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Shenmue III is timed exclusive to Epic Games Store, backers PC code redeemed on EGS & no refund (See Threadmark) [READ STAFF POSTS BEFORE POSTING]
- Thread starter vestan
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you can find tons, and tons of people saying this stuff in the VR community too, where it's hurting a lot more people due to the smaller nature of the market.
If you're an indie developer and you release a game in to the stream of new games that steam gets every day, how does that get noticed?
I honestly wonder if people who make these comments know how steam works like at all. You won't see 99% of the "unabashed trash" unless you go looking for it, and filtering out "Adult Content" gets rid of a large chunk of the asset flips completely because most of them are slide puzzle porn games.
Steam recommends games based on Wishlisting, Reviews and Sales. Most asset flips and shovelware dont get a lot of any of those things. "Popular Upcoming" is full of tons of quality games from all sizes. Its not hard to get there either. But barely any of the shovelware makes it on there.
also recently Risk of Rain 2 and Mordhau both released with little fanfare, ROR2 didnt even announce its release prior, it just appeared, and both went on to sell 1m+ each with their first month. Good games aren't getting buried.
Right, and if you made that game in your bedroom and you don't have any marketing budget?
I don't think this is true, I've never seen said trash on my steam, and I'm someone who doesn't have that much of a problem with Epic doing EGS exclusives.
You're not getting your game on to EGS in that scenario, if that's what you're implying.
Devs advertise their game on reddit with gifs and on Twitter. The rest probably need to look interesting enough to click on in Steam. So yeah there are probably a good amount of games getting left hanging.
Edit: of course having a booth at any expos. I feel like few devs do this in comparison to how many devs are on steam though.
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There are many promotion ways that do not require marketing budget (and Steam has a list of recommendations about that!)
There is also the point that to enter into a curated storefront, you would still need a marketing budget to actually get noticed by the owners of the curated store, or have contacts with them to get preferential treatment.
There's ways to do that with a budget. Show share the product to people(communities/forums), gain interest, create a following, increase following. It requires work but that's expected
Marketing, like any other product? How do things at Walmart sell when they get put on the store shelves?
Would you like to hear a specific way I plan on guerilla marketing my game? This is probably going to blow minds: I am going to purposefully seed it into piracy outlets. I very much believe in copyleft ideology. I plan on using piracy itself as a method to market my own game, and make it well known that I am ok with that.
You're talking to a bedroom coder right here.
Also, if you haven't been paying attention, none of the games on the EGS are from tiny, unknown developers. They're all from people who have literally already made it big somewhere else prior.
Also, you guys realise that for the good games to show up on your discovery, those games need to be initially discovered first? If nobody's looking at the new queue how are they going to get discovered apart from some poor soul that has to sit there filtering out all the asset flip trash and puzzle porn games to potentially find something worth talking about.
The point I'm trying to make is that there are serious concerns in every storefront and Steam is far from perfect. I get the EGS frustration but threads like these with the amount of vitriol EGS gets makes Steam seem saintly in comparison which is quite frankly not the case.
I personally would suggest that the unwillingness of Steam to limit the floodgates a little bit/perform moderation/curate their store better in order to promote indies better and not letting them get drowned out is far more important to the industry than EGS robbing a couple of already high profile games with their money.
That's my opinion and I hope you don't let EGS get in the way of enjoying Shenmue 3.
The point I'm trying to make is that there are serious concerns in every storefront and Steam is far from perfect. I get the EGS frustration but threads like these with the amount of vitriol EGS gets makes Steam seem saintly in comparison which is quite frankly not the case.
I personally would suggest that the unwillingness of Steam to limit the floodgates a little bit/perform moderation/curate their store better in order to promote indies better and not letting them get drowned out is far more important to the industry than EGS robbing a couple of already high profile games with their money.
That's my opinion and I hope you don't let EGS get in the way of enjoying Shenmue 3.
I just genuinely don't understand some of the arguments that get brought up all the time.
Devs are unhappy with the discovery algorithm that Steam is using and feel their games don't get enough exposure. The solution then is to wholesale dump any semblance of a recommendation system all together.
Steam is overrun with too many games and devs can't compete, especially smaller devs? They'll get more exposure on EGS due to artificial scarcity, but how long until the number of games there grows? Oh, and if you're a smaller dev, you won't even get your games on EGS to begin with.
Steam is becoming a monopoly, so let's pay for exclusives at the expense of any other storefront (that usually got the games too).
The proposed solution never matches the initial problem.
Devs are unhappy with the discovery algorithm that Steam is using and feel their games don't get enough exposure. The solution then is to wholesale dump any semblance of a recommendation system all together.
Steam is overrun with too many games and devs can't compete, especially smaller devs? They'll get more exposure on EGS due to artificial scarcity, but how long until the number of games there grows? Oh, and if you're a smaller dev, you won't even get your games on EGS to begin with.
