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Nigh-unusable? You can: - search by tags - get recommendations based on your interests - get recommendations about popular new games - get recommendations b

Nigh-unusable? You can: - search by tags - get recommendations based on your interests - get recommendations about popular new games - get recommendations based on what your friends like to play or want to play - get recommendations based on what curators you choose reviewed The "new stuff" list is useless, but the store is okay, and improving constantly.

eropple 10y ago
In turn: - Tag searching isn't applicable to how I look for games because genre doesn't matter to me most of the time. I'm searching for something new (and because of this I have to use the "new stuff" list, which is a tire fire) and interesting and potentially worth talking about. That's not really expressed in tags. - I have enough varied types of games in my library that the recommendations based on what Steam thinks my interests are is really, really bad. I don't like all or, probably, most of the games in my library; tons are bundle trash. - Don't care about Valve telling me about popular new games. I'll find those through other sources if I care about them. - Don't really care about what my friends are playing. They're my friends because occasionally we play multiplayer games, not because I follow their lead on the vast majority of games I play. - Curators are, in my experience, functionally dead. Most are a joke, the few that aren't are rarely updated because they have no benefit to the people who could curate them--like, my interests tend to track Giant Bomb's, but they gave up on curation forever ago (not even sure it's run by GB staff, and barely has any new games that they've covered on it) because it was worth nothing to them. Maybe there are rando curators with taste, but kicking the problem down to "surfacing creators worth following" is not really any better, yeah? And any automated recommendations fail a very important test: does this actually play? Because a whole lot of the trashflood currently all over Steam is barely functional. I'm not setting the bar high here--I can find something interesting in a game that's incomplete or even a game that's bad. But basic quality standards have fallen off a cliff in the House of Valve, and refunds don't give me back the time that nonworking stuff costs me. Steam used to have a pretty decent guarantee: it might be a bad game, but it's gonna work. That's gone now.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  In short, you're a special case. Also, re: > does this actually play Never seen a recommended game not play. And i have a silly huge steam collection: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Mithaldu/ http://steamcommunity.com/id/Mithaldu/ > - I have enough varied types of games in my library So do i and it still works perfectly fine, you only need to exclude tags on trash type games. Mind, one concession i need to make: I use EnhancedSteam and have a few thousand games marked as "not interested", which means they are filtered from almost all views. Maybe that would help you, since you sound similar to me. To reiterate though: Usecases like yours and mine are not "the norm". On average people care for the features i mentioned and derive use from them.
  - eropple 10y ago
    I use EnhancedSteam, too. But I shouldn't have to wade through that stuff to give Valve money, yeah? Valve should be making me want to give them money, not have to give them money. If we were talking about the Android app store or whatever I'd agree with you as far as that I am totally a power user and I have power user needs. But for Steam specifically, I question what the norm is. I have yet to hear anyone--like, literally, anyone, not just "anyone in my power-user circles"--praise the Steam recommendations for what they are. My hunch is that Steam's userbase tends to be more engaged than a mobile app store's and that mobile app store experiences, and mobile app store quality bars, don't necessarily suit a Steam user. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants the Unity-game-skeleton-thrown-on-Steam titles. They are not a benefit. They can be excised. (I've had multiple recommended games just totally fail-to-launch on both Windows and Mac, FWIW. Nothing underspec, just pfft, crash.)
    - Mithaldu 10y ago
      > EnhancedSteam ... I shouldn't have to I agree and grump a lot that Steam doesn't have a single global trigger to just hide all owned or not interested things. > I have yet to hear anyone--like, literally, anyone, not just "anyone in my power-user circles"--praise the Steam recommendations for what they are. Do you hear many people complaining about them? I suspect many people simply don't have an opinion and just use them as they are. I may be wrong though. What's your experience with that? > Unity-game-skeleton-thrown-on-Steam titles I mean, maybe it's me, the one falling into the "works for me" trap. I've literally never even had Steam try to show any of those to me. > fail-to-launch I'm fascinated, remember a few titles that did that?

eropple 10y ago

In turn: - Tag searching isn't applicable to how I look for games because genre doesn't matter to me most of the time. I'm searching for something new (and because of this I have to use the "new stuff" list, which is a tire fire) and interesting and potentially worth talking about. That's not really expressed in tags. - I have enough varied types of games in my library that the recommendations based on what Steam thinks my interests are is really, really bad. I don't like all or, probably, most of the games in my library; tons are bundle trash. - Don't care about Valve telling me about popular new games. I'll find those through other sources if I care about them. - Don't really care about what my friends are playing. They're my friends because occasionally we play multiplayer games, not because I follow their lead on the vast majority of games I play. - Curators are, in my experience, functionally dead. Most are a joke, the few that aren't are rarely updated because they have no benefit to the people who could curate them--like, my interests tend to track Giant Bomb's, but they gave up on curation forever ago (not even sure it's run by GB staff, and barely has any new games that they've covered on it) because it was worth nothing to them. Maybe there are rando curators with taste, but kicking the problem down to "surfacing creators worth following" is not really any better, yeah? And any automated recommendations fail a very important test: does this actually play? Because a whole lot of the trashflood currently all over Steam is barely functional. I'm not setting the bar high here--I can find something interesting in a game that's incomplete or even a game that's bad. But basic quality standards have fallen off a cliff in the House of Valve, and refunds don't give me back the time that nonworking stuff costs me. Steam used to have a pretty decent guarantee: it might be a bad game, but it's gonna work. That's gone now.

Mithaldu 10y ago
In short, you're a special case. Also, re: > does this actually play Never seen a recommended game not play. And i have a silly huge steam collection: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Mithaldu/ http://steamcommunity.com/id/Mithaldu/ > - I have enough varied types of games in my library So do i and it still works perfectly fine, you only need to exclude tags on trash type games. Mind, one concession i need to make: I use EnhancedSteam and have a few thousand games marked as "not interested", which means they are filtered from almost all views. Maybe that would help you, since you sound similar to me. To reiterate though: Usecases like yours and mine are not "the norm". On average people care for the features i mentioned and derive use from them.
- eropple 10y ago
  I use EnhancedSteam, too. But I shouldn't have to wade through that stuff to give Valve money, yeah? Valve should be making me want to give them money, not have to give them money. If we were talking about the Android app store or whatever I'd agree with you as far as that I am totally a power user and I have power user needs. But for Steam specifically, I question what the norm is. I have yet to hear anyone--like, literally, anyone, not just "anyone in my power-user circles"--praise the Steam recommendations for what they are. My hunch is that Steam's userbase tends to be more engaged than a mobile app store's and that mobile app store experiences, and mobile app store quality bars, don't necessarily suit a Steam user. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wants the Unity-game-skeleton-thrown-on-Steam titles. They are not a benefit. They can be excised. (I've had multiple recommended games just totally fail-to-launch on both Windows and Mac, FWIW. Nothing underspec, just pfft, crash.)
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    > EnhancedSteam ... I shouldn't have to I agree and grump a lot that Steam doesn't have a single global trigger to just hide all owned or not interested things. > I have yet to hear anyone--like, literally, anyone, not just "anyone in my power-user circles"--praise the Steam recommendations for what they are. Do you hear many people complaining about them? I suspect many people simply don't have an opinion and just use them as they are. I may be wrong though. What's your experience with that? > Unity-game-skeleton-thrown-on-Steam titles I mean, maybe it's me, the one falling into the "works for me" trap. I've literally never even had Steam try to show any of those to me. > fail-to-launch I'm fascinated, remember a few titles that did that?