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And what's the problem?
Yoyu mean like say allowing people to play a game for a weekend, or a week for free ? Yes it would be nice. STeam should totally find a way to implement something like that.
And who dec ides what is a 'useful' review hmmmm?
If you can't see where the problem might arise then you're blind.
Except that such systems would be quite costly to develop and implement. Not to mention it introduces numerous points of failure external to the game. Are the laggy controls due to the game, your hardware or your net connection?
Is that you're thinking that some dev somewhere will let you play games for free.
Yes and those copmplaints come from lazy devs who's entire strategy for success was "release game on steam" , The successful indies know that they havbe to work just as hard to promote and market their game as well and to that extent they have all the tools they need. They can give out copies to youtube influences, they can give out copies to large gaming groups etc, they can pool marketing resources with other devs to cross promote games...
Devs have about as many tools as they could ever need. COurse they have to use them, properly.
Don't.
And when you udnerstand the difference between a game being piopular and a game sinking to the bottom of the slurry pit. you will understand why this is actually not a problem. If a game has zero review.s.. thats an indication of a lazy dev and lazy devs seldom make games worrth playing.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/789840/A_Dream_of_Burning_Sand/
Perhaps it doesn't look like much to you?
I mean take the indie game Cave Story when it first came out. I ignored it because it looked primitive. But, given enough time it did skyrocket in popularity and I eventually loved it when someone recommended it to me.
The game Iji as well, looks simple, but is one of my favorite games, even to this day.
Perhaps that game is no good? But, unless someone tries it and reviews it, we'll never know. And a lack of a review doesn't mean it isn't good. It just means it's not popular. (Or not competitively priced, etc.)
There is no problem. But, that doesn't mean there aren't cost effective things that might improve things further. These are just ideas after all.
...Well actually, the 2 hour return policy is probably geared towards letting people return a faulty or unwanted product after testing. Not really for giving a game a proper review. It's true a less than 2 hour review of a 20 hour game is better than nothing...
How does limited time Free to Play work? Can any developer use that? I've only seen big named games get free weekends. And of course, games with demos are ideal... But, not all offer them.
Also, the developer may not want their game Free to Play for everyone, and lose out on potential sales, but for only a certain number of people. Like "Received For Free" review copies. Except, not all developers seem to give those out. Not sure if they have to pay for keys, or how that works.
A fair question. There could be a number of ways of defining a 'useful' review. Like the "Is this review helpful" button. Maybe 'useful' until someone hits no enough? Also perhaps a developer could challenge a review's 'useful' status, for instance if someone just writes "Trash game 1/10" without explanation. Maybe a certain length to the review would be required?
I'm sure if they were interested in doing something like this, they might have access to analytics or tools that might better define what is 'useful'. And I only mean this for reviews that aren't purchased, but through this program. (In the end, a dev might want someone who puts out helpful reviews, rather than a negative meme review if you're giving them a free play.)
The key word being 'ideally'. But, a smaller scale cloud service aimed at people who are basically like testers, who are playing for free; would make a good test group for such a thing. Or so I'd imagine. I guess just ignore the cloud idea until the time it is feasible.
My idea was to have it be a developer optional feature. Giving small developers a starting point, if they need a jump start, and have not built a community or have a following/wishlisters.
Yes, in the end it is a survival of the fittest market. The best games, or the best marketed games may rise in popularity. But, never stop innovating. Maybe my idea is no good, but someone may have an idea that might only offer benefits.
HEy lol.
Some people are born salesman. And some people may just give up when nobody shows up out of the ether. I assume you don't want any hand-holding of devs that can't cut it. But, games can take a lot of work to make. And sometimes they just go under the radar despite their quality. Reaching your target audience is half the battle...
Anyway, looking at online comments, I see a lot of people who don't want 'shovelware' on their storefront. But, on the flip side I see others that want to dig for the occasional diamond in the rough. Maybe there should be a way to customize the storefront, just like you can customize the new beta library... And... now I'm off-topic. I'm done!
Though I think it only works for curators that meet some requirements. I don't know what they are, but I presume they maybe something like "minimum # of followers" or something.
Some devs have just friended people out of the blue to offer them keys. This feels rather kludgy though.
Those who complain usually are the ones not doing any form of marketing and just release their game on Steam thinking it will magically sell.
You can offer free copies to Steam curators and create a bunch of keys to distribute outside the system, but of course that means the studio actually has to do something and get in contact with people.
Your example is a great one: the game page offers absolutely no explanation on what to expect. "puzzle action platformer" great, that's a couple of buzzwords. The trailer is just as non-descript showing you pretty much nothing you didn't get from the description.
You can find absolutely NO information on the internet about it. NONE.
And to top it off it's priced quite outrageously for an unknown title without any information (and it's rather cheap look) with it's only price drop being last week for a whooping ten percent off. It's not even available anywhere else.
That game was dumped on Steam to be DOA.
I look on youtube, found 1 video.... and it was the trailer with just 64 views.... Its got 1 comment from a person wanting to know if they want honest feedback on it. They don't even have a link to the game in the description box or any other information about the game.
It does look like a game that was made and just dumped on Steam for not other reason than to say "I have a game on steam"
Your example of "decent games with minimal or zero reviews" is lacking a developer who actually cares about the game, a good price, descriptions on what to expect in the game, what the game is about and so much more.
Also as mentioned, what you want, already exists. Its up to the developers to take advantage of it.