7 ms·

>Indiepocalypse is cancelled, you can stop worrying now. I think I speak for quite a few people when I say thank God. I have nothing against indie games in gen

by joonoro 11y ago

>Indiepocalypse is cancelled, you can stop worrying now. I think I speak for quite a few people when I say thank God. I have nothing against indie games in general but the sheer volume of low-quality DayZ/Minecraft-inspired early-access survival game clones that were all broken in the same ways that were never finished by the developer have left me jaded.

Zikes 11y ago
I think it was fairly obvious from the start that it wasn't going to be a lasting trend. The games were obviously either uninspired clones or promising the impossible, and as soon as consumers caught on then the trend would die off. A lot of folks had to get burned to see that the fire was hot, but now they know, at least.
alimbada 11y ago
I'm reluctant to breathe a sigh of relief yet. I've been visiting the Steam Store a lot less since they opened the floodgates to any and every game under the sun as I believe discoverability is now horribly broken and the queue and recommendations features both fail to mitigate the issue.
- debaserab2 11y ago
  Is that a problem with the catalog or a problem with the store? I've found steams interface for searching and finding new games is pretty bad.
  - speeder 11y ago
    I am both a gamedev and a avid game player, of some niche and strange genres included. I found out that Steam catalog, despite "opening the floodgates" is quite limited on some genres, some niche genres have the nicest games don't even volunteer for steam (usually because the nicest games have perfectionist devs that don't want to be "another shitty early access", for example Starsector, the game has been being sold in pre-release form for years now, but the dev flat out absolutely refuses to get on Steam, because he thinks the game ins't ready for that), and even when they do, they don't get enough traction with the public to get through Greenlight or to skip Greenlight. On some other genres, you will see loads and loads of crap shoveled at you, but the good games still don't fill completely the recommended games section screen... The only thing I think Steam can do differently in their interface, is make the "order by public rating" easier (this feature actually exists already! But is mostly hidden, every time I need it, I google around until I stumble on it, and each time I end on it by a different path!), usually when you do that you see a list of actually great games, mixing both truly great AAA games and actual underdogs (example: last time I checked for some genres, I owned all games on the first page on the list, some of those games I know I am one of the few people that own them, because they are not widely known, while others are full blown 100 million marketing AAA).
    - jdcarter 11y ago
      So where do you go to discover non-Steam games? These days I only browse for new games on Steam, and I know I'm missing out on some great stuff, but I don't know where else to look.
      - speeder 11y ago
        Some genres have forums or sites dedicated to them (for example spacesimcentral.com) And there is a subreddit called gamingsuggestions that has great people over there to suggest stuff!
    - noxToken 11y ago
      >but the dev flat out absolutely refuses to get on Steam, because he thinks the game ins't ready for that I once read an article that said you only get one release. There are exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be true. If you choose to debut your game on Steam with the early-access model, it's usually your one shot to impress customers with your product. We all know that it isn't complete. However, the update tempo and promise tracking can easily tank your product if you fall behind. Taking an extended break, even with the early release model, is pretty much suicide. I can only think of a handful of titles that hyped their early release AND got a second round of hype on full release. For most, however, the first time you put your game on Steam will be the only major press that you get.
- wnevets 11y ago
  > I believe discoverability is now horribly broken and the queue and recommendations features both fail to mitigate the issue. I agree, my queue is littered with genres I have zero interest in. After the 10th anime dating sim I marked not interested in, it should prevent those games in the future.
  - BookmarkSaver 11y ago
