PCGamer: Steam's Discovery update is making things worse for some indie developers

[Deleted member 42]

https://www.pcgamer.com/steams-discovery-update-is-making-things-worse-for-some-indie-developers/

Selected quotes below, I'll save my bits for afterwards besides noting that I've been going back and forth as to whether this should have a thread yet.

Valve released a Steam update last week that aimed to show people more relevant games and fewer that were already popular. It claimed the changes would result in a more diverse selection of games appearing in the the Recommendation Feed and elsewhere. The impact of the changes isn't immediately obvious when looking at Steam, and some developers claim that it's having the opposite effect.

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Several indie developers have noticed a drop off in wishlisting since the update and claim that it's still largely promoting popular released games over lesser known fare. Flying Oak Games' Thomas Altenburger believes it's even more focused on big games than ever before, noting that the studio's upcoming roguelike, ScourgeBringer, effectively vanished after Valve made the changes.

"The new Steam algorithm is not better, it's a catastrophe," he wrote on Twitter. "We're getting reports from many devs that their daily wishlisting dropped considerably."

Other developers have reported similar issues, both on Twitter and on Valve's blog post that detailed the update, though the latter is only visible to Steamworks partners. Some developers haven't noticed a difference at all, however, while others have actually received a boost. It's inconsistent, which makes it hard to see what impact Valve's tweaks to the algorithm have actually had.

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Tweet thread starts here, if you want to get hit with the number and chart extravaganza that is indie devs trying to work these things out.

https://twitter.com/mrhelmut/status/1173561507998851073

https://twitter.com/mrhelmut/status/1173606440730316800

So back to my bit. I'm generally uncertain to the validity of everything so far; I think I have a general idea as to what Valve changed when it comes to Steam's algorithm, but I doubt I'll ever have 100% certainty on it. Also, any change made to any algorithm on this level will have negative/positive effects - it's simply impossible for everyone to be happy with one thing, naturally. I was going to wait for things to solidify more before making a thread, but clearly got beat to it, as sites are making articles already.

That being said, I believe Valve has changed things up slightly with regards to Steam's curation algorithm to make it more in line with other entertainment media storefronts, which is to say, prioritizing games that are

1: Already out,
and 2: Already super popular.

If this is the case, while that makes the top tier indie devs and the big publishers happy, that generally makes it a lot harder for smaller devs to break through.

 

[Yunyo]

Hm, do we have feedback from anywhere else?

There won't be a one size fits all solution for everyone, but if it is really widespread enough of a problem it should probably be reconsidered.

 

[nofuckinidea]

I thought the update is available for just 5% of the userbase?

 

[Moebius]

As a steam user, I'd rather see games that are already out, that I can play now instead of a bunch of unreleased games. Maybe there should be an option. Show me only released games, or only show me unreleased games.

 

[nsilvias]

i cant help but feel like gaming is the only industry where the indies complain about the digital storefront. theres millions of musicians and film makers on music and video streaming services but you never hear them complain about the storefront not bringing them customers. they just make good music/video, send out some samples around and do some local stuff to get their name out because they know the storefront is just a delivery service. its almost like these indies feel entitled.

 

[Deleted member 42]

Hm, do we have feedback from anywhere else?

There won't be a one size fits all solution for everyone, but if it is really widespread enough of a problem it should probably be reconsidered.

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I wanted to wait a day to see what shaking the Twitter trees brought us, as I'd definitely like to see more feedback/numbers.

Steam has the absolute worst problem on earth too when it comes to content overload:

1: They're the ones that have it the worst, far worse than any other platform, because they have hundreds of killer games every month and it's a gargantuan task to manage that
2: Any change they make ever gets analyzed down to the nuts n bolts, even if they don't mention anything at all

It'd make me go mad tbh

I thought the update is available for just 5% of the userbase?

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That was a bit ago, it kicked into high gear on 9/12 allegedly

 

[Ionic]

I mean, focusing on showing games that recently came out is better for literally everybody, right? Surely it's better if I get recommended a game, see it looks cool, and see "buy now" as opposed to "coming 2021!". Instead of my only option being a wishlist, I can actually play the game. The dev can have money and everything. I guess we don't know the specifics of how this works yet, but if some of these games release and get a big jump in traffic due to that, then that's presumably the point.

 

[TheJackdog]

so its better for customers, not for indie devs?

can't say i think thats a big deal. Valve cant be expected to be your game's entire marketing push. Cant rely on an algorithm to sell your product.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

Pretty weird, they should get it checked out.
Of course, it may be that the ones affected negatively are talking the loudest while the ones that got it good are quiet, as with anything in this world. As with any changes like this not everyone will get a sweeter deal, you just gotta know if the devs positively affected outweigh the ones negatively affected.

