combined this post with one above
sorry about extra posts
To be blunt, I do consider this fair, but I don’t want to disregard your post because I appreciate your perspective and I think there’s still something here worth the discussion. I’m just trying to tease out the nuance in what you mean when you say certain things, because the difference in your perspective as a developer (who is also a consumer) from mine as just a consumer may include using the same language to mean different things.
So yeah, this is totally understandable—both that the industry is changing and that you’re worried about it. I don’t want to trivialize that for you or any other developer in a personal way.
But ignore the specific distribution platforms for a moment. The increasing difficulty to get the consumer’s attention as a result of the surge of developers and games doesn’t go away. That’s going to be a challenge developers are going to have to deal with regardless, and I don’t envy you.
What does that look like from the gamers’ perspective? It means that on our own, it would be very difficult to find the “best” games. It means we could be playing games we love without realizing there are games we’d love even more. But we’re not on our own. There’s an industry of reviews and promotion and communities for discussion and recommendations—dozens of avenues for help in identifying the gems worth playing.
So what if Steam is or isn’t one of those avenues? Consumers are still going to find recommendations and reviews somewhere. You’re just going to have to play the promotion game somewhere else.
So when you “speak for the health of indie studios as a whole”, I don’t know what it is that you’re saying. That there are so many games people will stop buying them? There are going to be ebbs and flows in the market, if there are too many options out there, it’s going to suck for some developers—developers who may be doing very good work—but if the market can’t support all of them, they’re not all going to survive. If too many of them fail, and we get back down to not enough options for consumers, there’s going to be more demand and new developers can rise up to address that.
I don’t envy anyone trying to make a career out of entertainment or the arts. You said earlier:
In my experience, that’s just not how entertainment and the arts work. Decent (or better) writers, musicians, and no doubt developers, go broke all the time (or have to drop their “passion” down to “hobby”) doing hard work and producing great stuff that just doesn’t find its audience.
Playing the promotion game is always going to be a part of the pursuit of that as a career, which is where I’d really like your perspective. Because I do think the question of whether Steam dropping curation is good for Valve or not is an important one. What unforeseen consequences will arise when Steam continues to offer its benefits as a marketplace (solving a lot of technical and distribution problems) but can’t be trusted for discovery? Does it matter for Valve if people get their opinions somewhere else and only show up at Steam to make purchases they’ve already made up their minds on? I don’t know, I’d like to know more about that.
But I think ultimately we probably disagree on whether it’s jeopardizing the industry.
I was concerned it was me who was being cynical, not Derek! :)
Their reason, according to them, for not selling that game had little to nothing to do with the theme, and it was all about the creator.
They didn’t? That game is very cool, and slick looking! What was their reasoning?? Yeah, this to me is the big sticking point with GoG.
Steam could just keep re-releasing my favorite games from the late 90s and early 2000s, and I would be happy!
Right now, I just need someone to remake my favorite Sierra and SSI games!
If Valve is going to do this what exactly is changing from the current situation? If there is curation right now I certainly haven’t noticed it given the amount of crap I still see.
There’s certainly a glut of indie games right now, but what’s worse imho is that over 90% of the games on Steam is either derivative schlock, a shiny pig, or shovelware. I go through the steam queue regularly (sitting at 2100+ games viewed atm) and I maybe wishlisted 7% of those. Now I might classify as an elitist gamer who’d seen it all, but I just cannot imagine that even fresh gamers want to buy puzzleplatformer #12803.
I keep seeing the ‘there are great games that just aren’t found!’ statement popping up and I have to wonder… Are there?
Ohhhh man. A new Curse of the Azure Bonds, or Secret of the Silver Blades. WANT!!!
Only if it had Mod Support! Forgotten Realms had so many options not available in the base D&D game!
Bingo number two.
Yeah, I agree with that. That’s why I couched most of my posts with “good to great” games that aren’t being found. I think anything “great” is already reaching awareness for the gamers who care.
Grabs an accordion, and begins to sing the song “This is what curaaaation looks liiiiike! This is what curaaation might be! Be careful what you wish for daddy-o, curation may not be for thee!”
They currently have some policies around what constitutes acceptable content on Steam. What those policies are, how regularly or consistently enforced they are, etc, is hard to say. They are proposing to remove said policies, except for the also somewhat tenuous “illegal” and “straight up trolling” categories.
I remember when they did curate in a very active way and thought they were pretty bad at it, personally.
Worth noting: even pixelated depictions of what folks are terming “kiddie porn” in this thread falls easily under the header of illegal that you cite from the press release.
lol cool :)
I realise I am in a minority but its true for me! :) Last night for example I desperately wanted to play a fun short turn based strategy game not conflict based. After going through the tags on steam for 30 mins and checking gog & itch I played around with Steam (the railway game) then just gave up and booted up Race for the Galaxy again.
My tastes are pretty much in line with a decent chunk of game genres as well, god help me if I wanted to play, for example, a straight up love story Romance game that fits my orientation. Happily in the latter case gay romance games have led the way here, there is no no doubt such games can be built and my guess its once someone does that will also be a new market opening up.
So yeah for me and my tastes we have a games drought, although I more than accept that other gamers may be drowning in honey, I aint.
:(
That sure would nice niche to fill. I know when I want something (not conflict based) I think of Offworld Trading Company. But my brain needs to be in tip-top shape to handle that, especially with the streaming nature. You can kinda customize for a shorter game, but it’s not relaxing which is what I think you’re going for.
Yeah I did try Offworld for a few mins, but it was late and I couldnt really handle the mental ramp up. And yeah I do hope its a genre that grows.
If you’re looking for board games on POC, there seems to be a push for that now from a variety of places.
Hah! That’s an excellent way to put it.
Weighing in again.
I do not believe the lack of curation is going to make the indie scene suffer. But with the increased competition (and noise from the large number of new releases) someone just can not shovel something on to Steam and expect it to sell. It has to be compelling. Gamrs like Banished and Stardew Valley were massive successes because they scatched an itch that no one was filling. Both were done but one person. If someone thinka a low res metrovania game is going to succeed they are in for a rude awakening. It does not matter if it is well crafted. There is little demand and far too much competition.
I do think Steam is setting themselves up to be the bad guy and they are going to be punished for it. They are going to end up selling porn or some racist crap to a 10 year old and they will be slapped hard for it. I think THIS is what Indies should be worried about - govt intervention because the marketplace will not control itself.