Quote Originally Posted by Forum Explorer View Post
How so?
Two main things, and I appreciate this is off topic:
  • Discoverability on steam is pretty bad. If nobody's heard of you, and you can't wrangle a big marketing campaign or some kind of streamer or something, nobody will ever hear of you - you're just buried under the shovelware and porn games. This is largely because of valve's determination to do things algorithmically rather than in person - if you don't know the secret words to play the algorithm, Hentai Clicker 2000 does, and will always beat you, regardless of comparitive quality.
  • The constant sale cycle devalues games significantly. If there is always a sale coming up soon, why would you ever pay full price for a game? It's good for the consumers I guess, but means that games make less profit, meaning that the margins are more trim, meaning that companies get caught in an unhappy cycle of either crunching, delaying, or compromising - none of which make for a better game or industry. I saw "i'll wait for the sale" comments on a £7 game, for god's sake - were they really telling me they could afford £4 but not £7? Or does the constant string of sales teach people that actually, the correct price for a game is always 33% off?


It's better than Epic, Gamer Pass, PS+ etc, which get people used to the idea that the correct price for a game is literally free*, but they're just responding to a landscape that steam created.

*Yes I know the developers get paid when their games are on this kind of thing - but everyone loses out from this devaluing, and it creates a definite have/have not situation that'll end up with some Microsoft/Sony/Tencent suit deciding which games everyone has, and which games nobody has.