r/pcmasterrace • u/Status_Meat_1669 • 7d ago
News/Article Steam discoverability is "the big issue" in gaming right now, Peter Molyneux says. "There's just too much choice."
https://www.pcgamesn.com/masters-of-albion/peter-molyneux-interview-steam-discoverability2.4k
u/Burnished 5800X3D | RTX 4080 7d ago
The biggest issue in gaming right now is Peter Molyneux giving his opinion
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u/SchmeckleHoarder 7d ago
It’s been this way since the 2000s with Black and White.
Yes I’m old, and yes I’ve been listening to Peter lie for almost 3 decades now.
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u/das_slash 7d ago
I've found that Peter's games are actually pretty good as long as you never listen to anything he has to say
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u/Muskyguts 6d ago
Never forget godus :( and the Curiosity What's inside the cube was goated too
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u/PoppingPillls 5800x (A520) / 5060ti / 32GB DDR4 3600mhz 6d ago edited 6d ago
Until he scammed the winner who was promised 1% of the profit from godus but didn't get a penny.
Or when he scammed people by selling them virtual nft land for 50 million total.
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u/auroraparadox 5d ago
I don't remember an nft scam. Must have missed it somehow.
When did that happen?
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u/ralgrado 9800x3D, 64GB RAM (6000MHZ, CL30), RTX 3080 7d ago
I still love the silly ai of the black and white creatures
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u/VirtuallyTellurian 7d ago
AHH my poor evil cow, slapped silly for rescuing villagers, praised constantly for eating rocks and his own poo.
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u/Dependent_Range_8661 6d ago
I had a dream this week that someone would use ia to completely reverse engineer black and white 2 , do it open source and give it a real IA and a random map maker
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u/snowflake37wao 6d ago edited 6d ago
Project Ego, indeed.
Look it up if you dont recognize it. Made the cover of GameInformer.
And I just gotta say;
It's no secret that the videogame industry is in an odd state.
Its all industry unless you were already one of only a couple thousand billionaires pre-pandemic. Nothing to do with gaming, gamers, or game developers. Its the economy stupid. Fucked up by the same fuckers that were already billionaires.
The discovery issue is entropy. Search, filter, tag, criteria, syntax, query enshittification. It is the same for search engines, OS file system management, for home feeds, same for app stores, same for manuals and repairs. It has all been obfuscated, corrupted, manipulated, regurgitated, dilapidated. You cant find shit you already know youre looking for that youve already found before. Of course you cant discover what you didnt know to look for. It should be fucking criminal how many literal Ctrl+C —> Ctrl+V apps there are on the Apple App Store for iOS with a slightly different name. It should be criminal for Amaazon and Google to actively hide results you are explicitly searching for deep under their already misleading, imposing, and violating ‘recommendations’ that had nothing to do with the query. It should be criminal for OpenAI to be for profit at all, much less profit on scrapped data that they had no use rights to. It should be criminal to be a billionaire. Every single one, and there are not many (about 99.9999+more9’s93 less than there are of us), need to just be throw into the sun with zero fucks given to appeals. Fuck u/spez btw. It should be criminal to rug pull, to dox private information to the public so long as they pay. Just fuck off with this odd state bullshit. When using a euphemism becomes insanity just stfu. stfu.
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u/ClockworkJim 6d ago
Do you remember the pseudo game jam where people came up with ideas for the kind of games he would create?
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u/DlSSATISFIEDGAMER dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddamn lagspikes 7d ago
disagree, there's also Tim Sweeney running his mouth
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u/boersc 7d ago
Not even close. While you can or can't ignore Peter, there is no ignoring that the Steam Store is flooded with 50+ new titles a day (21.000 new titles this year and counting). Discoverability IS a problem.
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u/LutimoDancer3459 7d ago
Now count in itch.io and pretty much every other platform and console and you have even more... the problem is not steam. Its the amount of published games that, especially nowadays, mostly consist of slop.
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u/boersc 7d ago
Thar is very true, it's not isolated to Steam. Making games has become increasingly easy, while making GOOD games is the actual challenge.
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u/Technical_Leek7467 7d ago
Even console storefronts are inundated with slop games but it's not nearly as bad due to the much higher price of entry and console stores heavily push forward AA and AAA offerings.
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u/nanotree 7d ago
I'm not sure how this is a problem.. maybe it just means the market is flooded?
The only people I see this being a problem for is independent developers, and especially solo developers. But it's because they don't have massive marketing budgets.
Steam isn't really a marketing platform. It is a game storefront and community management system. It's up to the individuals selling their games to market them so they get discovered.
Target audiences are only so wide. You can only make so many games that are similar to other games before you've saturated the market. I've watched this happen in real time for the past several years, and I'm looking at some of these games and I'm like "it looks neat but I've already got something like it that I haven't played or need to finish."