 

[LQX]

Is it better for consumers?

 

[voOsh]

How did people find out about games before Steam existed? It seems some developers have forgotten the ancient ways.

 

[Deleted member 42]

i cant help but feel like gaming is the only industry where the indies complain about the digital storefront. theres millions of musicians and film makers on music and video streaming services but you never hear them complain about the storefront not bringing them customers. they just make good music/video, send out some samples around and do some local stuff to get their name out because they know the storefront is just a delivery service. its almost like these indies feel entitled.

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Musicians and film makers fight with streaming services all of the time. It's a constant push/pull over rights fees.

I mean, focusing on showing games that recently came out is better for literally everybody, right? Surely it's better if I get recommended a game, see it looks cool, and see "buy now" as opposed to "coming 2021!". Instead of my only option being a wishlist, I can actually play the game. The dev can have money and everything. I guess we don't know the specifics of how this works yet, but if some of these gamed release and get a big jump in traffic due to that, then that's presumably the point.

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so its better for customers, not for indie devs?

can't say i think thats a big deal. Valve cant be expected to be your game's entire marketing push. Cant rely on an algorithm to sell your product.

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Depends tbh. Like usual, it's not a one-stop shop kinda thing. The main issues at hand with the change I can see (if it's what I think it is) are:

1: Nobody was informed, that's a big problem
2: It has the side-effect of skewing towards more popular titles and more popular titles only

 

[Deleted member 11214]

I do not know what people expect. Valve "decides winners and losers." Their solution is to open up the store to everyone. Great Games get lost in the shuffle (this is seriously debatable). Valve troubleshoots, but the outcome isn't what a certain subset want. It's like some devs want Valve to market their game for them.

As someone else in this thread said, services like Spotify and Apple Music are much, much worse at highlighting under the radar work but musicians make it work by doing good PR, selling merch and releasing good music that appeals to their niche fanbases. If you can't do that with your game then maybe there just isn't an audience for your game, or otherwise you're spending too much time or money on your work relative to the size of your audience?

 

[Spacejaws]

I'd prefer games either out or very close release dates.

When I'm editing my wishlist I keep bumping into unknown games which I've added months maybe years ago thinking it looked alright but then kinda forget why I added them in the first place and remove them.

There's a lot of competition and if you are fighting to get me to wishlist 2 years in advance (not counting Early Access which I ignore due to being burnt a few times) there's a good chance I'm gonna lose interest.

 

[eonden]

The already super popular part going up is BS btw. The only affected ones are unreleased games.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

I mean, if it's worse for some, it's better for others, isn't it? Seems like a non issue. Probably just another article to make the EGS look good.

 

[Deleted member 42]

Also worth pointing out that Valve's stated intention for the algorithm changes was to increase discoverability for smaller titles, this was likely part of their push with the Library update and their Steam Labs initiatives.

 

[Ascheroth]

and 2: Already super popular.

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That's not what the announcement says though.

In these changes, "Recommended for You" became less biased towards popular games, and showed games that are more relevant to individual customers.

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The increased personalization means there is an even greater variety of games being shown in this section, and customer impressions are more evenly distributed among them.

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I agree that it looks like already released games are getting favored over upcoming ones, which I'm not sure I consider that bad tbh.

 

[Jarate]

so its better for customers, not for indie devs?

can't say i think thats a big deal. Valve cant be expected to be your game's entire marketing push. Cant rely on an algorithm to sell your product.

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It might not inherently be "better" for consumers as the algorithm isn't inherently trying to make their experience better, butto get the consumer to buy more game (not to imply that this is evil or bad. They wouldn't be implementing this feature if they didnt think it would aid in them getting more money)

I think indie devs have just as much right to voice complaints about a sudden change in business that affects their livelihood and they're marketing strategies, especially with a algorithm they have literally no control over.

Also worth pointing out that Valve's stated intention for the algorithm changes was to increase discoverability for smaller titles, this was likely part of their push with the Library update and their Steam Labs initiatives.

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It's a disingenuous argument by Valve, as their goal was to make money by introducing a feature that might lead people to new games they might not have known about. The average game consumer is pretty low information, so "obscure" games to a general audience might be something like, Valiant Hearts, an "indie" game backed by Ubisoft, while Cat Adventure (made up game) made by a single japanese dev might not get that same visibility.

 

[Ionic]

How did people find out about games before Steam existed? It seems some developers have forgotten the ancient ways.

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To be fair, before Steam the indie market wasn't really the same thing as it is today. If you made a game in the early 00's it was probably a free flash game on Newgrounds. There was technically also the custom printed paper sleeve era of hand sold PC games I suppose.

 

[Deleted member 42]

The already super popular part going up is BS btw. The only affected ones are unreleased games.