    Yeah, I mean, you dump 100 hours into one crappy anime dating sim and they never let you forget it...
  - Semaphor 11y ago
    I stopped bothering clicking "not interested", it seems to have no influence on the games. All I want is the option to block some tags from showing up in my queue at all (action, fps, multiplayer, racing and anime).
    - cobaltblue 11y ago
      They have text somewhere explaining that clicking "not interested" just means that particular game won't show up again in your queue, and maybe on the home page too, I don't remember, but it doesn't actually affect their piss-poor recommendation system. I still click it, but considering the handful of games I haven't clicked it on yet also didn't click add to wishlist because they're the type of game I think "maybe I'll get it in a year or so when it's a better price but I'm not really committed, I wouldn't mind seeing it in the queue again sometime to remind me", I don't recall seeing a repeat on my queue despite going through many queues, so I'm also wondering what the value of "not interested" is. I agree I should be able to blacklist tags. What has surprised me is the sheer number of really basic "games" I have no interest in like the anime dating sims, walking sims, or choose-your-own-adventure sims. I wonder how much the average dev for those things make, makes me wish I had an anime artist friend to test the waters with in pumping out crap.
      - Semaphor 11y ago
        I frequent /r/GameDeals, quite some people really seem to like those dating sims. And now that you say it, I remember that about the not interested button.
- brobinson 11y ago
  I want a way to filter out indie games and DLC when searching.
  - otakucode 11y ago
    A simple Bayesian filter trained on the tags and maybe short description text to rank games per-user would probably do everything most people want. Steams Web API is nearly useless though, so you'd have to build a whole site, and do loads of scraping, to offer that to people.
explorer666 11y ago
DayZ is early access and broken too. Not sure if you were saying that, but I wanted to say it.
- joonoro 11y ago
  I wasn't denying that, but yes I agree.
levesque 11y ago
Most of them suck, some of them rock. I have no problem with being flooded as long as we have ways to quickly assess game quality (game score on steam is a good enough metric to start with). By the way, it is not yet over. The growth of the number of releases has slowed down, but it hasn't gone down yet. There are still over 300 new releases per month.
aluhut 11y ago
That is true but I'm (as a customer) still happy with it since I got one single game out of it that I can't stop playing and this is a feeling I had not since...college. The game is Rimworld and it's a early-access clone of prison architect. The game is far from done, the dev left for a long extended break but the game is still a endless source of joy. And I haven't even touch the mods. The sheer diversity and new ideas that Indiepocalypse brought is a reaction to the mainstream sequelcalypse. I just can't see it anymore. I also don't buy those games anymore because I know they'll last for a weekend or two and then I'll be pissed that I wasted money even though I knew it won't be better then the one before. Big studios may save us from low-quality but not from broken or cloned games. They are just more expensive.
- zyxley 11y ago
  Calling it a clone of Prison Architect is pretty weird. There's very little shared except for the graphics style. Even the basic "click to place walls" construction system is broadly different, given that in Prison Architect you have to lay down foundations and then build on top of that.
  - aluhut 11y ago
    I've never played Prison Architect. I got this "clone of prison architect" from the community.
    - infoworm 11y ago
      The arty styles are very simple and it's practically the same genre so at first glance it seems like a clone.
  - joonoro 11y ago
    In the past they were more similar, at least the NPC art style was. When they first started Rimworld they used a sort of Prison Architect art style for their NPCs as placeholders until they got their own art in (which they have now). If anything, both Rimworld and PA are "clones" of Dwarf Fortress.
_pmf_ 11y ago
If you think the bottom has been reached, look at the "best of" of the Play store. That's the cess pit the PC game market will be turning into, and I have no hope that Steam's Greenlight will prevent this.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  It won't because there are other forms of distribution too. Yeah steam is the big guy. But there is always gog and whatnot to keep quality high.