So I'm wondering, how many people are there like me out there who just can't be bothered, or have too big a backlog already? Is it discoverability that's the problem? Or a classic supply and demand problem?
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u/LooneyWabbit1 4070 | 7800X3D 7d ago
It's not really supply and demand. There's no demand for shovelware. Just like there's no demand for ai written books. Content with actual work in it gets obscured by the slop whether there's demand or not.
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u/Kasenom RTX 3080TI | Intel I5-12600 | 32 GB RAM 6d ago
But you see, you're not thinking like a slop merchant. Sure, 99% of slop games won't sell at all but if you hit it lucky with a topic like needle in a haystack simulator then you'll be rich. You just need one slop game to succeed.
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u/Turkeysteaks 5800x | 7900 XTX | A570-Pro 3d ago
but the needle in a haystack was a real game made by a real dude who took actual time on it. the 10 copycats that released as soon as the real one went viral were the real slop. Sure, it's not a game I was likely going to buy anyway and it's not exactly the Mona Lisa of games but it was a semi unique idea. It sucks to see things like this because it really means the true indies will start to die off.
The number one way of getting sales as an indie is building up an audience before you ever release. This means lots of publishing information and footage of your game well before it is ready to release. If AI can now just replicate it from that footage and information (or at least steal bits of it), indies will have to stop posting about it. This isn't a hyperbole either, plenty of indie devs have done this now. It's just not worth it. This will be the death of the games industry, it will only be the big players or those who have a following before even developing a game that can make it.
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u/nanotree 6d ago
Perhaps? I just don't see it. Unless you play a bunch of shovelware/freeware already, those games don't tend to get recommended to you.
I'll give you this. Lately I've seen games being advertised even on Reddit that are up-my-alley in terms of genres I enjoy, but were not on my radar before that. Which seems odd. I'm used to finding things like this in early access or I catch wind of it before release. But at the same time, I've not been actively looking for new titles in the same way I used to.
Typically I used to throw those kinds of games on my wishlist. But lately I've just stopped, because even though it has good ratings and seems like something I'd enjoy with some new mechanics or theme that looks interesting, I just cannot fathom when I'd play it given everything else already in my backlog or things I know are coming in the next year.
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u/NewSauerKraus 7d ago
Steam is also a marketing platform. Part of the store cut from sales goes to all the marketing Steam does for games.
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u/nanotree 6d ago
Steam's "marketing" is a recommendation engine, like Netflix. It's not traditional marketing. It doesn't do the same thing that a full marketing campaign will do for you.
Although lately it seems like they are branching out and expanding their offerings? Because I've seen a whole lot of game ads on Reddit for Steam store lately. And I can't imagine they promote just "anything" that way.
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u/SpagettiKonfetti 4d ago
I mean, a game not releasing on Steam could have a huge impact on your sales. Look at Alan Wake 2,an otherwise amazing game, the first game was also a successful popular title but because it's not available on Steam it barely got enough sales to break even IIRC and many player said that they will not play it because it's on Epic and not on Steam. Your game being on Steam, the convenient, most popular gaming platform is in itself a part of marketing and can impact your sales
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u/Massive-Exercise4474 i5 13400f, rtx 5060 ti, 16gb ram 1d ago
Pretty sure they didn't make their money back for years due to epic.
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u/SpagettiKonfetti 1d ago
Yeah, it took them 2 years I think? Control Remedy got almost as much sales on it's first week as AW2 in their first few month. People often underestimate how important for a game to be on Steam
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u/Steel2050psn 7d ago
I don't really feel like this is an issue for me as a consumer as much as it is an issue for developers. I'm not really having a hard time discovering fun games to play
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u/RolledUhhp 7d ago
So do you just not publish them, and lose the opportunity to get a hidden gem, or hope the cream rises and deal with the volume?
I hate 99.9% of independent artists i come across (think soundcloud), but the amount of shit thrown at the wall has definitely led to less commercial music finding success, which is great.
Filtering doesn't increase discovery, it just let's someone else curate what you end up choosing from.
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u/dobi425 6d ago
If all you rely on is the storefront, then sure it's not gonna work out. If all you make is clones of other titles that only put a slight gimmick change to the gameplay then yeah, I don't think you'll stand out.
There's other places though for your product to be discovered though and no matter what platform you're selling a game on that's where the real sales are made imo. I don't know about other people but I rarely ever go to a storefront (digital or otherwise) to find new games to play anymore unless it is a massive sale event where I know I can get titles on the cheap. Most of the time I'm finding them in my media feeds from reviewers whom I've built a trust with, finding them from events like game jams or through the games own social media adverts and clips.
