Is Steam a Store or a Kickstarter?

[The Brown Hornet]

When I first joined Steam which was not that long ago it did in fact seem like a STORE, a digital store with awesome PC titles and amazing sales. But now with the addition of EA and even Greenlight it feels more like a doner Kickstarter service. Steam in my opinion has definitely begun to blur the line between Store and FUNDRAISER, I dont know if it can be both, is this right direction for the platform....it almost doesn't even seem legal.

In the PC world the term "Indie developer" sounds nice, honest, and innocent but what happens when you open the flood gates and let every "Indie developer" talented and NON TALENTED into the "Store" all begging for community time, funding, and support? For me it has actually become annoying, I'm literally fed up with all the low quality games popping up seemingly in the dozens everyday...

The truth is I haven't actually purchased any EA or Greenlight products so I haven't truly loss anything but nevertheless it has affected me in the sense that I no longer like or enjoy the STORE that use to be STEAM. For a time I use to spend a lot of money here but now its rare I buy anything. I personally dont trust all these drive-by-night Indie developers who pop up like flies on a daily basis. I use to look forward to visiting the Store when I logged on Steam, now I cant stand to look at it cause its full of bloatware and shovelware...slap the word "Indie" on it and thats suppose to somehow make it all right? Bloatware is bloat and I wish Steam would get rid of it or regulate it to different areas of the platform.

I have tried to customize but the crap titles keep popping up, nothing you can do about it....my view is that "Indie" aka Early Access, aka Greenlight, aka Kickstarter, aka GoFundMe, have taken over Steam and its a lesser experience as a result. I know the bottom line is making money and I know Steam is doing a good job of that but over the past year or two there has been a tremendous drop in quality. I want Steam to go back to quality over quantity and/or create some other outlet for the blight.

[Start_Running]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Quint the Robot Girl の投稿を引用：

Filtering the storefront is already done to a small degree -- with the "Not Interested" feature -- but other than that you should treat it like a physical storefront -- i.e., it's a pointless waste of time. It's like, no, I'm not interested in the stuff that Walmart puts up on its store windows advertising discounts for. I just want to go into the store and buy those items and only those items that I want.

I guess filtering out stuff for the storefront would probably be a nice thing too. Though not something I'd care much about since I almost never use it. The storefront looked like a place where my tastes didn't belong, several years ago, and it still mostly does, with a few exceptions.

It's primarily the store front page that grinds on me. For example, I'm currently being shown a ton of games on the little slider at the top that I have no interest in. These also happen to be low-budget indie games. If I could have a way to filter out indie games, it would cut out a huge chunk of games that I'm not after.

And though there is the 'not interested' button, it would take far too long for me to mark so many games. I have more games I'm not interested in than interested in, with the majority of those being in the 'indie' criteria.

Why bother with th store page at all then?

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

It's primarily the store front page that grinds on me. For example, I'm currently being shown a ton of games on the little slider at the top that I have no interest in. These also happen to be low-budget indie games. If I could have a way to filter out indie games, it would cut out a huge chunk of games that I'm not after.

And though there is the 'not interested' button, it would take far too long for me to mark so many games. I have more games I'm not interested in than interested in, with the majority of those being in the 'indie' criteria.

The "Not Interested" button is kinda useless since Steam doesn't use it to collect data on the types of games you might not be interested in (in the way the games whose store pages you look at, or which you've played recently, are used to guess at what other games you'd like to buy).

That said, consider yourself lucky that you probably had more mainstream PC gaming tastes that may have been better served by the Steam storefront of the past. As opposed to someone like me -- I like platformers, top-down and 3/4 view action games, JRPGs, shmups, basically NES/SNES/PS1-era console-style games. So before the advent of indie games on Steam, there was pretty much nothing of interest to me -- just FPS after FPS after FPS, basically, often with obnoxiously dark-and-gritty aesthetics that didn't interest me at all. So Steam looked like a place that I'd never have any reason to step foot in.

Well, it was like that until Recettear showed up and someone gifted it to me.

[Start_Running]

Quint the Robot Girl の投稿を引用：

The "Not Interested" button is kinda useless since Steam doesn't use it to collect data on the types of games you might not be interested in (in the way the games whose store pages you look at, or which you've played recently, are used to guess at what other games you'd like to buy).

