There are almost 7000 games on Steam, how much is too much?

T

Tagyhag

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(200 or so of those titles are yet to be released)

Edit: I'm NOT talking about putting a limit on how many games show up on Steam (my title is just bad) I'm talking about getting better curation/discovery tools for Steam because there are lots of great games that are already being forgotten, and it will just get worse.

And there are over 15,000 items if we were to count DLC/demos/movies etc. Naturally, all those games aren't going to be good, but I think there's a common misconception that the majority of games on Steam are pure trash.

~4500 out of all those games are rated 70% or higher, at the end of the day it's all subjective but it gives a general idea that while there's still a lot of trash out there, it doesn't dominate the market.

But I digress, my primary concern for the future is wading through all those games to get to what you want or finding those hidden gems, while also hurting developers that don't get the spotlight that other ones receive. While Valve did release a huge update to help curate the market and try to help gamers find games that they might enjoy, I feel like it didn't help as much as some people where hoping, although some stats say otherwise.

This isn't an issue that is going to go away either, ever since Valve opened the floodgates, we are seeing 5-10 games being released every single day and it hasn't stopped.

Do you feel like Valve has the responsibility to do something about it? Do you think things are fine the way they are? I don't want the storefront to end up like the mobile market where only a very few games end up getting the majority of the profits and some fantastic games end up being lost in the mob of games.

Also, semi-offtopic, but what is it with Japanese devs and releasing games during the big Steam sales? Saint Seiya is going to be badly overlooked!
 
More games the better, why would you ever advocate less choice? Jeez.
Better searching and highlight from Steams end maybe, but no cap to the number of games. I've never heard something so absurd.
You want Saint Seiya to find an audience, but the irony is that if they limited the number of games then that particular game would be shit out of luck because its so niche.
 
This store has too many things to buy. Something must be done about this!

It's a store. The more things they have to sell, the better.
 
IdreamofHIME said:
More games the better, why would you ever advocate less choice? Jeez.
Better searching and highlight from Steams end maybe, but no cap to the number of games. I've never heard something so absurd.
You want Saint Seiya to find an audience, but the irony is that if they limited the number of games then that particular game would be shit out of luck because its so niche.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have to have a cap, but perhaps a better curation system, Greenlight system was obviously not the best way to do it but there has to be an evolution to it.

Oni Link 666 said:
This store has too many things to buy. Something must be done about this!

It's a store. The more things they have to sell, the better.
Click to expand...

Yeah my title is not the best, I'm advocating more of a better system to find games that deserved to be found, rather than just putting a hard limit as to how many games can be on Steam.

There's already tons of great games that no one knows about because they missed their chance and now they're lost in the void unless some popular let's player ends up playing it years down the line.

I'm not worried about Gaf finding the games, obviously people here will put in the extra effort, but the average person will not.
 
The number of titles on Steam isn't a problem unless you decide to buy things with zero thought or try to discover new games in the most inefficient way possible.
 
Man there are too many movies to choose from when I turn on Netflix.

Do you think something should be done about it? Maybe the government should shut down movie making so then choosing won't get any harder?

Keeeerist man.
 
Thanks for telling me about that fighting game, wishlisted.

Strania, GREV's first Steam release, also came out a couple days ago. Mushimisama, Cave's long awaited first Steam release, came out the week prior.
 
Why should a storefront, a PC storefront no less, limit itself?
It's like complaining that a music store has too much music to find.
Besides that, it's not like there aren't places that don't try and highlight hidden gems or niche games.
 
I'm fine with Steam being a huge platform with thousands of games available to play. I can look to GAF, etc to find the shit that really matters on the service. It's the default place for PC gaming, and a lot of people are making games, Valve can assist in curating the content, but having so much available is better than restricting it.

Plenty of forums, game sites, and Twitch streams to look at to find out what is worth playing, and what isn't.
 
"What's the point of making more music?!"
"What's the point of writing more books?!"
"What's the point of making more movies?!"
"What's the point of making more TV shows?!"
 
Just to note, I wouldn't think much of the ratings on the smaller titles. It's quite common for those scores to be inflated by the developers self-rating etc... so a lot of those 4500 titles would probably not have ratings above 70% if they had a larger number of ratings.

Either way, I think gamers broadly have a lot of choice but you yourself must decide where you focus your attention. Sure there are hypothetically, 4500 decent games on steam, but how many of those offer exactly what you want? How many of those are your ideal game? A lot of the reasons I keep gaming is because I keep chasing that perfect experience. I buy the next game in a genre because I have reason to suspect it may be better than the last, or offer something neat that others in the genre did not. So in that regard, given that that perfect game is an unachievable goal, 7500 isn't even close.

