this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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I mean... I don't disagree that it's the best non-curated platform, but... that's still not good.
I don't disagree that many indies and even mid-sized studios should be more realistic about their potential, and I do agree that for a gig economy-style algorithm the crowdsourced tag system works pretty well on Steam and has more granularity than the jankier phone store app equivalent.
But it's still 100% algo sorting and it's still 100% driving ancient GaaS to the top and fossilizing it there. If you can't muster a trailer at one of Keighley's gigs or a massive influencer campaign you get exactly one shot at clearing the algorithm bars for Steam's front page and then the algo will dump you all the way down to the pits. I know for a fact that a bunch of indies and AAs are playing the exact same sort of SEO games and algo reverse-engineering you see on phone shovelware. Steam plays in that league.
I think there are pros and cons of that against a fully curated front page, and it's probably easier to at least have a chance here than back when first party certification was an actual investment, but I'm not sure I necessarily like what comes out the other end at scale.
last i checked you only need 50 reviews (with atleast 75%+ positive) for steam's algo to aggressively start promoting your game on front-page to fans of the relevant tags. i'm honestly surprised there arent some cheap bot-farm ran by "influencers" for this exact purpose, 50 reviews really isnt that many but so few people bother to leave any that reaching that threshold is pretty crucial for serious game devs.
You need to clear the algo bars right away to make the New and Trending tab, and then you need to keep it up. If you drop off, you're out.
So dropping to Mixed or starting soft gets you written off (barring viral late pickups or otherwise getting external promo to make your game blow up elsewhere). That means you need to hypermanage your launch and SEO the crap out of it to "own a tag" or keep above water with the trending tab.
I'll say that at least that's a tool for even a single person marketing owner to micromanage a Steam launch effectively, but it's still SEO and algo gaming, which still leads to the same discoverability rat race mobile gaming has been stuck on for ages. And how survivable that process is depends a lot on what you need. I'd argue that very small devs that can make do with a few thousand copies sold may have an easier time there than slightly larger releases that need months of at least some sales to make their money back. Steam sales are either a flat line for a decade or a two week spike followed by zero engagement in your game forever.
i mean...still not sure what anyone expects steam to do here. engage with your playerbase and ask them to leave reviews or be ignored, can't expect valve to do all that. literally anything they do/don't do will piss someone off, they start actively curating shit and soon enough devs and players both will start accusing them of being paid off to promote more mainstream stuff or something
besides...this all is just kind of how the entertainment business works...it's a highly competitive field with a finite supply of attention to fight over, and as more great stuff is released your competition gets harder compete with. that goes for more than just games, music/movies/everything. even making something good and properly advertised/marketed is no guarantee anyone actually buys it, that's why publishers became a thing in the first place (that they then tend to abuse their positions is it's own problem)
I strongly disagree with that take, but also the actual alternative is not better for some of the people involved, so let that caveat be up front.
The alternative is a manually curated storefront, which is still being done in other platforms to some degree. You can absolutely sell entertainment or videogames without it being an entirely hands-off, algo-driven gig economy setup. Valve's entire business model is cutting off all internal costs and automating the thing so it prints money by itself, but that's not the only possible business model for media, as the previous century of media clearly shows.
Now, the caveat is that this doesn't particularly help the small fry, which may be just gatekept out of the entire loop instead of being simply crushed by the soulless machine of making dream paste out of independent media. Whether that's better or not I'm genuinely not sure.
Nostalgia tells me that the old industrial model where you only got to play in the pool if you could afford to do it right was more consistenly professional and less sloppy. Also that fewer things fell through the cracks, so if you wanted to make shovelware you at least had to put some work in to get it published, which was somebody's paid job. Steam (and the similar mobile stores) have put all the cost and risk on the developers, especially since investment dried up and indie publishers have morphed from financers to service providers that come in after the job is done to sell you marketing and storefront SEO.
So I guess I personally would want Steam to hire a small army of content reviewers and moderators led by an editorial team that selects what to feature based on both business and creative considerations. But what I personally would want may not solve the problem the small indies this guy's talking about have, just... maybe not allow them to get that deep into the hole by keeping them from being able to get started in the first place. Mileage may vary on whether that's preferable. My personal choice is probably a side effect of being old.
This thread on Steam might help?
Let me know if that's what you meant.
Genuinely can't tell if spam or non sequitur.
🤦 replied to the wrong person 🤣