- anon4 11y ago
  But those games have always been there. Go in your local store that carries physical copies of games and count the shovelware. Steam isn't supposed to be a curation service - there are tons of those, find a reviewer you like and follow their recommendations. Steam should be as full as possible a repository of paid games you can download.
  - otakucode 11y ago
    Yeah, we solved this problem already. YouTube is FILLED with garbage. But you only find the garbage you like, mostly. Steam is a problem because they don't have a recommendation engine that learns from a users preferences. And really, that should be inexcusable today. Steam would be fairly easy to compete with, I expect, since they don't do anything other than let big publishers do whatever they want and provide a dumping ground for everyone else. If they restricted the big publishers, then it would be tough because you'd have to get them on board, but Valve even paid to implement their "preloading" system so big publishers didn't have to run the risk of actually taking advantage of digital distro and endangering their retail distro agreements by having stuff available 2 weeks before the boxes could make it onto the shelves.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    Exactly. And if you look back 10-20 years, you could find those same games in the unsorted $2-$5 bin at electronics stores.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
You can't really fight fads. Did you see Dying Light clearing nearly $45M? Yeah, its not some indie half-cooked turkey, but its a completely forgettable and short zombie shooter/parkour game with milquetoast story and gameplay. Can you blame these other devs jumping on the wagontrain? There is so much money to be made in this space. It should be Steam's job to keep out halfcooked games but apparently they disagree. I imagine the whole greenlight "give us what we want" aspect of Steam encourages realeases like these. This is the problem with fan-led media and stores. Fans get too excited and are willing to excuse a lot of things just to "get the game." The devs cash out on what's at best a beta-test and have zero incentive to continue.
- michaelbuddy 11y ago
  I disagree with your assessment of Dying light. It's a beautiful game on xbox one, I enjoyed it at full price. I'll get back to it when I feel like it but the mood and scenery are fantastic and quite memorable. I'd give it a 7.5 - 8, and I can see somebody rating it a 9.5 depending on their taste.
  - fizzbatter 11y ago
    Agreed. I know many people that enjoyed that game quite heavily, and it is far from a knockoff zombie sequal/ripoff. It may appear like an Assassins Creed / CoD of the zombie world, but it's definitely not, imo. Infact, in the genre (which is lacking in general), i think it's one of the top.
waspleg 11y ago
I put early access games I'm interested in on my "wish list" aka watch list and then wait for them to be released and received. I no longer buy games in early access. I really wish that Steam had much better filters for what it shows, i.e. I have 0 interest in F2P games, like 99.99% of anime/manga games, etc. I greatly prefer the old interface which didn't try to force-feed you other people's "curated" opinions. The recent sales have been lackluster discount wise as well and 3rd party shady key sites and whatnot often have better pricing. Having said that, though, I did get Witcher 3 from Steam during the Winter sale which is the best RPG I've ever played and I've put 100+ hours in to it in less than 2 weeks. I was disappointed to see the same price as was in the sale. I waited expecting a better discount. It's so good I went back to buy the season pass at full price though - <3 for CDProjekt. They're outstanding and I hope they don't go the way of the other (mostly) scumbag publishers.
Havoc 11y ago
>have left me jaded. Definitely. I've simply stopped buying indie games unless they're massive hits. Way too much shovelware out there.
oxide 11y ago
has this really slowed down at all, even since refunds were introduced? people buying greenlight votes in bulk and selling unchanged asset packs hasn't gotten any better from what I can see, and Valve has made it clear they don't mind letting shovelware through the door as long as they get 30%. why would it stop?

