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It's bizarre that the digital stores of multi-billion dollar corporations still can't seem able to get discovery down perfectly. Steam seems better off than th
by Razengan 7y ago
It's bizarre that the digital stores of multi-billion dollar corporations still can't seem able to get discovery down perfectly.
Steam seems better off than the rest, and I can't comment on Google Play or Xbox Marketplace but on the App Store, Nintendo eShop and PlayStation Store, it's still hard to discover what you're looking for if you don't already know about it.
For example, all RPG games like Baldur's Gate, or platformers in a pixel-art style with chiptune music. The best way that I know of for discovering all such games is to search for a name that I already know, and look in the Similar or "Also Bought" list on its product page. Of course even then their algorithms don't list all relevant games and are often swamped with microtransaction-loaded crapware/copycats.
YouTube suffers from the same sickness, and Google Search itself has been dumbed down over the past few years.
Is it deliberate? Are they afraid that rivals and "researchers" will get too much information about their business if their search and filter functionality was "too" powerful, or that users might leave sooner after they get exactly what they came for?
(I know I can use third-party sites like itch.io to discover games, but this is about the app stores' built-in functionality.)
- mysterydip 7y agoI'm guessing years of A-B testing has led them to believe the currect way maximizes profits.
- z3t4 7y agoMaybe not a coincident that random reward works best for continuous purchase/engagement. For example Youtube video recommendations.
- forrestthewoods 7y agoDiscovery is an unsolved problem. I can’t think of a single media platform that does it well.
- solarkraft 7y agoSpotify?
- hombre_fatal 7y agoThe new iOS App Store is also pretty good with its homepage stream of curations and mini-articles that recommend games.
- louislbnc 7y agoI find it tries to map out genres too specifically. Usually my recommendations feel like hey you like this artist, here are artists that do the exact same thing but worse. I find I get excellent recommendations from Youtube. Go on without logging into an account. Pick an album you like and look at the related videos. They usually aren't specifically in the same genre but I've come across a lot of albums that have since become favorites this way.
- NickNameNick 7y agoPandora was significantly better. Unfortunately they aren't operating in my region anymore.
- mynameishere 7y agoI can't comment on Google Play or Xbox Marketplace but on the App Store, Nintendo eShop and PlayStation Store, it's still hard to discover what you're looking for if you don't already know about it Over at /r/androiddev, it used to be a regular occurrence for people to post baffled questions like, "I published my app 'Llamas go Picnicking' and I can't find it listed even if I search exactly for 'Llamas go Picnicking'". Indeed, you'd go and search for 'Llamas go Picknicking' and see Angry Birds at the top.
- panpanna 7y agoCan confirm this. Is a major concern for new indies who need to build a small following before they can go viral.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIt's not in the interest of the stores to let you efficiently find just what you need - this would deprive them of revenue from errors and impulsive purchases, and would reduce the time you're spending in store, exposed to various form of advertising. Stores are not a good product discovery mechanism.
- tjoff 7y agoOr you know, they are just bad at it. It is quite apparent when you consider the allround quality of the stores. They all have a monopoly in their field and barely anything they do will improve or diminish their revenue. So they just don't care.
- cptskippy 7y agoThat's true in retail where they want you wandering the aisles but it doesn't translate well to digital store fronts because of the way they're organized. In a retail shop you have broad categories like desserts or women's hygiene and a product has a 1:1 relationship with that category. People shop based on categories and can easily skip irrelevant ones (how often are you wandering the toilet paper aisle looking for cheese?). Digital stores allow products to exist in multiple genre concurrently and are featured virtually based on popularity or advertising dollars. So it's entirely possible to see the same game in every genre because it's being spammed at you or contains poorly conceived elements from those genre. Generally filtering by multiple genres results in full outer joins instead of inner joins so they're effectively useless.
- WillPostForFood 7y agoI've worked with dozens of online retailers, none thought they would get more sales by intentionally creating errors than trying to put what the customer wanted in front them. It is just hard to get right.
- CamperBob2 7y agoIn some cases, like Netflix, an effective search/discovery mechanism would mainly serve to highlight how limited the available catalog is. That's not an issue for Steam, of course, but it's definitely a glaringly-obvious motivation elsewhere.
- sosodev 7y agoI hate the PlayStation store. It doesn't even try. All I ever see is stuff I'm uninterested in
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]