The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[LESS T_T]

So I followed twelve curators, and saw top 10 recommendations from them.

I already owned all of that.

 

[Baron Dupek]

If you want to use your own music collection then you need to see Setting>Music and choose your Music folder.
I'll stay with Foobar and his keys control.

And fuck that Curators monkey business, I played games for long enough to ignore bribed, overrated annoying celebrities.

 

[toroid]

Apparently the way reviews are calculated has changed as well.

The image on the right is what Starbound's store page looked like a few days ago. The image on the left is what it looked like a few hours ago.

It went from 86% negative to 93% positive. What. The. Fuck.


GG Steam. Shill those Early Access games.

 

[Alienman]

Very positive... right. I bought that game and it still makes me bitter. Probably Steam cheating the system somehow, so the game continues to sell = more profit (for steam)

 

[felipepepe]

Man, the negative reviews for some of the old classics... like Desu Ex:

This game is a piece of ♥♥♥♥. Everything is dark and there is no map or anything. I just ran around in the dark, frustrated and getting shot at by unseen bad guys. A waste of ten bucks.



If your going to re-release it at least make it controller friendly. Geeze, who cares about the rest until then.



Jesus ♥♥♥♥ this game is hard, I have not seen past the first level, Why is this game so special? Because it has a skill tree? Horrendously overrated, Not worth the money.



Where do I start with this mess? The graphics are ♥♥♥♥, probably made with microsoft paint. The gameplay is as stiff as a 90 yr old man in a strip club. The story is a confusing mess that was written by M. Night Shamalan. Stay the hell away from this garbage. Makes DLC Quest GOTY by comparison. Do yourself a favour and just get a good game like Hitman Codename 47.



This is the game that launched such a famous series? Kind of hard to believe. Graphically, much can be excused from the fact that it's an old game. The same can not be said of the gameplay. Tranquilizer darts take about 20 seconds to work and shooting more into someone does not speed up the process (probably would make too much sense). Using lethal force, I had trouble putting down bad guys and keeping enough bullets in my gun. Oh, and when guys are attacked they tend to run away at hyperspeed to find backup rather than engage- which might make sense if they outnumber you, but they're perfectly willing to do it even if no one's covering for you....which is not only stupid but annoying.

Oh, and I found all these problems within the first hour or so of gameplay. Human Revolution was such a huge step up from this game...buy that instead if you can.

 

[Destroid]

Honestly, DX comes off very badly if you go in blind with no understanding of what it is meant to be. You either need someone ranting at you over how amazing it is, or to stick with it for a few hours for the game to sink in.

 

[Konjad]

Apparently the way reviews are calculated has changed as well.

The image on the right is what Starbound's store page looked like a few days ago. The image on the left is what it looked like a few hours ago.

It went from 86% negative to 93% positive. What. The. Fuck.


GG Steam. Shill those Early Access games.

But when you go to the game's page you can see:

Positive(32,655)
Negative(2,251)

I guess it was broken at first (counted only recent reviews or something?) and got fixed later on.

 

[Infinitron]

toroid The screenshot on the right is of a feature included with the Steam Enhanced browser extension. Apparently, it only looked at the first 50 reviews.

 

[jcd]

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[Unkillable Cat]

That suggestion would only have made sense if you had been watching this:

 

[toroid]

toroid The screenshot on the right is of a feature included with the Steam Enhanced browser extension. Apparently, it only looked at the first 50 reviews.

Was it based on the top 50 most helpful reviews, or was it based on the 50 most recent reviews? Both of those will be mostly negative.

They're now apparently calculating the score by averaging all reviews, the vast majority of which were positive and were created in late 2013 / early 2014 before the shit hit the fan. Doing it this way definitely works in their favor .

As long as potential customers take a glance at the most helpful reviews then everything is still working just fine.

