The difference between Publisher and Developer

[Legeden]

Steam, I'm disappoint ... can you please not forward me to Publisher page when I click on the Game Developer when on store page to check some of their other games?

I don't care about the parasitic publishers at all. If I like a game it's not because of who marketed it, but because of people who actually made the game.

So when I click on Developer name, don't show me another trillion of irrelevant games the Publisher has published.

k? thanks

[mimizukari]

Some developers do not have a page so you will be taken to the publisher page instead. it's up to the developers to set up that page on their own.

[Legeden]

I'd still rather prefer to be taken to the list of their single game and possible DLC so that I know they didn't make another game than see the publisher page ... if I wanted to see the publisher page I'd click ~10 pixels lower

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

I definitely agree with this suggestion.

Note that there are some developers who have worked with multiple publishers, but if you click on the developer on the store page it'll just bring you to a list of games associated with that publisher -- excluding games that the dev has done with other publishers, and possibly including games that aren't even from that dev.

The publisher's page ends up essentially hijacking the developer's name link. This is a problem for anyone actually looking for games from that developer specifically.

[IFIYGD]

If the development studio has taken the time to set up their own page, clicking their developer name will take you to their own page.
If they have not, by default it will take you to the publisher's page for that game.

If you use the Search box on your Store's home page, and type in the name of the developer it will take you a a list page, but it isn't always only their games. If the developer has words in their name that are also words that are in the names of lots of games, the Search function will often list all games with that word in the name of the game, or games by other developers that have that word in their name(s) as well. (Try a search for 38 Games, for example- KoA:R will come up in the list, but so will almost every game made by another developer with the word "Games" in their name, and pretty much any game with the word "Game" or the number "38" in the game name.)

I think what might be a useful option is if the Search feature had an option to search by 1) Exact match 2) Close match or 3) Match any word (which is what it seems to only have right now). That way for developers who do not have a page set up, Search would only list items based on which of those 3 options you chose. Exact match? Type in "[developer name}, and only return games or apps with that developer's name on the Store page or with that exact word (or set of words in the game name). Essentially a set of filters, placed on the search result page to the right, like other filters are, to narrow down a search result list. Not perfect, but better filtering is always good.

Can I ask which game or developer you were looking for the DLCs for, to test how it works in the store Search function? I'm just curious to see what the search results would be.

[Nx Machina]

Store pages are maintained by the developer, publisher so you need to direct your suggestion to them and not to Valve who do not maintain them.

[Crazy Tiger]

Already possible and entirely depends on how devs and publisher set things up. Take for example Monster Train.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1102190/Monster_Train/

Clicking the dev brings you to a search list for the dev: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Shiny%20Shoe

Clicking the publisher brings you to their publisher page: https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/GoodShepherdEnt

And if you look through the store pages of the games for the publisher, you'll note they've done it like this for all games.
Two other examples of the same publisher:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/447120/Where_the_Water_Tastes_Like_Wine/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/751820/Black_Future_88/

[Legeden]

Originally posted by IFIYGD:

If the development studio has taken the time to set up their own page, clicking their developer name will take you to their own page.
If they have not, by default it will take you to the publisher's page for that game.

If you use the Search box on your Store's home page, and type in the name of the developer it will take you a a list page, but it isn't always only their games. If the developer has words in their name that are also words that are in the names of lots of games, the Search function will often list all games with that word in the name of the game, or games by other developers that have that word in their name(s) as well. (Try a search for 38 Games, for example- KoA:R will come up in the list, but so will almost every game made by another developer with the word "Games" in their name, and pretty much any game with the word "Game" or the number "38" in the game name.)

I think what might be a useful option is if the Search feature had an option to search by 1) Exact match 2) Close match or 3) Match any word (which is what it seems to only have right now). That way for developers who do not have a page set up, Search would only list items based on which of those 3 options you chose. Exact match? Type in "[developer name}, and only return games or apps with that developer's name on the Store page or with that exact word (or set of words in the game name). Essentially a set of filters, placed on the search result page to the right, like other filters are, to narrow down a search result list. Not perfect, but better filtering is always good.

Can I ask which game or developer you were looking for the DLCs for, to test how it works in the store Search function? I'm just curious to see what the search results would be.

I still think it's a bad default behaviour then, but at least it makes some sense
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1356280/Kitaria_Fables/

[IFIYGD]

Interesting.
So, if I search the developer as Twin Hearts I get a wildly imperfect search result page (that even contains results with user-defined tags like Twin Stick shooter- because "Twin"): https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Twin+Hearts

But if I remove the space in their name and search TwinHearts (minus the space between the name words) it hits the developer perfectly: https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=TwinHearts

That was an interesting test for me, thank you. Now I am more curious about trying different developer names in Search to see if removing spaces or using quotation marks will narrow down results.