by joonoro 11y ago

Zikes 11y ago

I think it was fairly obvious from the start that it wasn't going to be a lasting trend. The games were obviously either uninspired clones or promising the impossible, and as soon as consumers caught on then the trend would die off. A lot of folks had to get burned to see that the fire was hot, but now they know, at least.

alimbada 11y ago

I'm reluctant to breathe a sigh of relief yet. I've been visiting the Steam Store a lot less since they opened the floodgates to any and every game under the sun as I believe discoverability is now horribly broken and the queue and recommendations features both fail to mitigate the issue.

debaserab2 11y ago
Is that a problem with the catalog or a problem with the store? I've found steams interface for searching and finding new games is pretty bad.
- speeder 11y ago
  I am both a gamedev and a avid game player, of some niche and strange genres included. I found out that Steam catalog, despite "opening the floodgates" is quite limited on some genres, some niche genres have the nicest games don't even volunteer for steam (usually because the nicest games have perfectionist devs that don't want to be "another shitty early access", for example Starsector, the game has been being sold in pre-release form for years now, but the dev flat out absolutely refuses to get on Steam, because he thinks the game ins't ready for that), and even when they do, they don't get enough traction with the public to get through Greenlight or to skip Greenlight. On some other genres, you will see loads and loads of crap shoveled at you, but the good games still don't fill completely the recommended games section screen... The only thing I think Steam can do differently in their interface, is make the "order by public rating" easier (this feature actually exists already! But is mostly hidden, every time I need it, I google around until I stumble on it, and each time I end on it by a different path!), usually when you do that you see a list of actually great games, mixing both truly great AAA games and actual underdogs (example: last time I checked for some genres, I owned all games on the first page on the list, some of those games I know I am one of the few people that own them, because they are not widely known, while others are full blown 100 million marketing AAA).
  - jdcarter 11y ago
    So where do you go to discover non-Steam games? These days I only browse for new games on Steam, and I know I'm missing out on some great stuff, but I don't know where else to look.
    - speeder 11y ago
      Some genres have forums or sites dedicated to them (for example spacesimcentral.com) And there is a subreddit called gamingsuggestions that has great people over there to suggest stuff!
  - noxToken 11y ago
    >but the dev flat out absolutely refuses to get on Steam, because he thinks the game ins't ready for that I once read an article that said you only get one release. There are exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be true. If you choose to debut your game on Steam with the early-access model, it's usually your one shot to impress customers with your product. We all know that it isn't complete. However, the update tempo and promise tracking can easily tank your product if you fall behind. Taking an extended break, even with the early release model, is pretty much suicide. I can only think of a handful of titles that hyped their early release AND got a second round of hype on full release. For most, however, the first time you put your game on Steam will be the only major press that you get.
wnevets 11y ago
> I believe discoverability is now horribly broken and the queue and recommendations features both fail to mitigate the issue. I agree, my queue is littered with genres I have zero interest in. After the 10th anime dating sim I marked not interested in, it should prevent those games in the future.
- BookmarkSaver 11y ago
  Yeah, I mean, you dump 100 hours into one crappy anime dating sim and they never let you forget it...
- Semaphor 11y ago
  I stopped bothering clicking "not interested", it seems to have no influence on the games. All I want is the option to block some tags from showing up in my queue at all (action, fps, multiplayer, racing and anime).
  - cobaltblue 11y ago
    They have text somewhere explaining that clicking "not interested" just means that particular game won't show up again in your queue, and maybe on the home page too, I don't remember, but it doesn't actually affect their piss-poor recommendation system. I still click it, but considering the handful of games I haven't clicked it on yet also didn't click add to wishlist because they're the type of game I think "maybe I'll get it in a year or so when it's a better price but I'm not really committed, I wouldn't mind seeing it in the queue again sometime to remind me", I don't recall seeing a repeat on my queue despite going through many queues, so I'm also wondering what the value of "not interested" is. I agree I should be able to blacklist tags. What has surprised me is the sheer number of really basic "games" I have no interest in like the anime dating sims, walking sims, or choose-your-own-adventure sims. I wonder how much the average dev for those things make, makes me wish I had an anime artist friend to test the waters with in pumping out crap.
    - Semaphor 11y ago
      I frequent /r/GameDeals, quite some people really seem to like those dating sims. And now that you say it, I remember that about the not interested button.
brobinson 11y ago
I want a way to filter out indie games and DLC when searching.
- otakucode 11y ago
  A simple Bayesian filter trained on the tags and maybe short description text to rank games per-user would probably do everything most people want. Steams Web API is nearly useless though, so you'd have to build a whole site, and do loads of scraping, to offer that to people.

explorer666 11y ago

DayZ is early access and broken too. Not sure if you were saying that, but I wanted to say it.

joonoro 11y ago
I wasn't denying that, but yes I agree.

levesque 11y ago

Most of them suck, some of them rock. I have no problem with being flooded as long as we have ways to quickly assess game quality (game score on steam is a good enough metric to start with). By the way, it is not yet over. The growth of the number of releases has slowed down, but it hasn't gone down yet. There are still over 300 new releases per month.

aluhut 11y ago

That is true but I'm (as a customer) still happy with it since I got one single game out of it that I can't stop playing and this is a feeling I had not since...college. The game is Rimworld and it's a early-access clone of prison architect. The game is far from done, the dev left for a long extended break but the game is still a endless source of joy. And I haven't even touch the mods. The sheer diversity and new ideas that Indiepocalypse brought is a reaction to the mainstream sequelcalypse. I just can't see it anymore. I also don't buy those games anymore because I know they'll last for a weekend or two and then I'll be pissed that I wasted money even though I knew it won't be better then the one before. Big studios may save us from low-quality but not from broken or cloned games. They are just more expensive.

zyxley 11y ago
Calling it a clone of Prison Architect is pretty weird. There's very little shared except for the graphics style. Even the basic "click to place walls" construction system is broadly different, given that in Prison Architect you have to lay down foundations and then build on top of that.
- aluhut 11y ago
  I've never played Prison Architect. I got this "clone of prison architect" from the community.
  - infoworm 11y ago
    The arty styles are very simple and it's practically the same genre so at first glance it seems like a clone.
- joonoro 11y ago
  In the past they were more similar, at least the NPC art style was. When they first started Rimworld they used a sort of Prison Architect art style for their NPCs as placeholders until they got their own art in (which they have now). If anything, both Rimworld and PA are "clones" of Dwarf Fortress.

