One problem: so many small/solo devs are terrible at listing their game.
I’m not talking about sophisticated marketing. I’m talking about extensive tagging, a flashy description, good well-framed screenshots, and taking a few minutes to search for and gift some YouTubers in your niche. Whatever their situation, the devs can do this.
And I’m shocked by how many don’t.
It’s… not hard. Not compared to game dev.
I don’t know a solution either, as I don’t understand why basics are skipped. Maybe they’re kinda in a bubble/isolated?
Perhaps Steam should be more forceful about tagging and describing games before they can be listed. I get Valve don’t want to be “restrictive gatekeepers,” but that is not a high barrier.
That’s pretty much all the feedback indie devs that barely get any wishlists on their steam pre-release pages get on the gamedev subreddit.
A lot of, “I have no idea what the game is supposed to be from the trailer. Is their a narrative? Can’t tell from the trailer. Not much going on in the screenshots. That name isn’t very google-able. You barely have a description and there’s no media in the description either to flash it up. Do you not have any tiktok/Instagram/YouTube presence? YouTubers/Steam curators/Twitch? Did you submit for the Steam Indie Game/Next Fest? Have you submitted to any indie publishers and received feedback? You may be better off with a publisher if you’re not willing to do social media and help with trailers and screenshot selection and writing your Steam page.”
But while that may be “one” problem, it’s not “the” problem. Pleny of well presented games get trounced by missing the bar on week 1 of New and Trending, which is a death sentence without a massive marketing budget, or by narrowly missing out on the positive side of reviews, which is easy to do if your launch has any tech issues.
Steam is a better version of the phone stores, but it’s still one of those. It’s gamedev as gig economy and it’s yielding very similar results, with chart-topping games becoming decade-old fossils and new games struggling below.
There are two ways to do this, as far as I’m concerned:
You can come up with an algorithm and let it cook, which is how Steam handles almost everything…
…or you can have an editorial team curate your storefront, negotiate sponsorships and marketing deals and manually set up promo slots based on their judgement.
Both have pros and cons, both prop up a certain type of game and hide others. Neither is particularly great if you’re a tiny dev with no budget, though, unless the storefront in question actively curates for that specific type of product (which no current first party really does outside Itch).
I don’t think you’re going to get fewer, bigger indies. The real problem the original corpo guy is forgetting to flag is that there is no longer speculative investment in gaming, so all that venture capital money went to AI.
Games are about cash now, so there’s no room to fail. Unless you have money in the bank to make many games, failure means you’re out. It doesn’t matter if your game is big or small. Gamedev costs what it costs if you need to pay for the devs’ salaries directly from your game’s sales with no investment cushion.
That leads to a mobile-like landscape. The big stay big forever, the small fry keep gaming the algo hoping to go viral. It’s a bit grim.
I’d argue that if Steam played kingmaker based on less math and a bit more discernment they are in the best position to split the difference. Instead, you weirdly get more of that from Sony, Nintendo and… well, what’s left of MS for as long as it exists as a gaming first party.
And that’s what I think is needed. If Steam wants to be the Google of gaming that’s fine… as long as someone else is competing with a different approach to split the difference. Just Steam’s approach by itself would be bad, I think.
FYI I didn’t get a Lemmy notification to your reply. This is really annoing, and its just about pushing me to try Piefed…
But yeah, I buy this. But problems:
It costs Valve a lot more money.
It requires more employees, or at least contractors/grants.
It requires finding expertise/passion in niches, and categorizing a whole lot of games.
And that’s what I think is needed. If Steam wants to be the Google of gaming that’s fine… as long as someone else is competing with a different approach to split the difference. Just Steam’s approach by itself would be bad, I think.
The gaming community have seemingly decided they like a Valve monopoly, which is quite unfortunate.
Given Valve’s sort of libertarian/hands off ethos, I don’t think they’re going to take the “1st pary editorial team” approach. Heck, they seem to be aware of the issue, hence the Steam Curators program, but its not the same as bankrolling an editorial team that does it for a living.
One problem: so many small/solo devs are terrible at listing their game.
