Honest question: how do tags determine your purchase?

[Harmacist]

I see this game's first tag (LG+). I'm quite surprised something that has nothing to do with the game's mechanics or theme is the main tag. I am honestly wondering if they are placed by players or by devs.

If players: does such a tag steer you into buying or purchasing the game?
If devs: do you think that having the tag there will bring more sales or more trolls?

Signed, a curious fellow indie dev, studying other game's marketing approach

[Monica]

As far as tags, it seems to be a mix between what the developer sets initially, and what users add/vote for the top tags, see: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/tags

As far as the LGBTQ+ tag: for me personally as a queer person, yeah, I seek out games with queer themes because I find them relatable and enjoyable. Unfortunately it also brings out the trolls and bigots, but there doesn't seem to be much that can be done about that at the moment (besides just blocking them as they pop up).

[Harmacist]

I see. So you seek them due to the narrative nature of this genre, but you assume it also brings unwanted "members" to the community

[rofflesvanwagon]

As far as visible tags(i cant be bothered to check the plus icon for all the dumb genre labels) If it has a lgbp tag it doesn't get a purchase. If it has a female Protagonist tag, I'm weary of that. I've played games for over 30 years, metroid was a astounding game that never had to point out "female protagonist", in fact it was a suprise for the ending. Same with tomb raider, perfect dark, beyond good and evil and many many more. It's a joke tag and the community who is adding it just damages the game. Same when I hear a chick label herself a "gamergirl", that just means you play dead by daylight and valorant.

[Nohiro]

Originally posted by Monica:

As far as tags, it seems to be a mix between what the developer sets initially, and what users add/vote for the top tags, see: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/tags

As far as the LGBTQ+ tag: for me personally as a queer person, yeah, I seek out games with queer themes because I find them relatable and enjoyable. Unfortunately it also brings out the trolls and bigots, but there doesn't seem to be much that can be done about that at the moment (besides just blocking them as they pop up).

Ah yes the 'bigots'. double standards all that...

[RolandDeschain]

Originally posted by rofflesvanwagon:

As far as visible tags(i cant be bothered to check the plus icon for all the dumb genre labels) If it has a lgbp tag it doesn't get a purchase. If it has a female Protagonist tag, I'm weary of that. I've played games for over 30 years, metroid was a astounding game that never had to point out "female protagonist", in fact it was a suprise for the ending. Same with tomb raider, perfect dark, beyond good and evil and many many more. It's a joke tag and the community who is adding it just damages the game. Same when I hear a chick label herself a "gamergirl", that just means you play dead by daylight and valorant.

Kinda reminds me of people who wouldn't buy a bottle of water because of a "vegan" tag on it.

[Harmacist]

I would like to keep this civil. Trying to get data, not start a fight. Thanks

[SpiteAndMalice]

Originally posted by Harmacist:

I see this game's first tag (LG+). I'm quite surprised something that has nothing to do with the game's mechanics or theme is the main tag. I am honestly wondering if they are placed by players or by devs.

You can definitely set tags as players, I've seen it done a few times where niche tags are added to a title because enough players chose it.

Originally posted by Harmacist:

If players: does such a tag steer you into buying or purchasing the game?

I don't know about purchasing, but I've definitely searched for or filtered games by tag when adding to my wishlist.

You can also use them to filter your library once purchased.

[Stoibs]

They don't. Tags are useless to me since they are user defined, and in a lot of cases end up being wrong anyway (I've seen turnbased tacked onto very decidedly *not* turnbased RPG's or vice verca and other mismatches)

Labels like 'Female Protagonist' are just pointless also... what does that tell me about a game and why do I never see 'Male Protagonist' anywhere else?
This one has '3D' as a tag for instance.; what the hell does that tell me? anyone with eyes can see that it's not a 2d pixel art game so what's the point of that label?

Honestly I wish there was a way to turn them off since the experiment so far has shown us that the community can't really be trusted to give accurate assessments regarding genre and features, and instead use it as a political platform half the time.

