Valve has launched "Steam Labs", a place where Valve will show off new experiments

Quoting: kuhpunktI actually think that the people at Valve already do a good job. Scam gets deleted, trash isn't promoted. I've never been recommended actual crap. I'd actually have to go out of my way to search for this stuff. I think most people just overreact here.

Wow, someone in this site that actually lives in 2019, most people just watch old Jimquisition videos and loves to attack Valve with the "too much garbage games on Steam" argument.
Since the "new releases tab" were changed to "new and popular releases" this problem was pretty much resolved, all those games like "Spinner simulator" are only visible if you search specifically for it. Sadly that causes some good jewels to get under the rug, but I dont think these AAA kids actually cares for those games and its developers.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou can't showcase a game in six seconds - or if you can, you have a super simplistic game on your hand.

That is pretty much your opinion, I can tell with this six second trailers when a game is not for me. It is up to devs to make the right video.


Last edited by orochi_kyo on 12 July 2019 at 5:21 pm UTC

Quoting: orochi_kyo

Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou can't showcase a game in six seconds - or if you can, you have a super simplistic game on your hand.

That is pretty much your opinion, I can tell with this six second trailers when a game is not for me. It is up to devs to make the right video.

That is not my opinion, but a fact.
Six seconds is not enough to explain fundamental mechanics of even simpler strategy games like Civilization, for example. What can you show there? A unit moving a tile, the purchase of a building, a glimpse of the tech tree, a camera movement over the map. That's about it, it has to be slow enough that people can still grasp what they are looking at.
That will tell you a tiny bit about the game, in some cases enough to tell you "this isn't for me", in others enough to pique interest.
But it also opens the door to not showcasing a part that someone might have liked, cause you just can't fit everything in there. And that person would then - based on those six seconds - decide to not give a further look.

This technique will lead to a large number of "false negatives". The question isn't if that will happen or not. It will, because it must. You couldn't fully explain a movie in a vine, either, and games are often way more complex than movies.
The question is if that number will be bigger or smaller than false negatives based on just the title screen. And that... no idea. Couldn't tell if this is better or worse for developers. I think it might be better for more action-oriented games, while it might be useless or bad for more cerebral ones.
But that wasn't my point, anyway. I was merely stating that it is impossible to fully showcase a game in six seconds. If that was possible, trailers wouldn't be minutes long.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 12 July 2019 at 6:06 pm UTC

Quoting: TheSHEEEPSix seconds is not enough to explain fundamental mechanics of even simpler strategy games like Civilization, for example. What can you show there? A unit moving a tile, the purchase of a building, a glimpse of the tech tree, a camera movement over the map. That's about it, it has to be slow enough that people can still grasp what they are looking at.
That will tell you a tiny bit about the game, in some cases enough to tell you "this isn't for me", in others enough to pique interest.
But it also opens the door to not showcasing a part that someone might have liked, cause you just can't fit everything in there. And that person would then - based on those six seconds - decide to not give a further look.

It should not explain mechanics. It is not a tutorial.

But you can see that it is a tile-based game, with large world maps, city management, a complex tech tree, historical theme. Probably enough to see that it is a 1 unit per tile, turn-based, "I go you go" style of game. Enough to differentiate it from a tactical RPG with instanced combat in a small map, or a fast-paced real-time game with many units moving in coordination, or a province-based operational level wargame, or a "we go" style of game where you plan your movements and then execute, or a card based strategy game... You can get a good idea of scope, complexity, and of course theme and art style.

Obviously, it is not enough for a purchase decision. But for a quick look and first filter, it is useful - and then you can click on it and see the longer videos, more images, the list of features and developer description and so on.

Personally, a quick glance at the trailers for the "Builder" category allows me to distinguish games with more of a "first person survival game" vibe from those that look more like tower defense from the more management-like games and so on... and that is taking games that are already pre-selected and presumably somewhat similar. For a more general list - the new releases or the discovery queue, for example - it could make a lot of difference.

Those 6 second trailers sound good as long as they show relevant gameplay footage.

Quoting: apocalyptechGive me a call when they try the "use humans to curate the store so it's not brimming with garbage constantly" experiment, that's the one that I'm still really pining for.

No. I hope they don't do that.

1. I'd rather have them invest that money somewhere else to actually improve the store rather than pay some people for doing boring jobs badly (because it certainly wouldn't have major positive results)

This is also a good example where no more jobs should be created and instead use AI and algorithms should be used. Why should a human stay 8 hours a day doing repetitive boring stuff when he could do something more productive somewhere else?
What you're asking for is a downgrade. Valve would eventually just end up firing those poor people and bring AI back anyway. That's the future and they can't stop it. So why would they do that? It makes absolutely no sense investment-wise, and would also damage their reputation.

2. All games except scams should be allowed on the store. Even if the game is terrible, someone will like and enjoy it. If it's not for you, don't buy it. I never got recommended (ads, discovery, now the recommender) shitty games anyway. Maybe if you don't want them, then don't play them. Just because every YouTuber plays shitty games because it's fun, doesn't mean you have to do it as well.

Having strict rules about which game is good and which is bad is not only a highly personal and biased opinion, but also has moral implications. It's much better if you just let it work like a free market, let people sell and buy what they want, unless it breaks some very basic (again, basic) laws - mostly legal e.g. no scamming, copyright theft, etc. You can look back at history if you want to see the fate of closed markets in so many different countries. Steam would be no exception, it's not a country, but it's a similar scaled down thing that's similar to one in regards to this aspect.

And as I said, there are moral implications. Just because you think a game is shit, doesn't mean everybody does. Just look at VR Chat. I think that was absolute garbage, but countless people played and enjoyed it because of memes. And there are many more examples of "bad" games. A game doesn't have to be good to be fun. But in order to know if it's fun you have to play it, and to play it you have to have access to it, and this is what Steam currently offers.


Last edited by Hori on 15 July 2019 at 7:29 am UTC

How about you experiment with bring back my damn Trailer TV >.<