Is Curator Connect working?

[AstroMonkey]

Hello young and elderly gamers, i am a solo indie developer who takes pride in not making 15 minutes games.

Just as a brief explanation i will say that it takes me between 1 to 2 years to make a full game.

Hitting the release button for me is the most painful thing to do because i know for a fact that i will not even make enough to earn a monthly minimum wage over the course of a year and that my game will be submerged in a couple of hours by a seaflood of asset flips and school projects cause steam greenlight was too much efficient, and we hate good things.

So I turn to steam curators because it's a form of free marketing(silly me) and youtubers/influencers rarely discover games for free(unless you are so naive to think that someone with 700k subs will share your game out of generosity).

For my latest game Omega Squad i have sent keys to 77 curators, including some famous ones like splattercat(at least i think it was his curator group, whatever), only ONE after 2 weeks found the benevolence to leave the review, he recommended the game by copy pastying the description of my game so whatever. Everyone else didn't even bother to either get the key, or blatantly got the key and didn't even try the game or leave a review.

I UNDERSTAND curators are not obligated to leave reviews, but really?....

I'm sure many indie devs are feeling the same pain, so i am here to ask y'all if curator connect is actually a feature that is working as intended or it might need some tweaking.

Do i really have to send money to reviewers to get them to review my games?

I'm a truly concerned solo indie developer.

Have a nice day.

[wuddih]

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

t9님이 먼저 게시:

I can assure you that Valve doesn't give a damn about curator bs on Steam

Heck, this curator who insulted me and others out of nowhere is still there including the texts, visible for everyone *lol Can't even ask or respond because we are banned.

I don't know a single person who knows, let alone reads, any curator stuff on Steam.

Curator feature on Steam is a joke...

I know, i know...sadly...they get the 100$ a game, multiply that by the 50 games released everyday and they are pretty much happy.

the $100 app fee is recoupable and does not generate any profit for Valve. in Greenlight days it was a direct payment to charity.

[AstroMonkey]

wuddih님이 먼저 게시:

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

I know, i know...sadly...they get the 100$ a game, multiply that by the 50 games released everyday and they are pretty much happy.

the $100 app fee is recoupable and does not generate any profit for Valve. in Greenlight days it was a direct payment to charity.

If your product makes more than 1000$ yes, do you wanna take a wild guess on how many games reach that? realistically speaking?

[Start_Running]

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

wuddih님이 먼저 게시:

the $100 app fee is recoupable and does not generate any profit for Valve. in Greenlight days it was a direct payment to charity.

If your product makes more than 1000$ yes, do you wanna take a wild guess on how many games reach that? realistically speaking?

All of them.
As long as it has a price tag.
It is after all a matter of when, not if.

Also I think it still is a direct payment to charity.

[AstroMonkey]

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

If your product makes more than 1000$ yes, do you wanna take a wild guess on how many games reach that? realistically speaking?

All of them.
As long as it has a price tag.
It is after all a matter of when, not if.

Also I think it still is a direct payment to charity.

ok, you're just trolling now.

[Dedzju]

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

Hello young and elderly gamers, i am a solo indie developer who takes pride in not making 15 minutes games.

Just as a brief explanation i will say that it takes me between 1 to 2 years to make a full game.

Hitting the release button for me is the most painful thing to do because i know for a fact that i will not even make enough to earn a monthly minimum wage over the course of a year and that my game will be submerged in a couple of hours by a seaflood of asset flips and school projects cause steam greenlight was too much efficient, and we hate good things.

So I turn to steam curators because it's a form of free marketing(silly me) and youtubers/influencers rarely discover games for free(unless you are so naive to think that someone with 700k subs will share your game out of generosity).

For my latest game Omega Squad i have sent keys to 77 curators, including some famous ones like splattercat(at least i think it was his curator group, whatever), only ONE after 2 weeks found the benevolence to leave the review, he recommended the game by copy pastying the description of my game so whatever. Everyone else didn't even bother to either get the key, or blatantly got the key and didn't even try the game or leave a review.

I UNDERSTAND curators are not obligated to leave reviews, but really?....

I'm sure many indie devs are feeling the same pain, so i am here to ask y'all if curator connect is actually a feature that is working as intended or it might need some tweaking.

Do i really have to send money to reviewers to get them to review my games?

I'm a truly concerned solo indie developer.

Have a nice day.

How do u even start it?

[Dedzju]

I'm a business translator, smth like that it was. Prepping u for the later job. Lend me some money for home translation, telework. Bank, gimme let's say; 4000-5000€.

[Dedzju]

I dislike credits. Pay interests, bah. "Let op, geld lenen kost ook geld." "Durf twijfelen".

[Start_Running]

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

Start_Running님이 먼저 게시:

All of them.
As long as it has a price tag.
It is after all a matter of when, not if.