 

[Destroid]

They should provide a graph of score over a time.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/226588/Devs_share_a_little_more_data_on_Steam_Discovery.php

Devs share a little more data on on Steam Discovery

Two developers have shared some interesting statistics about the effect of the new Steam Discovery system, which fundamentally changes how the popular online service recommends games to players, on visits to their store pages.

On NeoGAF, Andrew Spearin, creative director ofInsurgency, has shared more up-to-date stats than in his recent blog post.

Store page visits for Insurgency leapt from 5,852 on Sunday (prior to the update) to 21,591 on Monday and 83,284 on Tuesday.

Robert Boyd at Zeboyd Games, makers of Cthulhu Saves the World and Breath of Death VII, tweeted, "Curators were the number one way that people went to our game page, accounting for a little over 25 percent of total traffic."

This data comes on top of our comprehensive early look at how the Steam Discovery changes are affecting developers, with a focus on the effects of curation and automatic recommendation.

Robert Boyd @werezompire
For this week, top ways people reach our CSTW/BoDVII game page on Steam: Curator (25%), Home Page (16%), Search (11%), Under $5 list (8%).

For even more data on the changes, be sure to read Spearin's blog post; we also have another from Oliver Penot, who expresses his fears for the future of small indies in the new Steam ecosystem. Both have lively comment threads, too.

Have stats to share? Feel free to post them in the comments or post your very own blog, too. We highlight the best Gamasutra blogs for our readers on the front page and on our Twitter feed.

 

[Mastermind]

toroid The screenshot on the right is of a feature included with the Steam Enhanced browser extension. Apparently, it only looked at the first 50 reviews.

Was it based on the top 50 most helpful reviews, or was it based on the 50 most recent reviews? Both of those will be mostly negative.

They're now apparently calculating the score by averaging all reviews, the vast majority of which were positive and were created in late 2013 / early 2014 before the shit hit the fan. Doing it this way definitely works in their favor .

As long as potential customers take a glance at the most helpful reviews then everything is still working just fine.

Why do people hate Starbound now? I bought it and played it a lot at the time but haven't touched it in months waiting for a complete release.

 

[Drax]

 

[sbb]

HL2 chronicles the aftermath of you letting The One Free Man into Arstotzka

 

[Darth Slaughter]

so that's where city 17 is located...

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/09/25/opening-the-valve-steam-curators-rule-the-front-page/

Opening the valve: Steam Curators rule the front page


Ask a hundred independent developers what impacts their sales most and you'll likely get a hundred different answers, but among the more popular ones will be the topic of discoverability, the ways in which prospective buyers are able to find lesser-known video games. Platforms like the App Store and Steam see a lot of foot-traffic in their featured sections, and even brief visibility for independent developers can make for a massive difference in their bottom line.

As more games have made their way to Steam via regular release, Greenlight and Early Access, it's become vastly more difficult for a new game to be discovered. Enter Steam Curators, Valve's means of placing the weight of game recommendations on those outside its walls. The service launched this week and allows any person or brand (such as your friends here at Joystiq) to compile lists of games their followers should play, shifting the scope of the store's front page to include recommended games and a section for popular curators. Given Steam's incredible popularity and its status as a "must-have" piece of PC gaming software, Steam Curators is a major step for the service, and developers hope that it might heavily influence independent game sales. Retro City Rampage creator Brian Provinciano said to Joystiq via email. The thought was echoed by others, such as Ethan: Meteor Hunter producer Olivier Penot, who said that "having a front-page spot and having nothing [else] is doing 95 percent of my sales, if not 99 percent. As a small indie dev with little community, having a banner on a store front is very important."

Likewise, Robot Loves Kitty launched Legend of Dungeon just over one year ago "before Steam Greenlight's floodgates were opened and batches of a mere 10 to 20 games a month was the norm," as artist Alix Stolzer put it. "Based on what I have heard from dev friends releasing similar scope games on Steam in the last few months, Legend of Dungeon sold something like 500 to 600 percent more during its release week." The length of visibility on Steam's storefront is seen as a massive difference-maker to the developer.