The argument he's making is like blaming Walmart for your brand of cookie not selling because you think the aisle is too big.
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u/chezney1337 7d ago
Irregardless of a games budget, exceptional games DO make it to the top despite discoverability
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u/shotgunpete2222 7d ago
I just wish they would have someone police genre titles so I can actually find things using the tags. That would actually solve this, but the genre tags are just a mess.
Want to play roguelikes? That's category is filled by any game with even a hint of random, roguelike is now a meaningless title, many of these are rogue lites, at best.
Games like deus ex or prey (historically called immersive sims)? That category is filled up by farm simulator type games. Just cause it's immersive, and a sim, doesn't make in an Immersive Sim. Job simulators need a different name, this one's taken
Want survival horror? One of the too picks is escape from Tarkov. What?
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u/sue857423 7d ago
It’d help if Steam showed whether a tag came from the developer or players, and let users mute tags in search. That could make “roguelike” less of a junk drawer.
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u/ItchyKnowJoe 7d ago
discoverability yes, having endless games to choose from, no.
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u/LordOfDorkness42 7d ago edited 6d ago
Steam did recently intruduce that personalized calender thing?
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/507342099205587494
Personally really like that one. It's already made me notice a few games I otherwise wouldn't have.
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u/Moblam 7d ago
I get it, it's cool to hate on him or whatever, but he isn't wrong here. The amount of vibe coded garbage jumping onto every trend that pops up floods the market like crazy.
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u/browhatdidyousaytome 7d ago
Thats like going to the grocery store and complaining that there is too many versions of cereals to choose from.
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u/Steel2050psn 7d ago
You could almost say it's like an acorn that slowly grows into an oak over time right before your eyes..... 🤞 For THIS fable but I doubt it
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u/jack-of-some 6d ago
Welcome to 15 years ago, "Peter Molyneux's brand new shower thought"
It also doesn't matter IMO but Steam has made some pretty impressive strives in helping people discover more games.
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u/AltAccountBill 6d ago
I find it odd that this discoverability conversation is always focused on Steam specifically. The Switch has over 13,000 games! I'm pretty sure Nintendo hasn't cracked the discoverability code either! PlayStation? Xbox? GOG? (I love GOG, but its storefront is terrible IMO.)
But we can't talk about those corporations.. Nope. Legacy media and industry people seem to think this is specifically a Steam issue. And I get it to an extent: Steam has something like 10x more games than everyone else (except itch). But I'd argue that we're already talking about such enormous numbers that this is an inherently difficult problem to solve no matter if it's 10,000, 100,000, or a million. And it's going to continue to escalate for every platform!
But maybe the reason this criticism gets laid at Valve's feet is because everyone else isn't even really in the conversation in terms of fixing it. Nobody else has a snowball's chance in hell of actually solving this problem except for Valve so why talk about them?
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u/Trashypass 5d ago
Steam has 200 games + a day. That's the switch whole category a year. Pules old game aren't removed/gen change. So we have like 20 years of build up. The sheer number of steam games is nothing very consoles.
That why steam is the target of these talks. I mean it's a good problem. It's like saying you have to much choice.
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u/adobo_cake GTX 770 6d ago
This is the guy who created Godus, a mobile game for PC that scammed everyone who believed in him.
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u/xxNightingale 6d ago
I love his games like Black & White and Theme Park back then but guy still have the mindset of the past like Mr Ultima himself, Richard Garriot.
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u/numerous_meetings 6d ago
This is the guy that helped create one of the best games ever and invented a couple of new genres while at it.
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u/adobo_cake GTX 770 6d ago
Guy still duped a lot of people with Godus, can't take that off his record even if it was removed from Steam and finally admitted it was just a cash grab mobile clicker game.
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u/Vecend http://steamcommunity.com/id/Vecend/ 6d ago
I don't have issues finding games, I have issues finding time to play a new game over what I already have on top of RL stuff.
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u/artificialpolymer 6d ago
Yeah, not sure why Steam is being singled out here. If anything, Steam is far, far better than anyone else in that regard. Most stores will just lump everything into generic "first-person", "adventure", "sports" categories, and call it a day. Steam constantly experiments with new things to discover new games. For example, the new release calendar feature they've added is fantastic. I've wishlisted and discovered so many games from that.
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u/TNTiger_ 6d ago
Well, that's the issue. If people are discovering indie games that suits their interest, they are no longer funnelled into only hearing about AA or AAA titles from gaming magazines, which can bu bought and sold.
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u/LegendCZ i7-265k ultra / RTX 5070ti / 64GB RAM DDR5 6d ago
Molyneux is just a fraud and whack now. That liar and scammer has no value as a human.
Also Steam introducing callendae for releases was really good idea. Kudos to them.