Steam is becoming a monopoly, so let's pay for exclusives at the expense of any other storefront (that usually got the games too).
The proposed solution never matches the initial problem.
Then you still have a higher chance of selling well on Steam than EGS, because Epic won't even let your game onto their store.
WRONG
many discovery lists on steam are automatically populated using machine learning. They literally don't have to be discovered or get big at all to enter those lists. Case in point, my front page of steam is pretty consistently full of completely unknown VR games, because I've made it known to Steam that I actively hunt for and play VR games, and they have learned to suggest them to me even if they're not popular with other people. That's because I've literally trained Steam on my interests, that's what actually a major component of Steam's discovery system.
Jim Sterling literally trained his discovery queue to purposefully show him awful asset flips, because he keeps going out and buying them and looking for them. They're serving him what his behavior demonstrates he is looking for.
And curation would be different to this in what way exactly?
I remember myself praying for this come to PC when announced. Now people are upset because it's not on they favorite store. Can't blame them because it was promised. And right is right. But I will wouldn't play the game anymore,if that's the only way. But backers have the right at least for a refund if they're not happy. That's not right yu. Give their money back if they don't want it on epic
So I guess its safe to assume that despite having an account, all your know about Steam is based on hearsay and you don't use Steam?
I keep seeing people claim that Steam is drowning indies among bad games. Even if that were true (it's not), it's still possible to sift through those so-called bad games to find the good indies. EGS drowns indies in a sea of silence. There are literally millions of indie games that are permanently buried from the eyes of those on the EGS, with no way to be discovered, ever, period.
Sharing clips on social media, taking part in things like screenshot Saturday, getting your Steam page up early so you can accumulate wishlists for launch day, etc.
Steam actually provides a page to indie devs which shows them metrics of where page views are coming from. It highlights external click throughs, wishlists, and other Steam pages.
Guess what? Most indie devs, like the dev for The First Tree for example, find that the vast majority of people who check out the store page do so from organic traffic directly from Steam itself. And this is a game which exploded on Reddit. Steam is actually pretty good at getting eyes on your game.
There are many games which have blown up like that. This year we've had stuff like Bright Memory explode on launch day out of nowhere. It happens.
AAA devs will always get more eyes than you. No system will ever change that. But at least with Steam's system you have a chance to exist. With curation, many good devs don't and just leave the industry.
Don't you think there should be a base level of quality control in Steam's store so that it would be easier for good faith indie devs to actually stand out?
Its not just that. I also see people claiming Steam is flooding their storefront with unabashed trash, are also those who refuses to show what their Steam main page is showing.
That's what Discovery does. "Quality" is subjective. "Relevance" can only be guessed at so much through data, but will generally present accurate results.
Guys the Steam's front page is indeed being drown with garbage, please trust 10 year industry veterans.
edit: That reminds me, I should go buy gato roboto lol
No, I feel like every attempt to do this is an attempt to objectively qualify an inherently subjective thing. What you are asking for is an impossibility. Inevitably, a "worthy" game will suffer.
That's the thing that really annoys me about this topic.
There is legitimate debate as to whether or not small indies benefit from steam's policies or not. Whilst angry men on YouTube dominate the discussion (which sucks), if you actually listen to smaller devs you do hear a wide range of opinions, or at least I anecdotally have.
But the debate has nothing to do with EGS because those games aren't getting on EGS. EGS is way worse for small devs since its curation doesn't seem to be based on quality, but on how well they think it will sell.
The fact that anyone brings it up when talking about EGS seems like more than anything it betrays their actually goal, which is to shit on steam. It has no place in the discussion since it's not actually a problem EGS is even trying to tackle, but it's still here because it's a potentially bad thing about steam that a man on YouTube yelled about so it gets shoehorned in.
It has even less to do with this specific discussion when we're talking about one of the biggest damn kickstarters of all time.
But that's the problem. Steam *is* saintly in terms of developer distribution tools and support, in addition to customer tools as well. You could make an argument that steam needs to be more active when it comes to game curation by the flip side of that argument could be applied to the Epic games store in instances where they refused to publish games for arbitrary reasons. The matter of curation is not a simple one and a more nuanced approach is required to solve it .
Outside that however, arguing that the issues and advantages that both stores present are comparable to customers and developers is at best naive and at worst willfully dishonest.
I'll say this -- I have many IRL friends who tried to get on the EGS who got rejected. And, to bring this back around to Shenmue, I don't blame them at all for trying to get on the EGS to begin with. Because, while we're talking about small bedroom coders with no marketing, when you're in that position, the smartest thing to do is to increase the number of stores you hit at once, not decrease. If you're small and struggling with visibility, the solution is to try and be everywhere at once. Increase your spread.
