Over 19,000 games have released on Steam in 2025, with nearly half seeing fewer than 10 reviews
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big part of the ones with almost no reviews are such garbage its insulting to even call them games. But i bet there are some gems buried in there too.
can't help but feel like this could be solved by increasing the deposit to a couple thosuand $'s or something.
worst of the shovelware would become unprofitable immediately -
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One of those things people waste energy getting concerned about. Better than highly stringent curation that has no chance in being representative of all different taste/demographics. It's a more level playing field. Happened to music and books. Then video/movies. Video games followed quickly after. Better than the days of payments for every patch you push through Xbox live/PSN. Better than needing to get 35mm prints and access to theaters
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There's no downside for consumers, sucks if you are making art for an oversaturated market.
But that's why artists should get a UBI
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big part of the ones with almost no reviews are such garbage its insulting to even call them games. But i bet there are some gems buried in there too.
Something I tried to do earlier to help with it, in this very channel, was a "Downvote any game you've heard of before" thread. It was a nice exercise to help people post odd games no one had heard of.
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can't help but feel like this could be solved by increasing the deposit to a couple thosuand $'s or something.
worst of the shovelware would become unprofitable immediatelyWell, that’d mean missing out on some really cool stuff.
Games like Vampire Survivors and Stardew Valley were made by a solo developer. A couple thousand bucks is a LOT of money for some people. I’d hate to have missed out on either of those.
We certainly do need some quality control, but I don’t think the financial route is the way to go.
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Well, that’d mean missing out on some really cool stuff.
Games like Vampire Survivors and Stardew Valley were made by a solo developer. A couple thousand bucks is a LOT of money for some people. I’d hate to have missed out on either of those.
We certainly do need some quality control, but I don’t think the financial route is the way to go.
it's a deposit though, you'd get it back pretty quickly if your game is halfway decent
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can't help but feel like this could be solved by increasing the deposit to a couple thosuand $'s or something.
worst of the shovelware would become unprofitable immediatelyWhat is there to be solved? It’s not a physical store with scant storage space. It has been solved by the store algorithm. Games that do well in the first week will rise to the front page and will get recommended to other customers, while crap will basically become invisible. Does it really matter that these crap games exist when you’ll rarely see them and the storage space they take up is insignificant to Valve’s bottom line. Like when was the last time you ever saw shovelware on the front page? If you see shovelware then the algorithm thinks you like that stuff. You can solve that by giving shovel ware in your library low reviews and by curating the queue.
Sure this will hurt some devs who made a hidden gem, but these devs would have failed in the physical retail space as well. Studios have the responsibility to do the leg work of promoting their own game. That’s not Steam’s job. The Steam algorithm will basically give each game some visibility during its first few days of release and if a game can’t generate sales momentum the algorithm will drop it and basically becomes invisible unless you search for it. Games that do well in that period get pushed to the recommendations. And no the threshold isn’t millions in sales it’s basically a couple of thousand copies in the first days.
Raising the fee would hurt devs on a budget, like devs outside high income countries and students.
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big part of the ones with almost no reviews are such garbage its insulting to even call them games. But i bet there are some gems buried in there too.
My game Drone Perspective is one of those.
Such a good game, but I am a bit afraid that I can't turn it around. -
10 reviews means the developer has some combination of the following:
- friends/family/classmates
- developers on the actual game
- multiple Steam accounts with the same owner
10 is essentially 0 and cannot be extrapolated into sales.
I agree that if game development is a hobby and not a career, this isn't a problem for those developers.
I also submit that if you are attempting to make money from your efforts and don't yet have a following, and can't afford a marketing budget, and have actually made something unique, interesting, or otherwise worthwhile, it is more difficult to stand out in a market whose signal to noise ratio is continuously and exponentially growing noisier.
10 reviews is basically statistical noise.
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There's no downside for consumers, sucks if you are making art for an oversaturated market.
But that's why artists should get a UBI
When I am supreme overlord, artists will get free food and housing. But like, it's gonna suck really bad because tortured artists make the best art.
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When I am supreme overlord, artists will get free food and housing. But like, it's gonna suck really bad because tortured artists make the best art.
We can just waterboard them
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We can just waterboard them
That will be the only access to drinking water
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Anyone doing a uBlock for Steam?
Augmented Steam has a ton of useful features, including better filters
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My game Drone Perspective is one of those.
Such a good game, but I am a bit afraid that I can't turn it around.Hey that looks good actually. Wishlisted it for when I have more time.
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That's actually more than I thought. I thought about 80% fall into complete oblivion.
Agreed, my first thought was about the stats for Twitch streamers where having more than something like 10 concurrent viewers consistently for a 30 day period puts you in the top 15% of streamers on the platform or whatever. I forget the exact numbers, but it's something crazy like that.
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There's no downside for consumers, sucks if you are making art for an oversaturated market.
But that's why artists should get a UBI
No not UBI, but universal necessities to live. ie food water electricity housing healthcare and for all people not just artists.
UBI is a bandaid solution where money is taken from the government and given to corporations when governments should supply those necessities itself.
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Shit's turning into amazon. Lol.
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No not UBI, but universal necessities to live. ie food water electricity housing healthcare and for all people not just artists.
UBI is a bandaid solution where money is taken from the government and given to corporations when governments should supply those necessities itself.
Money can be exchanged for needs.
It works fine to distribute resources.
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No not UBI, but universal necessities to live. ie food water electricity housing healthcare and for all people not just artists.
UBI is a bandaid solution where money is taken from the government and given to corporations when governments should supply those necessities itself.
Uni has nothing to do with corporations though?
It's everyone getting enough money to live comfortably
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No not UBI, but universal necessities to live. ie food water electricity housing healthcare and for all people not just artists.
UBI is a bandaid solution where money is taken from the government and given to corporations when governments should supply those necessities itself.
I think it's more efficient if people get a few hundred dollar boost every week to spend when and wherever they please, rather then stand in line and receive whatever obtuse handout the government has decided they deserve.