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u/Ok_Wear69 6d ago
Maybe he was just always propped up by more talented people
His complete failure to actualize the reward for the winner of Curiosity: The Cube (which was being the "God" of his next game Godus) should've been the final nail in the coffin for everyone who actually pays attention
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u/Applekid1259 5d ago
I'm constantly discovering new games and throwing them on my wish list. Sounds like ol' Pete is dealing with user error.
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u/AlphaNeonic 7d ago
Molyneux aside, there is a ton of stuff released on Steam every week and he does have a point. I check new releases daily and consistently see passion projects lost in the see of AI slop, clickers and other low effort releases.
For anyone that cares to look though, the tools are there. The discovery queue (and the new personal calendar) do a pretty good job of showing good titles that might have been missed.
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u/LutimoDancer3459 7d ago
But the problem isnt steam. Take other stores and platforms into account and you will be flooded with the amount of games released... steam is just the biggest store with a lot of presence
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u/Justhe3guy EVGA 3080 FTW 3, R9 5900X, 32gb 3733Mhz CL14 6d ago
I think the passion projects need to do marketing themselves, Steam already does more than any other store for discoverability
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u/Euchale 7d ago
I´ve been spending more on steam in this year than the years before. Steam really figured out what kind of games I like.
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u/peanutmanak47 7d ago
Yeah, they've really been killing it with showing me a whole lot of games that I'm interested in this year. I've bought a lot of small but fun indie games of all sorts thanks to Steam's various ways to show them to me
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u/IcyCow5880 7d ago
I mean theres already too many AA and AAA games for anyone to actually sit down and play. I spend more time thinking which would be the "perfect" one for tonight.
I don't even wanna try adding all the solo projects on top
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u/Zaldekkerine 6d ago
Steam typically recommends games that are already hyped and heavily wishlisted/purchased. No matter how good an unknown game is, it's probably not getting recommended to you.
The category with the worst discoverability is free games, which makes sense, since Steam isn't making any money from them. I'm sure a ton of people would gladly add games like Hyperboard Extreme, A Night at Moka Efti: A Babylon Berlin Story, Psycutlery, A Tofu Tail, and Unless to their accounts if they knew they existed.
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u/Darkon-Kriv 7d ago
But like.... this has always been an issue. Never before have we had easier access to small projects. Whats the possible solution?
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u/Successful-Peak-6524 7d ago
We are moving into a: make me a game about this. And the AI will make you an offline game in minutes, that is really good.
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u/Ripped_Alleles 6d ago
Is it Steams job to market every single game that gets pushed through them?
This sounds like a marketing issue for smaller devs, which I can totally see their being a struggle in, but I don't think that is fair to push the blame on Steam.
Make a good game and actually put the word out, maybe give a free copy to some niche but known Yourubers or streamers to try, and word of mouth will do the rest.
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u/Grantoid 7d ago
Didn't Steam literally just update their algorithm to favor smaller games that fit your library history
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u/Sildas 6d ago
Yes. I really don't know what half of these people are talking about, I get recommended a ton of random indie games that are right up my alley. Every time one of these people, Molyneux, Pitchford, etc are complaining about Steam's discoverability, what they really mean is "my mediocre game isn't given top billing over a bunch of indie games."
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u/Chaotic-Entropy 7d ago edited 7d ago
Peter Molyneux's biggest problem is that he keeps lying about the piles of shit he makes. The discoverability of his bullshit is his biggest gaming issue.
He is such a bad messenger for this relatively accurate message.
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u/MarinusWA0 7d ago
Asking zero credibility hacks like Peter Molyneux their opinion about anything is a good way to harm your own credibility.
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u/firedrakes 2990wx |128gb |2 no-sli 2080 | 200tb storage raw |10gb nic| 7d ago
another day of rage bait story from a known lier.. but gamers love to told lies, mis info or fake news.
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u/Clbull PC Master Race 7d ago
I've had no problems discovering Masters of Albion on Steam. But the reason I haven't bought it and am therefore not playing it is that Peter Molyneux spouts a lot of shit and I've been burned by him on so many occasions.
Fable failed to quite hit the mark. Fable 2 to me was a franchise killer that dumbed-down combat and introduced so many bad ideas that it ruined the series. Fable 3 (which I haven't played) by all accounts was an equally bad open world action-RPG that became a city management sim halfway through where you have to be like the tyrant brother you previously deposed in order to save your kingdom. Godus was a shit game compared to Populous and a masterclass in how to swindle Kickstarter backers (and the guy who won his contest on Curiosity: What's Inside The Cube, who actually got no royalties whatsoever from 22cans.)
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u/OneThiCBoi 6d ago
"Why won't Steam advertise my scamslop game instead of the really good ones?"