And, coming back to shenmue III, that's why the EGS is so fucking awful. It forces entities to go against their best interests. There is absolutely no way anybody an possibly argue that, given all possible scenarios, the best situation period would be one where developers can launch on both EGS and Steam at the same time and take in sales from both stores. Shit, the best situation would be to hit GOG and The Xbox PC store too, be everywhere. But instead, if you want to be on the EGS, they dance dollar signs in front of you to force you to sign away your ability to sell your niche-ass game on literally the largest marketplace. That's stupid! And not good for anybody.
And, coming back to shenmue III, that's why the EGS is so fucking awful. It forces entities to go against their best interests. There is absolutely no way anybody an possibly argue that, given all possible scenarios, the best situation period would be one where developers can launch on both EGS and Steam at the same time and take in sales from both stores. Shit, the best situation would be to hit GOG and The Xbox PC store too, be everywhere. But instead, if you want to be on the EGS, they dance dollar signs in front of you to force you to sign away your ability to sell your niche-ass game on literally the largest marketplace. That's stupid! And not good for anybody.
Egs is already overrun. You need to use search by name to get to specific game. Unless you get selected for front page.
So someone must know that you're game already exists before.
Of course this is only because of lack discovery features. And will probably change for better.
Man. So much trash on the Steam frontpage for me.
Wtf wants to play some shitty ass Zoo simulator?
Brawlhalla? Maybe play some real Smash Bros.
Trinoline? Must be one of those jack off games I heard about.
Puyo Puyo? Wow. Kids games.
American Truck Simulator? Nerd territory man.
Wtf wants to play some shitty ass Zoo simulator?
Brawlhalla? Maybe play some real Smash Bros.
Trinoline? Must be one of those jack off games I heard about.
Puyo Puyo? Wow. Kids games.
American Truck Simulator? Nerd territory man.
There's an entire page of suggestions for developers on Discoverability, in Steamworks documentation.
Tag your games correctly, make trading card art to draw peripheral attention, use your allowance of pre-release and beta keys to send to streamers and reviewers, see about participating in a sale, provide a free demo, etc. There's easy ways to generate visibility for your game without any budget at all.
I always find it weird that people complain about the "shit on the front-page of Steam", but conveniently forget Valve's approach is exactly the same as Amazon's, with their "Video: Recommended For You" and "Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations". What Valve does isn't unusual, even if Amazon does allow for slightly more tailoring of recommendations.
Speaking of streamers, it's smart to send your keys to streamers who actually highlight games worth playing, instead of ones who spend their time reading the thesaurus passage for "shit" and complaining about how everything is buried under garbage.
nevermind that this doesn't even apply to something like shenmue, which had literally the most successful grassroots campaign in gaming history.
Yeah, it does seem like the thread has veered off-topic a little here. :/
To get on Steam? Absolutely not. Any such system always results in good games missing the cut, either through an inherent bias of whoever happened to look at your game, or due to some mistake based on false first impressions (like that game which recently got rejected from GOG for looking like a mobile game when it wasn't). I believe letting the community be the judge works out better most of the time
To get onto the front page and other pages that people are likely to see? Sure! As long as the majority of consumers are ignorant of the trash, absolutely no harm is done by its existence.
The thing is, Steam already does that. The banner games are chosen by Valve, the curator section is obviously curated by its very definition, the discovery queues typically don't recommend completely unknown games (it used to, which sucked), and the recommendations further down are usually not too bad either even if the system they use to identify related games seems to be a bit on the basic side.
And while I think Steam needs to do better at vetting potential hateful content before the store page goes live, on every other point I think they do a fairly decent job. Most of the stuff Jim brings up are never anywhere near the front page and nobody would know they exist if he didn't go looking for them.
These games were already well known or had pretty big marketing budgets behind them.
The steam frontpage showcases things that are already big hitters, I'm talking about all the other games that we don't know about. Even if you look at "popular new releases" the vast majority of it is either from a big publisher, was shown at E3, or was supported through Xbox Game Pass.
Anyway my tolerance for snark and dog piling is hitting the limit so I'll let you guys get back to it.
Yeah. Im pretty sure "Cooking Simulator", "Dead or School" or "missed messages" were totally well known before.
I am pretty pro EGS but this is a shitty move from all involved
Give the backers what they paid for (steam keys) or offer no questions asked 100% refunds.
And epic really need to stop fucking with late stage kickstarter games. They are literally going to kill that entire scene.
Give the backers what they paid for (steam keys) or offer no questions asked 100% refunds.
And epic really need to stop fucking with late stage kickstarter games. They are literally going to kill that entire scene.
also, as opposed to the totally unknown games all over the EGS...
Also, wasn't the complaint that indies were being buried under shitty games, not "well known" games?
I am pretty pro EGS but this is a shitty move from all involved
Give the backers what they paid for (steam keys) or offer no questions asked 100% refunds.
And epic really need to stop fucking with late stage kickstarter games. They are literally going to kill that entire scene.
Give the backers what they paid for (steam keys) or offer no questions asked 100% refunds.
And epic really need to stop fucking with late stage kickstarter games. They are literally going to kill that entire scene.
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