Steam store = drowning in a sea of mediocre games

[Zeke45]

Steam's own search filters cannot even sort out this mess.

Also, other "tools" such as the cross-referencing are a joke -- for example "games like this." Imagine my surprise when I learned that Control is like Call of Duty, and that Mass Effect is like Baldur's Gate 3.

And what does Baldur's Gate 3 show in the "games like this"? You'd think Dragon Age or maybe Pathfinder or maybe Pillars of Eternity? Nope, none of those. But it does suggest For Honor, and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.

Cataloging and categorizing at its finest.

And still, oftentimes, if you click the developer link on a game's page, you're instead given the publisher. It's pasted together with chewing gum.

[Start_Running]

EVeryone would agfree with your statement. WHat you'll never get agreement on is which games are the bad/mediiocre ones. WGHich is why 80% of everty platform's library is full of mediocre titles.

[Garou]

There are so many games on Steam now that it's very difficult to browse all the demos, prologues, early access titles and such. I try to limit my followed/wishlist games to IP that is presented at major game shows or something that is highlighted by my trusted youtubers. Even then I face quite a large list of potential games that can be interesting.

At this point it only makes sense to keep wishlists and follow lists as a reference. There's no need to spend much money on games that won't see any action in months/years,

[miakisfan]

Originally posted by Zeke45:

Steam's own search filters cannot even sort out this mess.

Also, other "tools" such as the cross-referencing are a joke -- for example "games like this." Imagine my surprise when I learned that Control is like Call of Duty, and that Mass Effect is like Baldur's Gate 3.

And what does Baldur's Gate 3 show in the "games like this"? You'd think Dragon Age or maybe Pathfinder or maybe Pillars of Eternity? Nope, none of those. But it does suggest For Honor, and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.

Cataloging and categorizing at its finest.

And still, oftentimes, if you click the developer link on a game's page, you're instead given the publisher. It's pasted together with chewing gum.

You could also say the Steam forums are drowning in a sea of mediocre opinions ... both of which would be true to you and a percentage of other Steam users who agree.

My problem with your opinion is it is subjective in nature. I don't expect you to like the same types of games I do and vice versa not to mention you seem to be expecting perfection out of Steam anyways.

Yet another individual who hasn't walked in the shoes of Steam nor has likely tried to do it themselves and find out what it is like to face criticism like this.

This topic isn't what I call mediocre ... I call it ignorant because you have options and instead of using them you choose to complain.

[Tito Shivan]

Welcome to the discovery of the Sturgeon Law:
"90% of everything is crap"

Originally posted by Zeke45:

And what does Baldur's Gate 3 show in the "games like this"? You'd think Dragon Age or maybe Pathfinder or maybe Pillars of Eternity? Nope, none of those. But it does suggest For Honor, and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.

I don't get For Honor there, but with DB Xenoverse they both have the following tags:
RPG
Character Customization
Adventure
Fantasy
Multiplayer
singleplayer

When you do tag matching you're bound to find odd matches, but the feature is a broad stroke, not a laser pointer.

[Nx Machina]

As the old saying goes: One mans trash is another mans treasure and you are not adverse to adding mediorce/bad games to your library based on your reviews and not recommending them.

On the other hand i enjoy some of those you do not recommend although i do not deem them must play for others.

As for the store i simply browse categories such as RPG and if a game peaks my interest i wishlist it then watch youtube gameplay. If i continue to watch it gets added to my library.

[Crazy Tiger]

That might be so, yet I still have no issue finding good and fun games. Seems I tend to evade the mediocre, and worse, games then.

[みずゆき]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

That might be so, yet I still have no issue finding good and fun games. Seems I tend to evade the mediocre, and worse, games then.

So you never check the "New and Trending" tab or whatever new releases is now?

[Yasahi]

Originally posted by Ichigo:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

That might be so, yet I still have no issue finding good and fun games. Seems I tend to evade the mediocre, and worse, games then.

So you never check the "New and Trending" tab or whatever new releases is now?

New and Trending is usually 90% Hentai and porn games while Top Sellers is the same old free to play games like CS, Dota 2 etc. so there's really no point in checking them.