That said, consider yourself lucky that you probably had more mainstream PC gaming tastes that may have been better served by the Steam storefront of the past. As opposed to someone like me -- I like platformers, top-down and 3/4 view action games, JRPGs, shmups, basically NES/SNES/PS1-era console-style games. So before the advent of indie games on Steam, there was pretty much nothing of interest to me -- just FPS after FPS after FPS, basically, often with obnoxiously dark-and-gritty aesthetics that didn't interest me at all. So Steam looked like a place that I'd never have any reason to step foot in.

Well, it was like that until Recettear showed up and someone gifted it to me.

Fun game that. A little grindy but fun.

Myself I take the wide view. If I'm shown a game I;ve never heard of but looks interesting I check into it.. I used to have more hard set tastes but Papers Please taught me.. nope fun can be anywhere. Zeafehouse DIaries nailed the point home.

[Tux]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Quint the Robot Girl の投稿を引用：

That said, consider yourself lucky that you probably had more mainstream PC gaming tastes that may have been better served by the Steam storefront of the past. As opposed to someone like me -- I like platformers, top-down and 3/4 view action games, JRPGs, shmups, basically NES/SNES/PS1-era console-style games. So before the advent of indie games on Steam, there was pretty much nothing of interest to me -- just FPS after FPS after FPS, basically, often with obnoxiously dark-and-gritty aesthetics that didn't interest me at all. So Steam looked like a place that I'd never have any reason to step foot in.

It's actually funny you should mention those sorts of games, because they seem to be all I'm getting advertised lately (plus some poorly made zombie games). I've got nothing in my library that should make Steam think I'd be interested, but there they are with a little title saying 'recommend to you'.

Maybe even a 'preferred games' setting would work. One where you can select what you're after and what you're not. At the current rate of indie games filling up the store, it is getting out of hand and needing some method of simplifying it a bit more than we are currently getting.

poorly made zombie games?

like 7 days to die?

have you actually played it?

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Quint the Robot Girl の投稿を引用：

That said, consider yourself lucky that you probably had more mainstream PC gaming tastes that may have been better served by the Steam storefront of the past. As opposed to someone like me -- I like platformers, top-down and 3/4 view action games, JRPGs, shmups, basically NES/SNES/PS1-era console-style games. So before the advent of indie games on Steam, there was pretty much nothing of interest to me -- just FPS after FPS after FPS, basically, often with obnoxiously dark-and-gritty aesthetics that didn't interest me at all. So Steam looked like a place that I'd never have any reason to step foot in.

It's actually funny you should mention those sorts of games, because they seem to be all I'm getting advertised lately (plus some poorly made zombie games). I've got nothing in my library that should make Steam think I'd be interested, but there they are with a little title saying 'recommend to you'.

Maybe even a 'preferred games' setting would work. One where you can select what you're after and what you're not. At the current rate of indie games filling up the store, it is getting out of hand and needing some method of simplifying it a bit more than we are currently getting.

Well, a few years back it was all about military FPSes, and more recently it was all about zombie survival games, but now it's apparently about open-world wilderness survival games.

But I definitely agree that Steam could be better served if only it let us customers tell it what kinds of games we like.

I mean, look at the store frontpage. Convenient link: http://store.steampowered.com/

See that bit on the lower left corner? "Tags recommended for you." Why can't Steam just change that to "tags you've said you're interested in", and let us tell it what tags we'd like to see?

Because it's not very good at figuring out my tastes, and I assume it's not very good at figuring out the tastes of many other people either.

It draws its recommendations based on games we've recently played, have wishlisted, or have visited in the Steam store. That's quite silly, because it leads to stuff like:
* someone who doesn't like anime games views the store page for one anime game, then gets recommended a bunch of anime games afterwards.
* someone who plays TF2 but almost never plays any other FPS games will be recommended a bunch of FPS games only because they played TF2 recently.

Also, the Discovery Queue loves showing me games "because it is popular". No, I don't care whether a game is popular; freaking match at least one tag of something else I've played, sheesh! Or better yet, there should be a way to toggle on/off its wanting to show me stuff that's popular, so that the people who want the popular stuff can see it and the people who don't care for it won't.

[Tux]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Tux の投稿を引用：

poorly made zombie games?

like 7 days to die?

have you actually played it?

Calm yourself down. I'm talking about CS Lexicon Zombies and Codename Cure. But ask yourself this: why did you instantly associate the phrase 'poorly made zombie games' with 7 Days to Die?

is your question suggesting that 7 days to die might be bad?