Heck, if there were 7500 games in a SINGLE GENRE, we would still be sat around, discussing their pros and cons, chasing that perfect experience.
 
I'm ok with Steam having infinite games but I wish it had better filtering options. Instead of only being able to include tags to search, I'd like to be able to exclude tags from search. I'd love to just permanently remove anything with the "indie" or "anime" tags from ever showing up in my search lists, for instance.
 
Antiwhippy said:
I never get this mindset.

Are you unable to judge things and curate things to your own taste?
Click to expand...

I'm talking more about the general gaming populace, I'm a loser so I look at every daily release without fail.

PC gaming is growing, and that's going to attract those that may have never played the games in its library, there should be a way for them to find games that they would overlook otherwise, and the current curation system is not that way.

Some will argue that PC gaming is ABOUT putting that extra effort, but I think if the platform wants to continue to grow, its primary storefront will have to make it simpler for new players.
 
The problem is more about finding stuff relevant to your interests than about the volume of the library.

The curators system has potential, but the current implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
 
A few years ago I'd bet half my favorite indie games on the store wouldn't have gotten through. Would the recent Japanese port trend have happened if it was still a pain to get through like before? Even PC oriented devs like Spiderwebsoftware took forever to get their stuff on Steam. Would 2015 darlings like Contradiction, Her Story, and Undertale have been on Steam, let alone relatively popular, 5 years ago? Would we be getting that Clannad VN, which I guess is very popular, given they want to charge a high premium for it?

There's always going to be a few games that fall through, but that happened anyway.

They do need to work on things but I'll take them being lax over their arbitrary and unpredictable reasons for declining things.
 
Tagyhag said:
I'm talking more about the general gaming populace, I'm a loser so I look at every daily release without fail.

PC gaming is growing, and that's going to attract those that may have never played the games in its library, there should be a way for them to find games that they would overlook otherwise, and the current curation system is not that way.

Some will argue that PC gaming is ABOUT putting that extra effort, but I think if the platform wants to continue to grow, its primary storefront will have to make it simpler for new players.
Click to expand...

The answer is better curation then, not limiting content. Also they do surface the big names in the storefront which is what most users would want, and they do try to customise the storefront according to your library, though it still needs a few more tweaks.
 
The library has almost 7,000 books, it's too many to look through!

Seriously though, the issue isn't the number of games, rather the tools given to customers to discover new content. Discoverability is huge hurdle for any industry, and isn't unique to video games or even Steam. The curator system was a step in the right direction, however apart from arbitrary categories and algorithmic recommendations, we simply haven't figured out the most sure-fire effective way to get people more stuff they would likely enjoy.
 
Antiwhippy said:
The answer is better curation then, not limiting content. Also they do surface the big names in the storefront which is what most users would want, and they do try to customise the storefront according to your library, though it still needs a few more tweaks.
Click to expand...

Yeah my title is bad, I don't want to limit the content, just want a much better game spotlighting system for all.
 
ZehDon said:
The library has almost 7,000 books, it's too many to look through!

Seriously though, the issue isn't the number of games, rather the tools given to customers to discover new content. Discoverability is huge hurdle for any industry, and isn't unique to video games or even Steam
Click to expand...

So what you're saying is Steam needs a Dewey Decimal System.
 
As much as I feel like Vale doesn't do nearly enough of, like *anything* nowadays, what are you expecting?

Are they just supposed to shut the doors of Steam one day and say: "Okay, that's enough video games! no more video games!"
 
I think there's a very real issue with finding out about smaller, quality games that never got huge amounts of fanfare. I would never have known about Running With Rifles or Environmental Station Alpha if not for the most offhand of GAF comments.

I'm sure, even now, there are great games I have absolutely no idea about buried somewhere within the recesses of the store. Even something like the Indie Recommendation threads don't manage to curate as many games as I'd like, and that's certainly not for lack of trying.

Tagyhag said:
I'm talking more about the general gaming populace, I'm a loser so I look at every daily release without fail.

PC gaming is growing, and that's going to attract those that may have never played the games in its library, there should be a way for them to find games that they would overlook otherwise, and the current curation system is not that way.

Some will argue that PC gaming is ABOUT putting that extra effort, but I think if the platform wants to continue to grow, its primary storefront will have to make it simpler for new players.
Click to expand...