Among the most popular Steam Curators is TotalBiscuit, the brand of PC gaming videos created by John Bain. Bain leads the Steam Curators list by a wide margin, with over 100,000 followers. He said the scope of his influence in the marketplace is "surreal," but expressed some frustration that the number of followers on Steam's new service is the only piece of data offered to Curators. "What I'd love to know is, this is the number of people that purchased or already own a game that you recommend that are following you," he said. While the system seemed "very barebones" to Bain, he felt it's "great to have the presence on the Steam store, that's something that we never had before."

The lack of clarity on Steam Curators is concerning for developers, too; even the service's introduction was a surprise to some. "We basically try to understand the new rules on the go," Penot said of Steam's changing discoverability methods. Developers may be able to draw vague conclusions on whether the recommendation system works for them, of course. "I can say that the change in Steam's front page to include recommendations has more than doubled our normal daily sales this morning alone," Stolzer noted. "I believe this may have a bigger impact for all games compared to the curators, which may benefit only a small selection of titles."

The battle for visibility could clear up a bit with Curators, which Vlambeer co-founder Rami Ismail said "is something that I've been hoping for for a long time now." In his eyes, Valve's experiment "might allow niches to find a home somewhere." Home creator Benjamin Rivers hopes Curators will "allow more games to potentially get that exposure," which he said is "only good news for developers."

Take Stealth Inc. developer Curve Digital as an example. The studio published Iron Fisticle on Steam last week (seen above), and "the day we launched, it was nearly pushed off the front page entirely by a glut of re-releases of games released over ten years ago and DLC for some F2P titles," Marketing Manager Rob Clarke said. "Any opportunity to get our game back up on that front page without simply dropping a huge percentage discount is good news."

Over the past year, Steam began introducing a higher volume of software to its platform through Greenlight, and the doors opened further with Early Access and now Curators. Valve head Gabe Newell said in January that Valve's "goal is to make Greenlight go away. Not because it's not useful, but because we're evolving." That fell in line with Newell's DICE keynote discussion from February 2013, in which he contemplated that "there's nothing that says we should have any curation at all in our stores ... this notion that somebody is acting as a global gatekeeper is sort of a pre-internet way of thinking of that."

Should Newell's vision of Steam becoming open "network APIs" that allow anyone to launch a curated store reach its full potential, then the front page of Steam as we know it may fall by the wayside. "Even the idea of one unified Steam 'front page' is going to get more and more archaic as we move forward," Clarke said. "Put whatever you want on Steam, our users will sort it out from there," Bain said of Valve's approach to Steam and its front page. "And I don't really agree with that necessarily, I think that Valve still has to have some responsibility for what goes onto its store." Even now, "the days of 'getting rich off of the front page' are truly gone, I think," according to Ismail.

Providing the system successfully bolsters sales for games, there's another major concern developers have for Steam Curators' future, as Rivers put it: "One potential wrinkle might be that exposure and favor can be doled out easily, and often for the wrong reasons." Valve may be forced to "deal with lists including or exclusively existing from paid curation," according to Ismail. Bain's own curated list originally featured Planetside 2, which he later removed because "there's a very real perception of impropriety there because I was heavily involved with that game."

Bain addressed the inclusion of Sony's MMO on his curated list on Twitter, later saying he was glad his followers brought it up immediately. "I need to be very careful about what I put on that list," he said, after having removed Planetside 2 from it. "I'm actively looking to make sure that I'm not seen as putting up things like sponsored content. And I've put up a policy on that now, and I intend to stick to it." While the YouTube channel's presence on Steam is "potentially huge for the business," Bain also admitted it "poses a number of pretty ridiculous ethical quandaries."

The general outlook on Steam Curators as the next major change to Steam is mixed, and the system will take time to sort itself out. "I'm excited by these new angles for discoverability and eager to see the longer term data on how they affect sales," Provinciano said. Likewise, putting the "right games" in front of the right viewers is "a step in the right direction" to Clarke. "I think it's a safe bet that this isn't the end of Steam's plans for the storefront, both in terms of new features and iterations and improvements on the ones that have recently launched."