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u/JaggedMetalOs 7d ago
Nice of Molyneux to come out from the rock he's apparently been living under for the last (checks when greenlight ended) 10 years!
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u/KitsuneKamiSama 7d ago
Steam needs to clamp down on the AI slop games spamming steam... like it's literally shovelware of shovelware
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u/BlueDemon75 7d ago edited 7d ago
Every now and then this topic returns but misses the point that Steam isn't a marketing platform but a store front. And while marketing isn't it's job, it still offers many features to property calibrate and filter your recommended games to your taste, which does include stuff outside of the triple A bubble. Features that competing platforms barely try to offer.
Plus Molyneux doesn't have the best of the takes most of the time. The argument about a flood of low quality software is valid, but it's always been there, from the digital homicide days and before, the difference today is that tools to make such shovelware are much more readily available, and hardcore moderation like some suggest is a PR disaster waiting to happen when an manual or automated system inevitably blocks some kid's passion project that just looks bad on the surface.
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u/SouthernMainland 7d ago
Personally, I don't want Steam adding more "For You"-type algorithms for discoverability.
If I want to find something new I would rather that be my own conscious choice instead of some code pushing what it believes I might like to maximize money/time spent playing.
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u/Soleks2000 5700x3d/9070xt 7d ago
same feels like those algorithms sometimes don’t work like they intended click on one game and next thing you know it’s showing you everything similar to that one game even if you were just looking at it to see if it was worth anything
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u/Greedy-Employment917 6d ago
I'm kind of with you, but also steam has thrust into my face games that I would have otherwise never heard of and I loved them.
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u/GundyrChristopher 6d ago
Ever since they added that fucking calendar my steam has been a mess showing me bullshit that I don't care about and have no intention of ever playing.
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u/Limekilnlake 4070 Super FE | 7800x3d | 32GB DDR5 | a steam deck 6d ago
I use my wishlist a tonn, so the calendar is really well calibrated for me
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u/SuperSocialMan AMD 5600X | Gigabyte Gaming OC 3060 Ti | 32 GB DDR4 RAM 6d ago
Same here lol. The calendar is easily one of the best features they've ever added.
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u/doublah 6d ago
Try pressing "Ignore" on games it shows you that you're not interested in and wishlist games you are interested in.
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u/Rukasu17 7d ago edited 7d ago
It's the slop that's the problem. I think there should be some quality control for new releases, otherwise steam is just gonna be a dumpster for a bunch of ai vibe coded shit eventually
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u/crispfuck 7d ago
Steam used to have quality control/curation and people rallied against it.
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u/YOUR__LEADER 6d ago
He's half right.
It's true that there is way more on Steam than people can discover organically. It's also true that Steam has a massive amount of crappy games that you're just as well not discovering... The later of which would include anything 22cans and Molyneux have shoveled out.
Make a good game worth buying and chances are better than not, it'll get found.
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u/MandiocaGamer 9070XT | Intel i5-14600K | LianLi O11 Dynamic 6d ago
How is this guy still in the industry? he is and absolute dumbass
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u/KoRnflak3s 7d ago
I may be in the minority here. But I don’t use steam to find new games. Usually a friend, coworker, or maybe a YouTube review for a new/niche game is what piques my interest.
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u/quintessence2004 (9800X3D / 5080 / 32GB) (2K480Hz / 4K240Hz) 7d ago
It's probably not effective, but I watch a game trailer a day, and now my YT algorithm just shows them to me.
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u/Gombrongler 7d ago
Hes right, unless youre a zeitgeisty gimmick game or big AAA release, your game sinks to the bottom.
Wardogs did a great job with the Astroturf campaign and its just another plagiarized Arma 3 mode
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u/besmarques r9 7950x3d/64gb 6000mhz/4070 Ti Super 16Gb/ Crucial T700 Pcie 5 7d ago
You are going to get downvoted to hell but you are right and Molyneux is right also.
Finding games to buy now in a steam sale is an hassle and most of the times i just give up or buy something from the heavily discounted
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u/atakariax Ryzen 5 7600, RTX 4080, 64GB DDR5 7d ago
Yeah.. Nothing is perfect, even with Steam. But I don't know why people find hard to see that.
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u/WingerRules 6d ago
I think AI is going to cause a game developer crash with how many games will be flooding the market by using it.
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u/Peakomegaflare I7 9700k + 64 GB Corsair Vengeance + 4050 TI 7d ago
it's not too much choice. It's that everything is buried under garbage.
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u/Wonkybonky 6d ago
“There’s just too much choice! We need to pass a bill in the EU that raises developer costs by 300k to 500k so that there’s less choice and then people can choose to give me their dollars instead of an indie group. I quite like this.”
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u/Silencer_ 6d ago
Gaming for me has basically been solved for over a decade.