That type of "general gaming populace" probably gets by fine figuring out what to buy based off spotlighted Steam sales/popular youtube personalities/the top seller list/Steam recommendations/what their friends told them/etc. If they're not making a lot of effort to look out for games, they're probably being catered fine to with what's most visible.
 
And consider this: Steam is only a small fraction of PC gaming. More Ludum Dare game jam entries released last year alone than every game on Steam. And that's only Ludum Dare
 
How many games in the AppStore?
Almost half a million.

436 new ones per day.
12000 per month.

And looking at revenue, it's also a david vs Goliath situation.
 
Tagyhag said:
I'm talking more about the general gaming populace, I'm a loser so I look at every daily release without fail.

PC gaming is growing, and that's going to attract those that may have never played the games in its library, there should be a way for them to find games that they would overlook otherwise, and the current curation system is not that way.

Some will argue that PC gaming is ABOUT putting that extra effort, but I think if the platform wants to continue to grow, its primary storefront will have to make it simpler for new players.
Click to expand...

While I'm sure there are improvements to be had on Steam, the PC gaming market is growing at a breakneck speed at the moment. Tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions) of people are playing and more are coming in by the second. I'm sure it's not a huge problem - people will develop a taste for some types of games and seek them out.
 
I've never browsed Steam looking for new games and I'm not going to start now. If a game's worth playing, I'll hear about it one way or another. If something good does manage to go unnoticed, oh well. There are already more than enough great games that I know about that I'll never get around to playing. I don't really care if I miss a couple here and there.
 
Tagyhag said:
But I digress, my primary concern for the future is wading through all those games to get to what you want or finding those hidden gems
Click to expand...

The way people buy games on steam is in one of two ways

(1) User finds game they want
(2) Valve suggest game for the user to buy

increasing the number of games does not harm either scenario. In fact, it helps.

Tagyhag said:
I don't want the storefront to end up like the mobile market where only a very few games end up getting the majority of the profits and some fantastic games end up being lost in the mob of games.
Click to expand...

That is literally how just about every other games market place works. Welcome to capitalism (I know that's measured in hours, but there's obviously a correlation here).
 
FoxHimself said:
"What's the point of making more music?!"
"What's the point of writing more books?!"
"What's the point of making more movies?!"
"What's the point of making more TV shows?!"
Click to expand...

"What's the point of making more people?"

real talk though overpopulation is rapidly becoming a problem
 
I don't really see a problem. I don't need to play all the good games or hidden gems on Steam. If I run into it by chance, great. If not, I just don't care and move on to play something else.
 
Stuff like this sorts itself out. Nobody complains there's too much stuff on Itunes even though more and more of it is self released.
 
Tagyhag said:
Do you feel like Valve has the responsibility to do something about it? Do you think things are fine the way they are? I don't want the storefront to end up like the mobile market where only a very few games end up getting the majority of the profits and some fantastic games end up being lost in the mob of games.
Click to expand...

No, not really? That would be like being mad at Blockbuster 10 years ago because they only owned a small storefront and couldn't help you find one of the 239123589235 movies that exist.

No, Valve has done a bunch to move PC gaming forward, expecting them to do more is just being selfish. Valve is a company so their primary goal is to make money... they're going to do whatever it is that will make them reach that goal faster. Expecting them to do anything but is insanity.
 
Tagyhag said:
Yeah my title is bad, I don't want to limit the content, just want a much better game spotlighting system for all.
Click to expand...

That's the main issue, a ton of PC gamers won't even try your game unless it is on Steam, therefore there are a ton of games on Steam. Since there are enough decent community options to figure out what is playing, I don't see a problem with Steam having a shitton of games to play. So long as they work well enough of course.
 
7000 games and not every game will be for everyone.

Of that 7k, I'd guestimate that only under 500 have ever been of any interest to me (and I own around 300 of them). That 500 could be different for every person and that's great. It's fun to just browse random game categories and find stuff I've never seen before. The ratings system sorts via user reviews well enough to avoid any of the objectively trash games.
 
I don't think there needs to be a limit.....


Though it would be nice if Valve could maybe write some lines of code to help me discover games that I haven't heard of? I mean...it would be nice if the main page of Steam, you know, didn't show me games I already own, and maybe displayed games other than 5 different Counter Strikes. The current sale demonstrates just how little it matters that there are 7000 games on Steam. I only ever see the same 100 of them. At least don't show me the ones I already own!

So yeah, the problem Valve (and all the other digital distributors) needs to solve has everything to do with how and which games are displayed. And tailor that to the tastes of each account holder. That would actually help me as a customer. Valve employees are always going on about "delivering value to our customers." This would be a good place to start!
 
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