[Tux]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Tux の投稿を引用：

is your question suggesting that 7 days to die might be bad?

I'm suggesting you think that. Why else would you instantly assume, out of all of the zombie games out there, that I meant 7 Days to Die specifically?

Why would you think that I think 7 days to die is not good? Have you seen my profile?

are you suggesting I have some kind of mental condition in which I play games for 200+ hours when I think they are bad?

have you played Codename Cur? how do you know its bad?

[The Brown Hornet]

Quint the Robot Girl の投稿を引用：

Aaron の投稿を引用：

It's actually funny you should mention those sorts of games, because they seem to be all I'm getting advertised lately (plus some poorly made zombie games). I've got nothing in my library that should make Steam think I'd be interested, but there they are with a little title saying 'recommend to you'.

Maybe even a 'preferred games' setting would work. One where you can select what you're after and what you're not. At the current rate of indie games filling up the store, it is getting out of hand and needing some method of simplifying it a bit more than we are currently getting.

Well, a few years back it was all about military FPSes, and more recently it was all about zombie survival games, but now it's apparently about open-world wilderness survival games.

But I definitely agree that Steam could be better served if only it let us customers tell it what kinds of games we like.

I mean, look at the store frontpage. Convenient link: http://store.steampowered.com/

See that bit on the lower left corner? "Tags recommended for you." Why can't Steam just change that to "tags you've said you're interested in", and let us tell it what tags we'd like to see?

Because it's not very good at figuring out my tastes, and I assume it's not very good at figuring out the tastes of many other people either.

It draws its recommendations based on games we've recently played, have wishlisted, or have visited in the Steam store. That's quite silly, because it leads to stuff like:
* someone who doesn't like anime games views the store page for one anime game, then gets recommended a bunch of anime games afterwards.
* someone who plays TF2 but almost never plays any other FPS games will be recommended a bunch of FPS games only because they played TF2 recently.

Also, the Discovery Queue loves showing me games "because it is popular". No, I don't care whether a game is popular; freaking match at least one tag of something else I've played, sheesh! Or better yet, there should be a way to toggle on/off its wanting to show me stuff that's popular, so that the people who want the popular stuff can see it and the people who don't care for it won't.

I like that idea but you know what I believe, developers, especially Indies, are paying steam to flood our store page wit their games. We can't customize or turn it off cause it's capitalism in effect!

[Start_Running]

The Brown Hornet の投稿を引用：

Quint the Robot Girl の投稿を引用：

Well, a few years back it was all about military FPSes, and more recently it was all about zombie survival games, but now it's apparently about open-world wilderness survival games.

But I definitely agree that Steam could be better served if only it let us customers tell it what kinds of games we like.

I mean, look at the store frontpage. Convenient link: http://store.steampowered.com/

See that bit on the lower left corner? "Tags recommended for you." Why can't Steam just change that to "tags you've said you're interested in", and let us tell it what tags we'd like to see?

Because it's not very good at figuring out my tastes, and I assume it's not very good at figuring out the tastes of many other people either.

It draws its recommendations based on games we've recently played, have wishlisted, or have visited in the Steam store. That's quite silly, because it leads to stuff like:
* someone who doesn't like anime games views the store page for one anime game, then gets recommended a bunch of anime games afterwards.
* someone who plays TF2 but almost never plays any other FPS games will be recommended a bunch of FPS games only because they played TF2 recently.

Also, the Discovery Queue loves showing me games "because it is popular". No, I don't care whether a game is popular; freaking match at least one tag of something else I've played, sheesh! Or better yet, there should be a way to toggle on/off its wanting to show me stuff that's popular, so that the people who want the popular stuff can see it and the people who don't care for it won't.

I like that idea but you know what I believe, developers, especially Indies, are paying steam to flood our store page wit their games. We can't customize or turn it off cause it's capitalism in effect!

Same capitalism that governs supermarkets. Honestly it's more simple than you'd think so before you go all Zionist Illuminati conspiracy. Steam is a Store. Stores sell stuff. There the answer to your question again. Now Steam even though it profits indirectly from the sales still has an interest in driving sales and market research has shown that yes, random ads and prompts do infact result in an impressive increase in sales.

If you ask the consumer what they want they'll say 'what I already have' which doesn't get anyone anywhere. Behavioural studies show that showing people things they may not have thought about increases the chance that they will want or buy. Quite significantly.