 

[Crooked Bee]

Bain's own curated list originally featured Planetside 2, which he later removed because "there's a very real perception of impropriety there because I was heavily involved with that game."

Bain addressed the inclusion of Sony's MMO on his curated list on Twitter, later saying he was glad his followers brought it up immediately. "I need to be very careful about what I put on that list," he said, after having removed Planetside 2 from it. "I'm actively looking to make sure that I'm not seen as putting up things like sponsored content. And I've put up a policy on that now, and I intend to stick to it." While the YouTube channel's presence on Steam is "potentially huge for the business," Bain also admitted it "poses a number of pretty ridiculous ethical quandaries."

Brb, removing AoD from our list.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Why do people hate Starbound now? I bought it and played it a lot at the time but haven't touched it in months waiting for a complete release.

Dev is a scarf wearing hipster mix of Peter Molyneux and Phil Fish who apparently is leaving the game aside and using the money to work on something else. Check the Starbound thread for details/lulz

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...ery_tools_having_any_effect_on_game_sales.php

Are the new Steam Discovery tools having any effect on game sales?

Earlier this week, Valve Software made one of the biggest changes to its Steam platform ever, with game recommendations based on a variety of factors, including "Steam Curators."

You can now follow other players, developers, websites and YouTubers on Steam, and see the games that they are playing and recommend directly via the Steam store. The idea is that this added level of curation will hopefully lead to better sales for devs, and better navigation for users.

Aside from user-led curation, there are also other new features in place -- the Steam storefront now shows recommendations based on past purchases and what friends are playing, while a new "Discovery Queue" allows users to browse through new releases quickly, and "follow" any game that looks interesting, but aren't ready to purchase just yet.

But how well has this new system been working since it launched on Monday, and how do developers who recently released games via Steam feel about the changes?

Gamasutra got in touch with dozens of devs who released games on Steam in the last month or so, to find out what sort of impact new discovery tools are having. The answer for the majority was either "no change," or a drop in sales, with a minority seeing any kind of useful increase in sales.

Many developers we talked to say that they saw a slight increase in traffic to their store pages, but no noticeable increase in sales as a result. Simon Bachmann, the dev behind Halfway, for example, noted that, "The first day we got about twice as much traffic on the page as before, but not that much more sales. That has gone back again and we are talking the same level of traffic we had beforehand."

Sales of Halfway have actually dropped lower this week than the daily average he's been seeing to date. Of course, this could just be normal fluctuation, but it certainly doesn't suggest that the new update is having a positive effect on his sales.

Many more developers told us a similar story. Strategy game Victory at Sea saw traffic to its Steam store page doubled at the start of the week, yet this has no noticeable impact on sales. Derek Paxton from Stardock told us that sales look unchanged as of yet.

Meanwhile, Shawn Beck's Velocibox barely even noticed the update. "The change hasn't affected Velocibox in anyway," he tells me, adding that, "the change is good to games that've already cemented themselves as the gold standards of the indie world and little to no effect on others."

Same story for music game Sentris, and survival gameRebuild 3. Elsewhere, Cannon Brawl saw no noticeable increase in traffic or sales from the update, while Deep Under the Sky saw a spike of around 400 pageviews to its Steam store page, but these were not converted into increased sales.

A couple of developers told us that they did see a very slight increase in sales. Back to Bed dev Klaus Pedersen, for example, says that sales were up "a tiny bit," although he noted this may well have been down to standard fluctuation rather than the new discovery tools.

And Mini Metro developer Peter Curry told me that his sales doubled from $886 to $1,619 on the day of the update, although they fell again in the days that followed. "A definite spike albeit a small one, and it looks like it'll level back off again," he says.