[(ADORA)ble 🌈👊]

Originally posted by rofflesvanwagon:

As far as visible tags(i cant be bothered to check the plus icon for all the dumb genre labels) If it has a lgbp tag it doesn't get a purchase. If it has a female Protagonist tag, I'm weary of that. I've played games for over 30 years, metroid was a astounding game that never had to point out "female protagonist", in fact it was a suprise for the ending. Same with tomb raider, perfect dark, beyond good and evil and many many more. It's a joke tag and the community who is adding it just damages the game. Same when I hear a chick label herself a "gamergirl", that just means you play dead by daylight and valorant.

Literally the entire "twist" of Metroid was that she's a woman.

[alex010300]

Yes

[Nohiro]

Originally posted by RolandDeschain:

Originally posted by rofflesvanwagon:

As far as visible tags(i cant be bothered to check the plus icon for all the dumb genre labels) If it has a lgbp tag it doesn't get a purchase. If it has a female Protagonist tag, I'm weary of that. I've played games for over 30 years, metroid was a astounding game that never had to point out "female protagonist", in fact it was a suprise for the ending. Same with tomb raider, perfect dark, beyond good and evil and many many more. It's a joke tag and the community who is adding it just damages the game. Same when I hear a chick label herself a "gamergirl", that just means you play dead by daylight and valorant.

Kinda reminds me of people who wouldn't buy a bottle of water because of a "vegan" tag on it.

I saw vegan coca cola once, I laughed so hard xD

[Sefu]

Originally posted by Harmacist:

I see this game's first tag (LG+). I'm quite surprised something that has nothing to do with the game's mechanics or theme is the main tag. I am honestly wondering if they are placed by players or by devs.

If players: does such a tag steer you into buying or purchasing the game?
If devs: do you think that having the tag there will bring more sales or more trolls?

Signed, a curious fellow indie dev, studying other game's marketing approach

Yes, being queer leads me to want to see queer relationships in my fiction. That shouldn't surprise anyone.

So, does it have any appeal outside of our narrow frame? Actually yes, but it's hard to quantify. There's an entire world of male/male romance written by and sold to women, for example. There are also otherwise heterosexual (usually progressive) women who connect with lesbian relationships even though they do not experience the physical attraction. Collectively, this minority tends to be... uh, let's just say passionate about works of art that appeal to it. The first life is strange owes a lot of its success to the free publicity the tumblr fans generated.

[Harmacist]

Originally posted by Sefu:

Yes, being queer leads me to want to see queer relationships in my fiction. That shouldn't surprise anyone.

So, does it have any appeal outside of our narrow frame? Actually yes, but it's hard to quantify. There's an entire world of male/male romance written by and sold to women, for example. There are also otherwise heterosexual (usually progressive) women who connect with lesbian relationships even though they do not experience the physical attraction. Collectively, this minority tends to be... uh, let's just say passionate about works of art that appeal to it. The first life is strange owes a lot of its success to the free publicity the tumblr fans generated.

Finally a proper answer. Thank you

[SpiteAndMalice]

Originally posted by Stoibs:

They don't. Tags are useless to me since they are user defined, and in a lot of cases end up being wrong anyway (I've seen turnbased tacked onto very decidedly *not* turnbased RPG's or vice verca and other mismatches)

I find that it depends upon the tag. I agree with you that some are pretty useless, and I'm totally with you about those turn-based-tactics / turn-based-strategy type tags, but I think the problem there is that they're commonly misunderstood genre labels which get misused a lot and therefore end up painting pretty broad strokes.

I've found it useful in the past to search via tags for games within genres which are more narrow such as 'driving games' or 'shoot-em-ups', I search the game lists using tags, then open up a load of separate Steam pages for any games that look interesting, from there I can drill down until I find what I want to purchase from that particular genre.

Tags can also make a useful means of organising your library, be it within Steam, or via external tools such as Depressurizer or Steam Library Filter.

[Harmacist]

Originally posted by SpiteAndMalice:

Tags can also make a useful means of organising your library, be it within Steam, or via external tools such as Depressurizer or Steam Library Filter.

Checking! With 1200 games, I always need tools!