The game suggestions I come across on the forums in various threads are usually way better. For example the historic games thread in Steam Community right now or the one in DRG:S about similar games are good examples of this. The suggestions shown on the store pages of some of the games I play are also better than those two store categories. Sales with specific categories are also a nice way of finding more of the "same". Then there's Twitch, Youtube and other media exposure that help in finding games I like.

[みずゆき]

Forgot to mention discovery queue is also a thing that recommends terrible bs.

Originally posted by Yasahi:

Originally posted by Ichigo:

So you never check the "New and Trending" tab or whatever new releases is now?

New and Trending is usually 90% Hentai and porn games while Top Sellers is the same old free to play games like CS, Dota 2 etc. so there's really no point in checking them.

The game suggestions I come across on the forums in various threads are usually way better. For example the historic games thread in Steam Community right now or the one in DRG:S about similar games are good examples of this. The suggestions shown on the store pages of some of the games I play are also better than those two store categories. Sales with specific categories are also a nice way of finding more of the "same". Then there's Twitch, Youtube and other media exposure that help in finding games I like.

I sometimes just check the new and trending tab out of boredom. I don't really go there expecting to find something actually good, it just kills a bit of time.

I usually just use forums for game recs.

Also, I really hate how uninteresting and stale the Top Sellers tab is. I feel like I've seen most of the same games there for years now.

[matt]

I don't think there's anything you can do about poor matches. This is especially true with dealing with overused tags (either by publishers or indiscriminate gamers). Some genres have become almost meaningless because they're now so broad. RPG is arguably one such tag.

One thing you can do is to exclude tags associated with games that you find uninteresting or dislike. That'll help reduce how often you see irrelevant games. Searching through more specific genre tags also sometimes helps, rather than relying on broad, top-level genres.

For example, a lot of hardcore RPGs (rather than the RPGs that try to appeal to casual gamers) use the "CRPG" tag. You could try looking through that tag instead of looking through "games like this", which is going to match lots of generic tags, like "multiplayer" and "fantasy".

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Ichigo:

Forgot to mention discovery queue is also a thing that recommends terrible bs.

The system tells you why it shows you every game. Look into it and you may learn more why it's recommending you terrible stuff.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Ichigo:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

That might be so, yet I still have no issue finding good and fun games. Seems I tend to evade the mediocre, and worse, games then.

So you never check the "New and Trending" tab or whatever new releases is now?

Of course not. I don't check such things on any store, you can expect to find stuff you don't like in such parts. I mean, in a music store I'll mostly find stuff I don't enjoy on such lists as well.

[Squirrel With Acorn]

I agree with what you are saying about what games steam is recommending on the store pages of the games. They never ever seem to match close enough.

GOG does a better job at this, massively better. For example, I have Plague Tale Requiem on GOG, and GOG recommended "Shadwen" and "Silence" as similar games. I bought both of them and did find that they are appropriate recommendations based on Plague Tale.

With Steam I have never seen these recommendations be appropriate, and as a result never bought a game from that recommendation.

I do find Steam to be a complete mess on trying to find games that I do want to play, no matter what system on Steam I use to discover games. Not saying that the games it recommends are bad games, rather they are games that are not for me. When it comes to Steam I have only ever discovered games using outside sources like Youtube, Twitter, discord, reddit, twitch, Parsec, google news feed on my phone, and various gaming forums.

[Doctor Zalgo]

The tragedy of the commons strikes again. I'm sure every developer and publisher agrees in principle that games should be tagged and categorised correctly so that people can easily find games that interest them, they also think they should be allowed to put their first person shooter under role-playing games because technically you 'play the role; of man with gun and they should be allowed to put it under simulation because you're simulating shooting a gun.

Taking a broader view, this is also why you need government regulation for practically every sort of shared resource or area. People are just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ when it comes to carving out special exceptions for themselves.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Purple:

I do find Steam to be a complete mess on trying to find games that I do want to play, no matter what system on Steam I use to discover games.

I don't think there is any game store that does it good. For me Epic and GoG are absolutely terrible to use, I can hardly find what I want on there. On Steam it's easier for me to find stuff.

They all have their uses and their flaws for me.