In general, then, the vast majority said there was no change -- or negative change. Heist game The Masterplan, for example, saw its sales "flatlined after the changes."

In the days that followed, sales were down to around 20 percent what they were before the update, and today sales of the game were down to 15 percent compared to the daily average before the update.

Hexcells Infinite has also seen "a small but noticeable drop in both page views and sales," while Reprisal Universe developer Jon Caplin told me "Since the Steam update... traffic is very slow now. I can't even find it listed in the indie section when I filter it down to indie/strategy."

McDroid is another game badly affected by the update -- this tower defense style game has seen a drop by half in both views and sales since Monday.

Out of interest, I decided to check whether any of these games were featured on Steam Curator lists, and whether not being featured corresponded to a drop in sales or not.

Numerous named above are in multiple big-name Curator lists -- Halfway, Cannon Brawl and Back to Bed, for example, are all in multiple lists for thousands of followers. Yet this didn't appear to translate to bigger sales.

The only game that Gamasutra delved into that appears to have seen increased sales thanks to a curator addition was Mini Metro. This game featured in numerous curator lists, including popular YouTuber NerdCubed, Kotaku, and Rock Paper Shotgun, and appears to have seen an influx in sales as a result.

But rather than curator lists providing additional sales, it seems that overall, not being in curator lists is having a negative effect. Games like The Masterplan and McDroid have not been added to curator lists, and have in turn seen a drop in sales.

In other words: Rather than curator lists acting as a way for developers to reach new audiences, it would appear that they are actually penalizing developers who don't get onto lists, and providing the same old results for those devs who do manage to jump onto a few lists.

Of course, it's still too early to say whether this trend will continue, or whether the system will level itself out in the long-term - and of course, Valve is known for tweaking new systems in the weeks and months after they launch.

What do developers think?
Regardless of traffic and sales, what do developers actually think of the new update?

Thoughts are mixed, as you might expect. Some developers are excited at the prospect of what the uncertain future of Steam might be like, while others aren't so sure that the new features are actually doing any good for those devs who actually need the help.

"I'm actually really excited about curators on Steam," says Sentris dev Samantha Kalman. "It's a human attempt at solving the growing problem of discoverability. Sure it's abusable, but I think abuse cases will be the minority."

"The fact is that if a friend tells you about a game, you're much more inclined to consider it than if the creator tells you about it," she adds. "Curators have been part of the industry ecosystem for a long time, but now there's so many games out there that we have to acknowledge the importance of the role."

David Edery of Road Not Taken studio Spryfox is also excited to see how the change affects the platform, although he's wary of making any judgements just yet. "After a couple weeks, that initial surge of interest should subside and we should start to see behavior more in-line with average behavior in the long term," he says.

Many devs told us that they're very happy they aren't in the position where they have to launch a game on Steam now. As has been noted before, the Steam front page no longer offers "New Releases," but instead shows "Popular New Releases" as default.

"I'm glad we launched before the change," says McDroidand Victory at Sea dev Fraser McCormick. "I think the visibility for just released games that aren't already selling well was slightly better before."

"The 'Popular New Releases' tab being default over the 'Top Selling' could potentially be an improvement," he reasons, "but I'm not sure how well you need to already be doing to get on there. Depending on how much, it could be an overall plus to a well organised indie, but a serious problem if you just drop your game on Steam."

Of course, this means that for anyone launching a game on Steam now, it's even more important to be talking to the press and YouTubers about your game before launch, since if you don't hit that "Popular New Releases" tab at launch, you may well have a problem.

Hexcells Infinite dev Matthew Brown also notes this change, saying, "Day-one sales will definitely be reduced now they have switched from 'New Releases' to 'Popular New Releases.' The onus is now on developers to drive enough traffic from outside Steam to get a spot on this list."

"On the positive side, I think the curators lists could be beneficial in the long run," he adds. "Hopefully people will continue to find the game even after all the release buzz has died down, which may help to stop sales ever drying up completely."

