic was playing the “highly curated store” card, but they’re doing so terribly they just said fuck it.

It's a balance for sure and you probably want to err on the side on leaving the publisher door as wide as possible. But when you have damn near 40 games being released daily, something feels off. I haven't kept tabs in a while but Steam used to have really inexpensive games that's sole purpose was to generate trading cards or terrible asset flip games (Digital Homicide), or to use a different example, games on PSN that let users get an easy Platinum Trophy. It seems like it would be pretty easy to implement some sort of curation AI to detect low hanging fruit like this. Valve has tried other methods like Sentenza Sentenza mentioned. Yes, cream does tend to rise to the top or at least the latest fads (Palworld, Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Manor Lords), but I do worry that quality games might be overlooked in the sea of daily releases.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
It's a balance for sure and you probably want to err on the side on leaving the publisher door as wide as possible. But when you have damn near 40 games being released daily, something feels off. I haven't kept tabs in a while but Steam used to have really inexpensive games that's sole purpose was to generate trading cards or terrible asset flip games (Digital Homicide), or to use a different example, games on PSN that let users get an easy Platinum Trophy. It seems like it would be pretty easy to implement some sort of curation AI to detect low hanging fruit like this. Valve has tried other methods like Sentenza Sentenza mentioned. Yes, cream does tend to rise to the top or at least the latest fads (Palworld, Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Manor Lords), but I do worry that quality games might be overlooked in the sea of daily releases.

I think trash games still exist, as I see them given away on Indiegala, but I’ve yet to see a single one become popular.

Great games manage to do well, and I think your examples are proof of that. Especially considering each one is a completely different genre.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
but I do worry that quality games might be overlooked in the sea of daily releases.
Like it or not this will always be a problem in entertainment generaly speaking, no curation will ever solve that. No matter how much people complain about the amount of steam releases, the truth is that there are just that many games being made constantly. Those 40 daily releases aren't even everything, there's plenty more releasing outside steam no one ever hears of, hidden gems included.
 
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bender

What time is it?
I think trash games still exist, as I see them given away on Indiegala, but I’ve yet to see a single one become popular.

Great games manage to do well, and I think your examples are proof of that. Especially considering each one is a completely different genre.

I still think it detracts from the user experience and I'm sure there are plenty of quality games that get overlooked.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Yeah, you can't mess with the lord Steam. It's awsome and will get heaps of credit for being what it is today. And they continue to improve and go into other avenues like the Steam Deck.
 

DaciaJC

Gold Member
Dismissing critism in every valve topic for two decades now. Yes I see valve is perfect, jesus!

Lets see if all those yay sayers never post again without perfecty layout business tasks ;).

I'm not sure where you're seeing dismissal of criticism in this thread. You claimed visibility on Steam is an issue. Other posters responded by pointing out that Steam has by far the best suite of tools of any platform in this industry for discovering games, and they asked what solution you would propose. You said you'd want to see Valve take a more direct role in promoting games rather than letting their algorithm handling it all, and people pointed out how that would cause issues such as accusations of bias.

There's no dismissal there. It's just that your argument is weak and easily countered. Above you mentioned there seems to be a double standard with respect to how Valve is treated vs how other companies are treated on the issue of loot boxes. To an extent, I actually agree with you, rarely have I seen CS:GO or TF2 mentioned in the same breath as Blizzard's Overwatch or EA's games when it comes to predatory microtransactions. But I would say that's dealing more with Valve as a publisher rather than Steam as a platform, so not as relevant to this thread.
 

Topher

Gold Member
I'm not sure where you're seeing dismissal of criticism in this thread. You claimed visibility on Steam is an issue. Other posters responded by pointing out that Steam has by far the best suite of tools of any platform in this industry for discovering games, and they asked what solution you would propose. You said you'd want to see Valve take a more direct role in promoting games rather than letting their algorithm handling it all, and people pointed out how that would cause issues such as accusations of bias.

There's no dismissal there. It's just that your argument is weak and easily countered. Above you mentioned there seems to be a double standard with respect to how Valve is treated vs how other companies are treated on the issue of loot boxes. To an extent, I actually agree with you, rarely have I seen CS:GO or TF2 mentioned in the same breath as Blizzard's Overwatch or EA's games when it comes to predatory microtransactions. But I would say that's dealing more with Valve as a publisher rather than Steam as a platform, so not as relevant to this thread.

There also can be no "double standard" if folks in the discussion haven't concerned themselves with loot boxes regardless of what company implements them. Show me a guy who defends it with Valve while attacking Blizzard at the same time and you've pointed out a "doube standard". Otherwise it is simply an accusation of hypocrisy contrived out of thin air.
 

ClosBSAS

Member
Pretty likely it's a paid ad article. There are thousands of devs complaining about getting less and less visibility and sales on Steam every year, they should ask one of them.
Lol paid articles were the ones about EGS by epic themselves. Theres nothing paid about this and if u crappy game cant find visibility, must be because of something on your end. Theres plenty of success indie stories on steam almost one every month.
 
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