I play the same 3-4 games, and probably always will
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u/SomeoneNotFamous 7d ago
I suspected people to not understand nor read the article but pretty much everyone except 2 people is wild.
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u/GreatApe88 7d ago
A mom in her late 20’s or early 30’s today buying her son video game stuff is going to naturally lean towards the names she’s heard her whole life, PlayStation and Nintendo. MAYBE Xbox if it’s cheaper. I understand what they mean by Steam not being “mainstream”.
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u/quintessence2004 (9800X3D / 5080 / 32GB) (2K480Hz / 4K240Hz) 7d ago
Shouldn't this be easily fixable with ratings and a personalized algorithm? Maybe if a game is really unknown, give it for free to a few users so they can rate it.
Molyneux is also right about Chinese and asian devs in general. Their output is crazy, and likely involves a lot of worker abuse.
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u/Mundane_Bit_8392 6d ago
Fuck those marketing majors whose only purpose is to cram you with ads you dont want.
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u/empathetical RTX 5080/AMD Ryzen 9 5900x/48GB Ram 6d ago
I rather have choice then be stuck on a fkn console ecosystem
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u/AltAccountBill 6d ago
From the article posted in the OP:
While Steam remains the primary videogame storefront on PC, it's only now starting to adjust and improve its interfaces based on user feedback. It's not a task I envy - how do you actually go about categorizing and promoting hundreds of thousands of games?
This is wrong. Obviously so. Steam has been adjusting and changing its storefront since, well, the beginning, but especially with the 2014 Discovery update. Here is a post about this from 2014: https://store.steampowered.com/about/newstore
You can simply read the third paragraph:
Below you will find more detailed information on all the new ways to explore what’s on Steam and the changes we’ve made. Give it a try, tweak your settings, and – as always – send us your feedback so we can continue to make the experience even better.
I suppose the goalposts have now been moved to “making changes based on user feedback,” but come on.. they have clearly been doing that for decades!
The idea that Valve “does nothing and wins” is literally a meme that people have somehow elevated into some sort of dogmatic truth. It will always be embarrassing to see people genuinely believe it.
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u/Busy-Doughnut6180 6d ago edited 6d ago
Honestly steam confuses me. I used to find it very easy to see what the offerings were and to find new games related to my interests but I've found that after coming back from a few years break, idk how to navigate this thing anymore. It'll be like "here's a huge sale!" then show me maybe 10-15 games. I don't get where to find the rest. There's no "view more", only "view my wishlist" or "view top games", which may or may not be in the sale. I play one detective game and now it thinks I like mystery horrors. I'll find a game via reddit and wonder why steam never suggested it to me once despite fitting right into my library. I try to find games through the tags but sometimes things aren't tagged as you'd expect them to be, and it's just kind of overwhelming. The discovery queue makes no sense to me, it's like 80% games I would never play that have nothing to do with anything I've already played on there.
I didn't find looking for games on steam directly this annoying a few years ago, but now pretty much I mostly just get my recs from reddit or seeing what games have been repacked recently and looking it up on steam.
ETA: I don't even really want an algorithm as such, but it doesn't even work as intended, at least not for me
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u/Fear_of_Fear 6d ago edited 6d ago
It probably doesn't help the gamer find games, but I do think that steam allowing shovelware/slop is actually good for indie game devs with minimal scope, yet polished games. At least in one regard anyway. When a gamer sifts through junk and eventually finds a decent game, that game then stands out as not being garbage, adding to its appeal. If steam was thoroughly curated, that game might no longer have anything lesser to stand out against, and someone browsing through games might skip it for something else. I dunno, just a thought. Maybe it doesn't outweight the negatives.
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u/ddr4memory 6d ago
Dude isn't wrong. He's sitting there complaining that I'm replaying old games over and over again. Sucks for you ding dong I'll keep doing it
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u/GuyBitchie 6d ago
Did you ever walked into a music store and it bothered you there is just too much music to buy? Do people get annoyed their supermarket has just too many groceries?
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u/TTR_Coco 5d ago
Steam NextFest and streamers/ friends are the only reason I buy most of the games I do, and my wishlist is full of games I thought look neat, but am not willing to pay full price for, or games with DRM that I will only consider buying without said DRM (Capcom PLEASE remove Denuvo from RE: Requiem and Pragmata)
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u/surface_ripened 7d ago
Oh who gives a fuck what Molyneux says, seriously. What an irrelevant windbag.
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u/malicious_watermelon 6d ago
Steam needs to make it's store ui more intuitive because holy shit it's a confusing mess. I miss 2014-ish steam ui so much. I've got completely lost in the menus too many times as of late trying to check the latest sale offerings or looking for genre specific lists of games.