"Overall I like the new update, especially from a customer's perspective, but it has made Steam a little less 'friendly' to small developers."

Many other devs shared this sentiment. Peter Curry of Mini Metro notes that he's not entirely convinced of the curators approach.

"The most followed curators are those who are already the most influential in increasing visibility," he reasons, "so if Steam curation does turn out to be a big driver of sales, then it'll just amplify the already significant weight the YouTubers carry rather than even it out."

"It looks like getting onto top curation lists will just be another hurdle for indies (and just when Greenlight was looking like closing!)," Curry notes.

Still, Curry is hopeful that this new system will eventually get more eyeballs -- and the right eyeballs -- on new games, instead of just showing users the same top games over and over again as it was before.

"When I was looking down the homepage I saw Steam recommended Train Fever and Cities in Motion to me because I'd recently played Mini Metro," he notes, "so I was excited about those players being shown Mini Metro."

"In truth having all this information terrifies me, because now I'll have to learn how to interpret it and what I should do in response. We were quite well-placed before, we've made more than enough during the first month to cover expenses until the projected end of development and mobile launch, and weren't too fussed about the (expected) drop in sales—fewer people to answer to - more time for dev! Now it's been two days poring over graphs we barely understand and pretending we're working."

Stardock's Derek Paxton isn't completely sold on the new storefront, although he does appreciate that Valve is looking for new and effective ways to curate games on the platform.

He notes that the Top Seller tab isn't as useful as it was before the update. Galactic Civilizations III is currently on sale on Steam, and while 45 percent of pageviews are coming from the Specials tab, a mere 0.01 percent are coming from the Top Sellers tab, even though the game was at once point in each list.

He also notes that the new curator approach most likely means that players will be made more aware of games in the genres they typically play, not less aware of breakout games in other genres -- whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

"Ideally I would like to keep the new changes in the top capsule (recommended for you, ability to customize what is displayed there, top new releases, etc)," he explains. "Return the former featured section for Valve curated games (so that games can be promoted beyond users specific preferences) and get the Top Sellers list back 'above the fold' (make sure the list starts before a normal user has to scroll down, you would be amazed at the difference this makes)."

"I really like the concept of curators," he adds, "but I would probably sidebar it or have games recommended by it included in the top capsule rotation (no reason it can't factor into the recommended games list)."

For Devolver Digital's Nigel Lowrie, the best part of the new update isn't what Valve has added, but what the company has removed.

"Curated lists and the recommendation changes are lovely, but I think one of the biggest win for discoverability on Steam is the new feature that removes games a user already owns from the prime promotional spots," he notes. "That opens up quite a bit of real estate for games that might otherwise not get promoted over perpetual best-sellers like DayZs."

So early impressions are mixed right now. The Curators system needs some tweaking for sure, and the front page may well need a shuffle. The best we can do for now is monitor the situation in the coming months, and see how the trends shift for devs coming onto the platform.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Take Stealth Inc. developer Curve Digital as an example. The studio published Iron Fisticle on Steam last week (seen above), and "the day we launched, it was nearly pushed off the front page entirely by a glut of re-releases of games released over ten years ago and DLC for some F2P titles," Marketing Manager Rob Clarke said.

Hipsterfag detected.

 

[Infinitron]

Take Stealth Inc. developer Curve Digital as an example. The studio published Iron Fisticle on Steam last week (seen above), and "the day we launched, it was nearly pushed off the front page entirely by a glut of re-releases of games released over ten years ago and DLC for some F2P titles," Marketing Manager Rob Clarke said.

Hipsterfag detected.

Don't knock Curve, Stealth Inc (aka Stealth Bastard) is an ace game. I didn't even know this Iron Fisticle was theirs, will take a closer look at it now.

EDIT: Oh, they only published it.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And my words are only directed at the Marketing Manager, not the entire devteam.

 

[Konjad]

well, both are set somewhere in the eastern europe, so it makes sense, right?