Also I think it still is a direct payment to charity.

ok, you're just trolling now.

No M8. You're just not thinking. A game would have to be SPECTACULARLY bland to not be able to eventually accrue 1000 sales eventually. Remember once the game is up on steam its up there for pretty much ever. Unless you take it down. Hence why I said its a matter of when not if.

Some games make that in a day. SOme games make that in a week. Some games hit that in a hear. Some may take 10 years to hit that number, but it will eventually get there.

How quickly it gets there will depend on the quality and to be frank, how interesting your game is and how much work you put into promoting it it and getting the word out.

[Nx Machina]

So the premise of the thread is a way to advertise your game and believe curators should conform to your brute force tactics. Now i can guarantee you say no and do not comply so why complain when others do what you deem unacceptable.

[wuddih]

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

wuddih님이 먼저 게시:

the $100 app fee is recoupable and does not generate any profit for Valve. in Greenlight days it was a direct payment to charity.

If your product makes more than 1000$ yes, do you wanna take a wild guess on how many games reach that? realistically speaking?

realistically speaking?
if your direct impact marketing is not just your friends list ... every game.

[AstroMonkey]

Nx Machina님이 먼저 게시:

So the premise of the thread is a way to advertise your game and believe curators should conform to your brute force tactics. Now i can guarantee you say no and do not comply so why complain when others do what you deem unacceptable.

Wow you truly managed to not understand anything, good job, i'll make it simple for you :

80% of curator groups are key collectors and resellers, resellers are kinda dead as they send you emails now to ask for keys THROUGH emails, usually trying to scam you into believing they have an active youtube channel and twitch, which is not. That leaves with 20 % legit reviewers.

Now you tell me how a system that is SUPPOSED to connect developers and curators is working properly like that, i don't know, i think you guys have no clue what you're talking about.

I do understand i can email people and stuff, but if i have to send emails to connect with curators then what the actual crap does the curator connect stands for? Absolutely nothing.

[AstroMonkey]

wuddih님이 먼저 게시:

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

If your product makes more than 1000$ yes, do you wanna take a wild guess on how many games reach that? realistically speaking?

realistically speaking?
if your direct impact marketing is not just your friends list ... every game.

do you have any actual data? because they surveys done up until now paint a totally different picture, so i tend to believe people with data rather than your biased opinion based upon what exactly? just for the sake of arguing? almost the vast majority of videogames released DO NOT make money, not even in the slightest, google is your friend, look it up.

[AstroMonkey]

I think a good way to start a fix would be to say : Ok if you claim a key you have to make a review in a set amount of time, otherwise the key will expire.

That will fix the issue with key collectors, and you have a way to know wheter someone is interested or not.

You are not obligated to get the key but if you claim a key for free you've got to do something about it.

If you do not have the time or do not want to review a game you can simply not claim the keys.

[Nx Machina]

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

Wow you truly managed to not understand anything, good job, i'll make it simple for you :

80% of curator groups are key collectors and resellers, resellers are kinda dead as they send you emails now to ask for keys THROUGH emails, usually trying to scam you into believing they have an active youtube channel and twitch, which is not. That leaves with 20 % legit reviewers.

Now you tell me how a system that is SUPPOSED to connect developers and curators is working properly like that, i don't know, i think you guys have no clue what you're talking about.

I do understand i can email people and stuff, but if i have to send emails to connect with curators then what the actual crap does the curator connect stands for? Absolutely nothing.

I work in advertising.

Your strategy failed simply because "your expectation" of others selling your product on your behalf fell flat. They do not owe you nor are they obligated to promote your game.

Expectation leads to disappointment and disappointment leads to blaming others for your failure.

[AstroMonkey]

Nx Machina님이 먼저 게시:

AstroMonkey님이 먼저 게시:

Wow you truly managed to not understand anything, good job, i'll make it simple for you :

80% of curator groups are key collectors and resellers, resellers are kinda dead as they send you emails now to ask for keys THROUGH emails, usually trying to scam you into believing they have an active youtube channel and twitch, which is not. That leaves with 20 % legit reviewers.

Now you tell me how a system that is SUPPOSED to connect developers and curators is working properly like that, i don't know, i think you guys have no clue what you're talking about.

I do understand i can email people and stuff, but if i have to send emails to connect with curators then what the actual crap does the curator connect stands for? Absolutely nothing.

I work in advertising.

Your strategy failed simply because "your expectation" of others selling your product on your behalf fell flat. They do not owe you nor are they obligated to promote your game.

Expectation leads to disappointment and disappointment leads to blaming others for your failure.

are we talking about my strategy or curator connect ? cause i can agree with you about my marketing strategy, but curator connect is the point of the thread