3 ms·

Google Play Store does do "people who bought this also bought...". It's useful to me in discovering things I want. I'm a little skeptical of that rant you lin

Google Play Store does do "people who bought this also bought...". It's useful to me in discovering things I want. I'm a little skeptical of that rant you linked. Anyone blaming the audience's "lack of taste" is going to have a hard time of it, in games or music or books or movies or whatever. You just don't get to do that. You have to make things that satisfy you and the audience both. If you don't, that's your failure, not anyone else's.

kevingadd 12y ago
It is true that the audience has no taste, though. We haven't made any concerted effort, as an industry, to help them cultivate taste. Games are still too new and too generally mediocre/same-y for the typical player to develop anything resembling taste - they very rarely encounter an example of a game that's truly worthy of respect or enthusiasm. If the only games you've ever played are shitty clones at the top of the free list on iOS, how would you possibly know enough to spot a high quality game at a glance? It's not a failing of the players, it's a failing of the industry. Companies operating storefronts have a responsibility to do better, by offering more useful data that's less vulnerable to these issues. For example, instead of basing recommendations on the masses, prioritize recommendations from what your friends play, so that people can benefit from each others' experiences with the few less-popular games they play. Prioritize games with overall low sales that have high average ratings, are played by a large number of your friends, or are in the same genre as many of the games you play. Randomly show them games that don't match in any sense (or only match in one or two categories), and gather that data to identify 'hidden gems' that you can push up the rankings. These are all random ideas that might help bring low-ranking games up towards the top, increasing variety in the top lists and increasing engagement (not to mention revenue). It's embarassing that all 3 major store operators (Apple, Google, and Valve) have an utterly lazy approach to discovery, where they literally just do a sort based on one or two values and dump a list onto your screen.

kevingadd 12y ago

It is true that the audience has no taste, though. We haven't made any concerted effort, as an industry, to help them cultivate taste. Games are still too new and too generally mediocre/same-y for the typical player to develop anything resembling taste - they very rarely encounter an example of a game that's truly worthy of respect or enthusiasm. If the only games you've ever played are shitty clones at the top of the free list on iOS, how would you possibly know enough to spot a high quality game at a glance? It's not a failing of the players, it's a failing of the industry. Companies operating storefronts have a responsibility to do better, by offering more useful data that's less vulnerable to these issues. For example, instead of basing recommendations on the masses, prioritize recommendations from what your friends play, so that people can benefit from each others' experiences with the few less-popular games they play. Prioritize games with overall low sales that have high average ratings, are played by a large number of your friends, or are in the same genre as many of the games you play. Randomly show them games that don't match in any sense (or only match in one or two categories), and gather that data to identify 'hidden gems' that you can push up the rankings. These are all random ideas that might help bring low-ranking games up towards the top, increasing variety in the top lists and increasing engagement (not to mention revenue). It's embarassing that all 3 major store operators (Apple, Google, and Valve) have an utterly lazy approach to discovery, where they literally just do a sort based on one or two values and dump a list onto your screen.