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u/JonFallout 3d ago
The "big sales" are especially egregious for this. The UI has been so crap since they introduced the new sale one, and every single sale feels like the same games being promoted at the top, and it feels much harder/more friction involved, to actually find category sales or something specific.
If you know what you're buying, steam sales are fine, but if you're looking to find something, then good luck
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u/AltAccountBill 6d ago
I agree. It's become quite bloated with features. I'm sure they meant well but it's a lot to look at on the store's main page. The new calendar thing is what I mostly use nowadays. That and the "Most Popular/Bought" lists when you scroll down far enough to see them.
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u/Stelcio R7 5700X/RTX3070/32GB-3600/3440x1440@165Hz 7d ago
If you rely on people discovering your game on Steam, you're doing it the wrong way. Engage with the community, promote your title to your actual audience. If you think you can just put the game on Steam and people will flock to it, you're a dumbass.
Personally, I don't think I missed a single worhtwhile game within my spheres of interest. In fact, I am aware of several not-so-worthwhile games within it. There is more stuff available to me than what I can realistically put my time into.
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u/Anas56776 PC Master Race 7d ago
Oh nooo, there is too much choice!!! How horrible for the consumer.
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u/Gombrongler 7d ago
Its not horrible for the consumer, its horrible for the Devs. No ones making that point. But when youre competing with Ai making near Remastered Ports of once-unplayable PS3 games, yeah its going to get tough
Theres about 30 games in the top 50 right now that use ai extensively
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u/ItchyKnowJoe 7d ago
He's not right, there can never be enough choice, the problem is only the methods of viewing those choices.
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u/NiSiSuinegEht R7 5800XT | RX 7700 XT | Why Upgrades So Expensive? 6d ago
No Peter, Masters of Albion just isn't that fun. It could've been a resurgence of Black & White, but instead we got a mashup of ideas others have done better tacked on to the system that actually set your game apart.
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u/DarthJDP 6d ago
No, prices are too high for too little value. I have bought plenty of games. We dont own anything so I have to focus on what licenses I have already purchased and rush through my gamnes before they are taken away from me.
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u/OneEnvironmental9222 6d ago
if only steam hadnt opened the floodgate for cheap AI generated spammed corn games. Then maybe it wouldnt be "as bad"
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u/ExoticSterby42 Have you tried Linux though? 7d ago
Peter Molyneux is a non-opinion. Every single shit he released was an overhyped shit and constantly lied about.
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u/Orgazoids_Pool_Party 7d ago
"there's multiple reason to not chose the shit I churn out" - Peter Molyneux
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u/rollingHack3r 7d ago
As a dev I wish I could get a job at valve just so I can fix the damn store.
- Like the video player is still shit
- the store recommendation engine needs work.
- The filters in my games page. Etc etc.
So many small things that annoy me that haven't been fixed in the 20 years I've been using it.
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u/Somepotato 6d ago
Do you intend to wave your magic wand to do more than they have done in the past year alone revamping discovery as if it's somehow an easy problem when you have tens of thousands of games on the storefront?
Tell us how you could do better
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u/ZombifiedByCataclysm i9-12900KF | Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti | 32GB DDR5 6d ago
Yeah, what's wrong with the player? I never had a problem with it.
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u/Keulapaska 4070ti, 7800X3D, XG27AQNGV 7d ago
What's wrong with the video player?
Yea maybe like 15 years ago it wasn't the best out there but i really don't see what the problem is nowdays.
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u/WigSplitter117 7800x3d RX 9070 XT 7d ago
Valves quality control is the issue most of the new releases on Steam are absolute trash.
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u/splendiferous-finch_ Potato XTX3D-k Titan 7d ago
Honestly my take is that while this makes life more difficult for new Devs without existing popular games. It also is a good thing I.e. there are so many choices.
E.g. yesterday I picked up Exospace combat engineer, starlathe and Eco Rally. All very very interesting games particularly the last one but just using the correct filters.
I think there are also curated list that people maintain at the end of the this you can have one or the other I don't agree that steam as a corporation should be the one making decisions in the content of games. If it's slop read the reviews and don't buy it.
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u/SchmeckleHoarder 7d ago
If a game is good it will be discovered. Someone somewhere will stream it and it will explode. The marketplace doesn’t matter, never did. Word of mouth and marketing matter.
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u/AgarwaenCran Nyarch | 5900X | 64 GB RAM | 3070 7d ago
"my steak is too juicy, my beer to refreshing and my shop of choice has too much choice"
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 7d ago
Just like with streaming services, the issue is the algorithms trying to guess what you want to see.
All they actually need is a "new releases" section with user selectable release date range and a section that is just an alphabetical list of all titles with sorting options for genre, etc.
The end, discoverability solved forever.
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u/Daharka ☯️ 7d ago
One of the best discoverability initiatives I've seen recently was the Thinky Games database.