_pmf_ 11y ago

If you think the bottom has been reached, look at the "best of" of the Play store. That's the cess pit the PC game market will be turning into, and I have no hope that Steam's Greenlight will prevent this.

venomsnake 11y ago
It won't because there are other forms of distribution too. Yeah steam is the big guy. But there is always gog and whatnot to keep quality high.
anon4 11y ago
But those games have always been there. Go in your local store that carries physical copies of games and count the shovelware. Steam isn't supposed to be a curation service - there are tons of those, find a reviewer you like and follow their recommendations. Steam should be as full as possible a repository of paid games you can download.
- otakucode 11y ago
  Yeah, we solved this problem already. YouTube is FILLED with garbage. But you only find the garbage you like, mostly. Steam is a problem because they don't have a recommendation engine that learns from a users preferences. And really, that should be inexcusable today. Steam would be fairly easy to compete with, I expect, since they don't do anything other than let big publishers do whatever they want and provide a dumping ground for everyone else. If they restricted the big publishers, then it would be tough because you'd have to get them on board, but Valve even paid to implement their "preloading" system so big publishers didn't have to run the risk of actually taking advantage of digital distro and endangering their retail distro agreements by having stuff available 2 weeks before the boxes could make it onto the shelves.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  Exactly. And if you look back 10-20 years, you could find those same games in the unsorted $2-$5 bin at electronics stores.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

You can't really fight fads. Did you see Dying Light clearing nearly $45M? Yeah, its not some indie half-cooked turkey, but its a completely forgettable and short zombie shooter/parkour game with milquetoast story and gameplay. Can you blame these other devs jumping on the wagontrain? There is so much money to be made in this space. It should be Steam's job to keep out halfcooked games but apparently they disagree. I imagine the whole greenlight "give us what we want" aspect of Steam encourages realeases like these. This is the problem with fan-led media and stores. Fans get too excited and are willing to excuse a lot of things just to "get the game." The devs cash out on what's at best a beta-test and have zero incentive to continue.

michaelbuddy 11y ago
I disagree with your assessment of Dying light. It's a beautiful game on xbox one, I enjoyed it at full price. I'll get back to it when I feel like it but the mood and scenery are fantastic and quite memorable. I'd give it a 7.5 - 8, and I can see somebody rating it a 9.5 depending on their taste.
- fizzbatter 11y ago
  Agreed. I know many people that enjoyed that game quite heavily, and it is far from a knockoff zombie sequal/ripoff. It may appear like an Assassins Creed / CoD of the zombie world, but it's definitely not, imo. Infact, in the genre (which is lacking in general), i think it's one of the top.

waspleg 11y ago

I put early access games I'm interested in on my "wish list" aka watch list and then wait for them to be released and received. I no longer buy games in early access. I really wish that Steam had much better filters for what it shows, i.e. I have 0 interest in F2P games, like 99.99% of anime/manga games, etc. I greatly prefer the old interface which didn't try to force-feed you other people's "curated" opinions. The recent sales have been lackluster discount wise as well and 3rd party shady key sites and whatnot often have better pricing. Having said that, though, I did get Witcher 3 from Steam during the Winter sale which is the best RPG I've ever played and I've put 100+ hours in to it in less than 2 weeks. I was disappointed to see the same price as was in the sale. I waited expecting a better discount. It's so good I went back to buy the season pass at full price though - <3 for CDProjekt. They're outstanding and I hope they don't go the way of the other (mostly) scumbag publishers.

Havoc 11y ago

>have left me jaded. Definitely. I've simply stopped buying indie games unless they're massive hits. Way too much shovelware out there.

oxide 11y ago

has this really slowed down at all, even since refunds were introduced? people buying greenlight votes in bulk and selling unchanged asset packs hasn't gotten any better from what I can see, and Valve has made it clear they don't mind letting shovelware through the door as long as they get 30%. why would it stop?