If a consumer can't see something they'll never know if they'll want it. So they'll never buy it. Can't buy what you can't see after all. On the other hand show them something there is a 20% chance that it'll be something they never knew they wanted until you showed them.. 20% beats 0% and that's a 20% chance of an extra sale.

Why then wouldn't a store do tthis. You'll see this very thing in effect on any digital or online retailer. GoG, Origin and Amazon do the same things. As does, Overstock, Ebay and near any other site that has a large and diverse inventory. So if a practice has a 20% chance to get you a sale you would not get normally and costs you no money.. why wouldn't you do it.

It's the same thing the effects the layout of supermarket. Supermarkets are almost to a letter designed to make sure you walk by the things they want to sell you regardless of what you came in there to buy. It's also why supermarkets will no less than once every 18 months re organze their displays, shift the aisles around and so forth. It's to force you to wander around searchiung for the things you want and increase the chance of you being exposed to something you wanted but didn't know. Heck just determining which products wind up in the golden zones involves more bribery than you'd care to know.

[Tux]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Tux の投稿を引用：

Why would you think that I think 7 days to die is not good? Have you seen my profile?

I've just explained why. You immediately jumped to the conclusion I was talking about 7DtD just from seeing the words 'poorly made zombie games'.

Tux の投稿を引用：

are you suggesting I have some kind of mental condition in which I play games for 200+ hours when I think they are bad?

I'm starting to think you've got something, yeah.

ok so you think there are people (me in this case) that have a mental condition in which we play games we think are bad for more than 200+ hours.

that is a pretty bold claim so I am going to have to ask you some questions

what is the name of this mental condition?

given that you have not played any of these 'bad zombie games' or any game like it how do you know its bad when the reviews of it are 'Very Positive'? do all those people have the same mental condition as I or do they just not know good games like you?

care to share with us what are good games? some titles perhaps?

[Tux]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Tux の投稿を引用：

ok so you think there are people (me in this case) that have a mental condition in which we play games we think are bad for more than 200+ hours.

that is a pretty bold claim so I am going to have to ask you some questions

what is the name of this mental condition?

given that you have not played any of these 'bad zombie games' or any game like it how do you know its bad when the reviews of it are 'Very Positive'? do all those people have the same mental condition as I or do they just not know good games like you?

care to share with us what are good games? some titles perhaps?

I'm just saying you're insane. You first jumped to conclusions about a game I wasn't talking about. And now you're rambling on about something I also haven't said. It looks like you could have a conversation entirely by yourself.

so you are saying I DONT have such a condition and I would NOT play a game for 200+ hours if I thought it was bad.

well given that you know so much about bad games you have never played could you please share with us a title of a good game so we can improve our gaming experince.

thanks

[The Brown Hornet]

So Running Man after all the defending you doing I just want to know what problems and improvements you think can be made to EAG and Greenlight? Certainly it's not perfect is it?

[The Brown Hornet]

Do you think Steam transforming into an unfinished games kickstarter is a move in the right direction? We, the gamers, should take the risk not the developers and investors?

[Tux]

The Brown Hornet の投稿を引用：

So Running Man after all the defending you doing I just want to know what problems and improvements you think can be made to EAG and Greenlight? Certainly it's not perfect is it?

Although the question is for someone else I have an answer

Steam just needs to have a seperate portal for those games and not have them pop up on searches and banners without explictly asking for such results.


Now I know that would leave considerably fewer games for others but that is what they want to see...basically a small list of games they consider proper quality

[Tux]

Aaron の投稿を引用：

Tux の投稿を引用：

so you are saying I DONT have such a condition and I would NOT play a game for 200+ hours if I thought it was bad.

well given that you know so much about bad games you have never played could you please share with us a title of a good game so we can improve our gaming experince.

thanks

Really, I don't understand what's so hard to grasp here. You jumped to the conclusion I was talking about 7DtD just from the phrase 'poorly made zombie game'. I was pointing out that since you connected that phrase to that game without any other mention, you obviously have some sort of hang up about that game (be it rabid defence or whatever).

When you still failed to grasp that, even after having it explained to you, you then started rambling about mental conditions. If you pull nonsense out of nowhere, you do start to look crazy, so I pointed that out as well.

And now you're rambling yet again about suggestions for other games. Seriously, just take your meds and be done with it.

I would really like to know what game you consider good so that I can improve my gaming experience.

I consider 7 Days to Die one of the best games I have ever played in my 30+ years of playing computer games. I would love to know what else is better.

please give me a few titles