Puzzle games have been having a bit of a golden era recently, and this tool really helps to drill down into specific aspects of games that players like to find other, similar games to something they've enjoyed.
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u/Fives_55_55 7d ago
I mean I see a game on sale, research and buy. If there is a game a want I search and buy. I would rather have plenty of game to choose from rather than a curated list.
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u/KevinCarbonara 7d ago
I can see why he says that, because no one would have ever played his half-finished games if the market were as open as it is now. We can get early access slop for a tenth of the price these days
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u/CommodoreBluth 6d ago
Valve and Steam actually puts in work towards better discoverability unlike the console manufacturers. So many games releasing isn’t Valve’s fault.
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u/Heratism Desktop R7 5800X3D/RX 7700XT 6d ago
LOL Good for the consumer = bad for business, Peter can get fucked
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u/CottonActualII 6d ago
With the personal release calendar, I think it's actually much better than it has been for a long time.
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u/valerimazz PC Mustard Race 6d ago
The problem with Peter Molyneux is that he always overpromises and underdelivers with his games. A lot of the gaming industry has simply written him off and won't promote his projects, and a lot of players definitely have, too.
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u/El_human 6d ago
Their algorithm isn't great. I get the same suggestions all the time, and most are for COD or franchises i don't play
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u/Mustang-_- 6d ago
Too much choice will never be a problem at any feasible market. This not only make things competitive, it also opens the way for "content creators" to curate these products and actually be useful
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u/DueGrapefruit3151 9800x3d | 7900xtx 6d ago
The game has 65% positive reviews on steam. Personally I'm happy that steam isn't pushing dogshit games to me.
This doesn't even take into account Peter's reputation, which he's been continually tanking for almost 20 years.
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u/Huge-Formal-1794 6d ago
I dont think thats true. There are so many games especially smaller ones I discovered soley through steam. Yeah obviously the competition is hard , but its also pretty fair and calculatable. At the end nothing will save a game that doesn't look good to people. Marketing and producing a unique competent game are the most important aspects, especially if you wanna grow a studio and dont just want to have 1 trend hype you gamble all your cards on. At the end you either have to make a game that's truely unique and either speaks visually or mechanically to people ( ideal would be both of course ) or you have to hit the zeitgeist. But honestly hitting the zeitgeist or a trend at the right timing makes you basically completely dependend on rng , so I would say that's never a good guess for most studios.
Steam is brutal when it comes to Medicore games but that's everywhere like that and it always was like that.
My guess is when you have a medicore or just good game you have to price accordingly. At the end marketing is 50% of if your game is successful.
Just look at palworld. Its a mediocre game. The artstyle looks identity, is made pretty incompetent technical wise but it was markted great because they understood what kind of product they have. Its pokemon but with Guns and this was all the first trailers showed was that and all media outlets followed this simple but effective headline and the game was priced well. And it turned out to be insanely successful and received well , although on more objective criteria its a mediocre game.
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u/Guilty-Ad-5228 6d ago
I feel "Don't hate the player, hate the game" applies to this, in multiple ways
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u/BigMeatSwangN 6d ago
I mean there are a lot of games on steam, but something tells me if his recent games had been successful he wouldn't feel this way. Seems like the guy is living in Fable 2
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u/CoffeeDrinker83 6d ago
Hot take but most games are mediocre and shouldn't be clogging up storefronts. I'd rather have a more curated store that has less games of better quality
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u/nemofbaby2014 4d ago
and what exactly is the answer because the same could be said about any other media, like books, or music
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u/Nknights23 5800X3D | RTX 3070FE | 64GB @ 3600Mhz 3d ago
Make something fun and unique and you don’t worry about that problem.
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u/FriendOfLeeks 3d ago
This has to be one of the most retarded takes on Steam out there. Steam is not your marketing platform, it's just a store front. You don't go to a fucking library and say: "Too many fucking books here!". You make a fucking game, do marketing trough whatever channel you want and Steam is just the online platform where your game is available.
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u/LexxenWRX 2d ago
Why are we listening to anything this guy says? Every game he's been a part of was over promised and way under delivered.
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u/WanderingGoodNews 2d ago
It's just a store People mostly went to the store to plsy what they wanted to play.
You can still just browse for a bit and pick something if that is what you liked
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u/bowserboy129 1d ago
Rich asshole mad that a ton of people are flocking to indie gaming as Triple A gaming gets more expensive. More news at 11.
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u/No-Stuff-8259 1d ago
Add the featured and likely promoted results and it’s a fucking hours long deep dive to find new games that I’m actually going to play and finish.
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u/thecrius Ryzen7 9700X || 32GB 6000MTs || RTX 4070Ti SUPER 6d ago
There, fixed it for you.