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This is why I wanted to wait lol, I'm iffy on that still because I (personally, only me!) believe it's skewing towards Top 100 wishlisted games, which makes sense from a Valve perspective, as they lean on that data heavily

I mean, if it's worse for some, it's better for others, isn't it? Seems like a non issue. Probably just another article to make the EGS look good.

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Not everything is about the Epic Games Store, you know.

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

Seems like it favors games already released or close to release. Not really surprising.

 

[eonden]

This is why I wanted to wait lol, I'm iffy on that still because I (personally, only me!) believe it's skewing towards Top 100 wishlisted games, which makes sense from a Valve perspective, as they lean on that data heavily



Not everything is about the Epic Games Store, you know.

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I mean, I think there is a real issue with the unreleased part (and I commented on that in Discord and PCera topic), but the "heavily to top games" is a bit funny when you see some of the comparisons Pre- and post- patch, where you see a much bigger diversity (albeit still of quite heavy hitters sometimes).

Also worth pointing out that Valve's stated intention for the algorithm changes was to increase discoverability for smaller titles, this was likely part of their push with the Library update and their Steam Labs initiatives.

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Which is why they gave hard data when they announced the algorithm change. The sad thing of all of this is that in most cases, you have a zero sum*, where you "steal" a place from one game to another, so there are always going to be losers.

*zero sum as in shown, not clicks. A better algorithm (more click conversion) could lead to more people using the function increasing the total number of people using it.

 

[Deleted member 42]

Which is why they gave hard data when they announced the algorithm change. The sad thing of all of this is that in most cases, you have a zero sum*, where you "steal" a place from one game to another, so there are always going to be losers.

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You know how much I stump for indie devs lol, I wear that shit on my sleeve

Part of me just hopes it's a little tiff over nothing tbh

 

[Deleted member 1055]

The already super popular part going up is BS btw. The only affected ones are unreleased games.

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More games than just pre-release titles are affected.
For example, the developer of Teslagrad and World to the West reported the following:

Teslagrad has sold steady for years. WttW as more of a latecommer has always struggled with it's discoverability. Both games are popular with those that play them as you can see from ratings both on Steam and on Metacritic.

Since the update, we have sold 0 copies of either. This is new...

[...]

Wishlist activity is also sliced to 20% of it's normal.

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Full post here. But looking through the entire thread, it seems to be a mix of increases, decreases, and no changes.

 

[Komo]

I mean, if it's worse for some, it's better for others, isn't it? Seems like a non issue. Probably just another article to make the EGS look good.

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It is. EGS has sponsored PCGamer multiple times. PCGamer is a insanely crappy and biased outlet.

 

[Rosebud]

Steam needs to:

1 - Make a system where customers only see awesome games they would like
2 - Make a system where every indie game is highlighted

Sounds like hell, good luck.

 

[Kyougar]

some lose some win, better market your game instead of depending on an algorithm from a storefront.

Factorio, Stardew Valley, Kerbal Space Program, Rimworld, Prison Architect, etc, didn't sell millions because of Valves algorithm.

 

[Deleted member 42]

It is. EGS has sponsored PCGamer multiple times. PCGamer is a insanely crappy and biased outlet.

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I generally like Fraser's work tbh, he lays things out in a straightforward way usually

Steam needs to:

1 - Make a system where customers only see awesome games they would like
2 - Make a system where every indie game is highlighted

Sounds like hell, good luck.

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It's the most hellish problem lol
And they're basically the only ones that have this problem, especially on this scale
It's lose/lose

 

[Absoludacrous]

How did people find out about games before Steam existed? It seems some developers have forgotten the ancient ways.

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Yep, time to reinvest in print advertising. Someone call GamePro

 

[voOsh]

Valve will continue to update their algorithm once or twice a year to satisfy whichever party is unhappy at that moment. I think it's their only play in this situation.

Yep, time to reinvest in print advertising. Someone call GamePro

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I was thinking more along the lines of Twitch, Youtube, Twitter, etc. Places that have far more reach and substance than Steam store pages.

 

[Komo]

I generally like Fraser's work tbh, he lays things out in a straightforward way usually

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Sure but he also and like others on PCGamer push legitimate bullshit in their posts sometimes to get the article out. I've seen it all too many times, and it seems like with some of these posts now in this thread that there is a section of misinformation in it.

 

[modoversus]

I was thinking more along the lines of Twitch, Youtube, Twitter, etc. Places that have far more reach and substance than Steam store pages.

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Those places make use of algorithms that can make it difficult to find content as well. It's a problem everywhere I feel.

 

[DOBERMAN INC]

They can't win, too many games and too few ways to advertise them.
No matter what someone will be angry.

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

There is no way any storefront with as many products as Steam can create an algorithm that makes everybody happy.
It's just not possible.