I’m not talking about sophisticated marketing. I’m talking about extensive tagging, a flashy description, good well-framed screenshots, and taking a few minutes to search for and gift some YouTubers in your niche. Whatever their situation, the devs can do this.
And I’m shocked by how many don’t.
It’s… not hard. Not compared to game dev.
I don’t know a solution either, as I don’t understand why basics are skipped. Maybe they’re kinda in a bubble/isolated?
Perhaps Steam should be more forceful about tagging and describing games before they can be listed. I get Valve don’t want to be “restrictive gatekeepers,” but that is not a high barrier.
The skills sets just don’t necessarily overlap
Thing with steam is you have to build hype and wishlists long before you release. Like months and years.
Some people make the game and then start thinking about releasing it. Like you have to do that in pretty much the opposite order.
That’s pretty much all the feedback indie devs that barely get any wishlists on their steam pre-release pages get on the gamedev subreddit.
A lot of, “I have no idea what the game is supposed to be from the trailer. Is their a narrative? Can’t tell from the trailer. Not much going on in the screenshots. That name isn’t very google-able. You barely have a description and there’s no media in the description either to flash it up. Do you not have any tiktok/Instagram/YouTube presence? YouTubers/Steam curators/Twitch? Did you submit for the Steam Indie Game/Next Fest? Have you submitted to any indie publishers and received feedback? You may be better off with a publisher if you’re not willing to do social media and help with trailers and screenshot selection and writing your Steam page.”
I mean… yeah, have a good Steam page, for sure.
But while that may be “one” problem, it’s not “the” problem. Pleny of well presented games get trounced by missing the bar on week 1 of New and Trending, which is a death sentence without a massive marketing budget, or by narrowly missing out on the positive side of reviews, which is easy to do if your launch has any tech issues.
Steam is a better version of the phone stores, but it’s still one of those. It’s gamedev as gig economy and it’s yielding very similar results, with chart-topping games becoming decade-old fossils and new games struggling below.
Fair.
What’s to be done about that, though? Steam does not control social media, and customer attention is finite.
Is the issue organizational? Should all these solo/tiny devs have better ways to collaborate so they make fewer, better games?
Or is it mostly a structural problem with the Steam Store?
There are two ways to do this, as far as I’m concerned:
You can come up with an algorithm and let it cook, which is how Steam handles almost everything…
…or you can have an editorial team curate your storefront, negotiate sponsorships and marketing deals and manually set up promo slots based on their judgement.
Both have pros and cons, both prop up a certain type of game and hide others. Neither is particularly great if you’re a tiny dev with no budget, though, unless the storefront in question actively curates for that specific type of product (which no current first party really does outside Itch).
I don’t think you’re going to get fewer, bigger indies. The real problem the original corpo guy is forgetting to flag is that there is no longer speculative investment in gaming, so all that venture capital money went to AI.
Games are about cash now, so there’s no room to fail. Unless you have money in the bank to make many games, failure means you’re out. It doesn’t matter if your game is big or small. Gamedev costs what it costs if you need to pay for the devs’ salaries directly from your game’s sales with no investment cushion.
That leads to a mobile-like landscape. The big stay big forever, the small fry keep gaming the algo hoping to go viral. It’s a bit grim.
I’d argue that if Steam played kingmaker based on less math and a bit more discernment they are in the best position to split the difference. Instead, you weirdly get more of that from Sony, Nintendo and… well, what’s left of MS for as long as it exists as a gaming first party.
And that’s what I think is needed. If Steam wants to be the Google of gaming that’s fine… as long as someone else is competing with a different approach to split the difference. Just Steam’s approach by itself would be bad, I think.
FYI I didn’t get a Lemmy notification to your reply. This is really annoing, and its just about pushing me to try Piefed…
But yeah, I buy this. But problems:
It costs Valve a lot more money.
It requires more employees, or at least contractors/grants.
It requires finding expertise/passion in niches, and categorizing a whole lot of games.
Given Valve’s sort of libertarian/hands off ethos, I don’t think they’re going to take the “1st pary editorial team” approach. Heck, they seem to be aware of the issue, hence the Steam Curators program, but its not the same as bankrolling an editorial team that does it for a living.