[wuddih]

Originally posted by IFIYGD:

Interesting.
So, if I search the developer as Twin Hearts I get a wildly imperfect search result page (that even contains results with user-defined tags like Twin Stick shooter- because "Twin"): https://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=Twin+Hearts

if you search for a developer then you search for a developer, not for everything.
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Twin%20Hearts
the correct parameter limits the scope of the search. without it, all text of a store page is in scope.

anyway.
developer/publisher/franchise pages are optional.
if f.e. the publisher controls a product/the store page, they are free to mention a developer but link to their own page instead or not link the developer page at all ... if it even exists.
if nothing is linked at the setup of the store page, an entered developer name goes automatically to a search with a scope.
and vice versa if the developer control the product/the store page.

all of those are self-maintained. the products on those pages, etc .. everything, like the store page itself is self-maintained. that is the freedom you get on Steam as a product owner.

so, in every case, the only thing Valve can do is to suggest, internally, that product owners should use the more.
developer/publisher/franchise pages help with visibility in external search engines, so it is recommended to set them up ... but it will not be enforced.

[IFIYGD]

Where is the filter option for that? I do not see it, but it may be due to how my preferences are set. Or are you adding "Developer:" to the search terms?
I am curious, since Steam search has been rather awful for years, but i haven't played around much to see how to apply filters without using scripting or online tools like search engines. I am more interested in how the parameters are set up within the Client itself.

[sfnhltb]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Store pages are maintained by the developer, publisher so you need to direct your suggestion to them and not to Valve who do not maintain them.

It is Valve that decides where the developer link goes to if the page has not been set up. They have forwarded it to the publisher page instead of a search page for the developer (how it used to work before these pages even existed). Valve can fix this to work more reasonably for every developer that doesn't have a page yet in one (should be) simple change, which seems infinitely more likely than trying to track down and motivate the 1000s of small devs that haven't already created pages from making one.

I mean you only have to look at the number of games that still don't have prices for AU$ years after that was added or whatever to realise how ridiculous it would be to expect most of these developers to take the time to add a page for themselves on Steam.

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by sfnhltb:

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Store pages are maintained by the developer, publisher so you need to direct your suggestion to them and not to Valve who do not maintain them.

It is Valve that decides where the developer link goes to if the page has not been set up. They have forwarded it to the publisher page instead of a search page for the developer (how it used to work before these pages even existed). Valve can fix this to work more reasonably for every developer that doesn't have a page yet in one (should be) simple change, which seems infinitely more likely than trying to track down and motivate the 1000s of small devs that haven't already created pages from making one.

I mean you only have to look at the number of games that still don't have prices for AU$ years after that was added or whatever to realise how ridiculous it would be to expect most of these developers to take the time to add a page for themselves on Steam.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store

[sfnhltb]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store

So are you of the opinion that Valve has no control over the way store pages on Steam work, and that everything about how they look and work is purely in the control of the developer/publisher? That all store pages have the same format, layout and functionality by pure coincidence that all publishers happen to want their pages to look and work similarly just with different images/text/etc?

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by sfnhltb:

So are you of the opinion that Valve has no control over the way store pages on Steam work, and that everything about how they look and work is purely in the control of the developer/publisher? That all store pages have the same format, layout and functionality by pure coincidence that all publishers happen to want their pages to look and work similarly just with different images/text/etc?

Read the documentation for clarification or maybe this specific part.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/creator_homepage

or this one:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/editing


As for the layout - standard practice in design to keep the appearance uniform. Look at any of the PC gaming clients/stores or any website selling products, or maybe my background in Graphic Design gives me a skewed viewpoint.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by IFIYGD:

If the development studio has taken the time to set up their own page, clicking their developer name will take you to their own page.
If they have not, by default it will take you to the publisher's page for that game.

No, actually, if neither of them has set up anything, it'll take you to a list of their games with the same developer or publisher (as applicable). And note that this means literally (and letter-ally) the same, with the exact same spelling.

What causes the dev page to go to the publisher's curation feed is when the publisher has taken over the dev's page.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Store pages are maintained by the developer, publisher so you need to direct your suggestion to them and not to Valve who do not maintain them.

The choice of what to display is directly enabled by Valve, since this is Valve's platform, after all. So they are also party to the decision/practice.

Originally posted by wuddih:

developer/publisher/franchise pages are optional.
if f.e. the publisher controls a product/the store page, they are free to mention a developer but link to their own page instead or not link the developer page at all ... if it even exists.
if nothing is linked at the setup of the store page, an entered developer name goes automatically to a search with a scope.

This.

But the problem is that they are free to link their own *publisher's* page from the developer's name. That shouldn't be what happens.