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

You can't showcase a game in six seconds - or if you can, you have a super simplistic game on your hand.
On the other hand, micro-trailers are an improvement over just the title-screen or a screenshot.

I really don't like the automatic show, though. Not gonna watch a 20-minute video showing 4 videos at the same time with extreme cuts every six seconds. I tried for a minute and my brain hurts already. I'll take the discovery queue where I can go at my own speed, thank you very much.

Which leads me to the interactive recommender - which is nice. I find the discovery queue good enough already, tbh, but I'll always go with improvements.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 12 Jul 2019 at 6:13 am UTC

Give 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.

Which is completely unrealistic. It won't happen, because it won't help.


Last edited by kuhpunkt on 12 Jul 2019 at 7:04 am UTC

A problem with the recommendations presented by the ML feature "Interactive Recommender" is that some of my best gaming experiences have been from short and focused interactive experiences which didn't take as much time to go through as some of my top games by hours played. Seems these games are not treated fairly by this algorithm. The recommendations makes sense in comparison to my most played games, but most hours played does not always mean most compelling game, and some of those most played games I'm actually done with and I'm burned out on those genres.

I think a partial solution could be to look at the average playtime for the entire user-base for a game, and then see how my time compares to that of the average user. If I spent more time than average, then I probably found it compelling. Some games are intentionally short, others can be huge time sinks. By looking at a ratio compared to an average instead of absolute playtime we can ensure the former category isn't treated as unfairly as it currently seems to be.

The blog post:

"Why it works for short games
The recommender knows that there are great short-form games you can finish in an hour, and those you'll play for thousands. Your playtime data is normalized to reflect the distribution of playtime in each game, ensuring that all games are on an equal footing."

Give 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.

Which is completely unrealistic. It won't happen, because it won't help.

Well, there has to be some kind of middle ground between Valve's "every crap is welcome" and GOG's "we arbitrarily reject most good games that our users would actually like".

Give 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.

Which is completely unrealistic. It won't happen, because it won't help.

Well, there has to be some kind of middle ground between Valve's "every crap is welcome" and GOG's "we arbitrarily reject most good games that our users would actually like".

I 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.

I gonna say I'm fall in love with "Automatic Show", it's have very huge potential. The best alternatives to watch the games' gameplay/trailers and at the same time avoid/evading some bias youtubers/streamers/news/shill-curator bullshit-ness.

It's definitely my favourite project of the three. I hope it will become a monthly/weekly thing. Thought it would be cool to be able to enlarge the video without losing the clickable game banner.

It's cool, I like it. One of the suggested games for me was 'Himno' a free to play platformer with native linux. It was a short but fun game with procedurally produced levels and very solid mechanics. Worth a play IMHO.

Interactive Recommender sounds interesting. Finally, putting machine learning towards something useful!

the original of which is definitely one of my top 5 360 games.

Wow, that's a lot of games. :D

Hey, I've played a lot of games. :)

I 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.

You 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 Jul 2019 at 5:21 pm UTC

You 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 Jul 2019 at 6:06 pm UTC

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.

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.

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