 

[eonden]

Sure but he also and like others on PCGamer push legitimate bullshit in their posts sometimes to get the article out. I've seen it all too many times, and it seems like with some of these posts now in this thread that there is a section of misinformation in it.

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I mean, it isnt really misinformation, as there are indies that have been affected negatively (mainly those on the upcoming part). The issue is that only Valve really has the data on increase of unique games visited and click conversion (information that they gave about the 5%). Without those 2 data, we are basically blind and trying to picture something with only a really small dataset (and due to the nature of the beast, mainly dataset from people affected negatively).

Also late:

Depends tbh. Like usual, it's not a one-stop shop kinda thing. The main issues at hand with the change I can see (if it's what I think it is) are:

1: Nobody was informed, that's a big problem

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I mean, they were informed when the changed happened and about the experiment comparison with the previous nature of the algorithm. If they had been informed before, it wouldnt have changed anything (except get indies to start sweating days before any possible change and starting to analyze any possible variation).

 

[Jarate]

EGS BRIBED the PCgame writers, staff, and ownership to say that certain indie devs are upset about an algorithmic change they had no say or control in

 

[Deleted member 42]

Sure but he also and like others on PCGamer push legitimate bullshit in their posts sometimes to get the article out. I've seen it all too many times, and it seems like with some of these posts now in this thread that there is a section of misinformation in it.

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Yeah I'm gonna have to ask for you to pull receipts on that for Fraser tbh, especially since he wrote this:

https://www.pcgamer.com/borderlands-3-players-are-taking-over-its-predecessors-steam-forum/

Also late:

I mean, they were informed when the changed happened and about the experiment comparison with the previous nature of the algorithm. If they had been informed before, it wouldnt have changed anything (except get indies to start sweating days before any possible change and starting to analyze any possible variation).

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I REALLY want to see wtf the dev comments are on that Steamworks update page now lol

 

[eonden]

I REALLY want to see wtf the dev comments are on that Steamworks update page now lol

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I can tell you for the nifty price of 200$ (paid one day before the information is given).

 

[Deleted member 10629]

It is an unsolvable problem. There is just a lot of games on the platform.

 

[Deleted member 42]

I can tell you for the nifty price of 200$ (paid one day before the information is given).

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[BeI]

If they shift to trying to advertise certain stuff more, doesn't that mean some other stuff inevitably has to be advertised less? In a way, isn't this kinda expected: less advertising in certain areas for more in others?

 

[CrunchyFrog]

At the end of the day, you can't feature every single game on the front page/in discovery queues. It's just not possible. Forgetting the argument on the ethical considerations for steam's curation, from a purely practical standpoint if you are relying only on front page/queue placement to market your game then you are certainly doomed to failure. There's too much out there with an essentially evergreen and ever growing digital catalogue, even discounting obvious shovelware/asset flips. You have to put boots on the ground and actually spend time going to streamers, forums, blogs, and review outlets. This is just a fact, even if Valve somehow thought up the world's most perfect algorithm.

 

[Unkindled]

Mine looks the same, besides GTA V popping up on it now which I put on ignore instantly.

 

[EllipsisBreak]

Whenever an algorithm is changed to highlight some games more (by any criteria), other games get pushed down. There are too many deserving games and they can't all be at the top of the list at once. So is it even possible for a discovery update to not make things worse for some developers? I can't think of a way.

 

[Plum]

I mean what else is Steam supposed to do? They're trying, and whilst it's all well and good going "do something!" it means very little if you can't give actual examples of a storefront that has done what Steam is trying to do better. I know this isn't technically "about" the EGS but, considering the oft-repeated rhetoric from sites like PC Gamer that "the EGS is the best place for developers," I think that this kind of criticism, especially at such a level like this which completely ignores the good that's come out of this move, is inherently disingenious.

Right now it seems like unreleased games are the ones who have been hurt the most by this, but on the other hands released games have been helped quite a bit so, like with all things, somebody unfortunately has to lose. The market is just way too big at the moment and there's literally no way to fix it whilst pleasing everybody.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

Whenever an algorithm is changed to highlight some games more (by any criteria), other games get pushed down. There are too many deserving games and they can't all be at the top of the list at once. So is it even possible for a discovery update to not make things worse for some developers? I can't think of a way.

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Essentially this.

Everyone wanted on Steam, and as soon as they got on Steam they don't want anyone else on Steam.

 

[Htown]

the article says that it's worse for some devs, better for others, and the same for another group

so... basically what you'd expect with any change in the algorithm

 

[Paz]

There's just not enough information here to form a solid opinion yet, the nature of any change means some games will see reduced traffic while others see a boost, and sadly only valve have the data to look at things on a wide scale.

 

[THRILLHO]

Indie devs' preferred algorithm:

If (me) = true,
If (you) = false