Steam is by far the strangest online store. Valve’s massive PC game distribution, built on itself over the last twenty years, is a bunch of overlapping design decisions where algorithms rule over coherence. In 2023, over 14,500 games will descend into chaos. That’s too many games.
According to data aggregation website SteamDBas discovered by GamesRadarIn 2023, 14,531 games were released on Steam. That’s just under 40 a day, although given the way people release games, that’s more accurately around 50 every day of the week. 50 games per day. On a storefront that goes to great lengths to bury new releases and even hides pages where you can deliberately list new releases.
Compared to 2022, that’s an increase of almost 2,000 games, almost 5,000 more than five years ago. There is no reason to believe that this growth will slow down any time soon.
It’s a lot of games that not only no one, but also every gaming site can keep up with. Not even the biggest websites in the industry could afford to have an editorial team capable of playing 50 games a day to find and write about the ones worth highlighting. Realistically, not even a tenth of the games. And that’s not least because of the 50 games per day, about 48 of which will be absolute crap.
On the one hand, in this way, Steam represents a wonderful gaming democracy, where any developer willing to increase the $100 entry fee can publish their game on the platform without restrictions. On another level, however, it’s a disaster for about 99 percent of releases, which have absolutely no chance of getting noticed, regardless of their quality. The solution: human storefront curation, something Valve has never shown any intention of doing.
I rant about all this based on tired experience. Due to a project I’m runningI check out the new releases on Steam almost every day. I imagine most people don’t know how to find a clean list of all new releases, considering it involves going three pages in depth. Click “New & Noteworthy” at the top of Steam, then select “New Releases” in the middle of the right-hand list. This will open a new page where you can click on highlighted games. Scroll down a full screen or more to find “Popular New Releases.” Next to it is a tab called “New Releases.” Click on it and you’re almost there. Now click on “All New Releases” in the little blue box at the top right of this list. Only Then
But you should filter it because it now includes everything in every language, including DLC and non-gaming applications. So in the filters on the right, you should check “Games” under “Show selected types” and then scroll all the way down to “Limit by language” to select “English” or your preferred variant.
Yes, that’s what it takes to see today’s 50 new games. Most of these will be asset flip drivel, clumsy porn, or just the strangest half-assed nonsense [scrolls] Jump Penguin Finale. Someone paid $100 to publish this and no one will ever see it, let alone buy it. (Let’s do it Jump Penguin Finale a viral hit!)
You might think that this is where the algorithms come into play and help bring the worthwhile games to the surface, but speaking to hundreds of indie developers over the years, that definitely doesn’t work. Secure, Sometimes It works when a previously unknown game generates enough buzz through a viral trailer, an incredibly successful pre-release Discord, or a big-name YouTuber highlighting it in a spontaneous moment. But without that luck, there’s no built-in mechanism for unknown but worthwhile games to stand out in this mad rush of releases. There has to be another factor, like getting featured in a Wholesome Games video, or hiring a PR to pitch the game to streamers and websites, or – in certain circumstances – journalists, who dig through shit to find the diamonds.
Valve, with its near-infinite amount of money, could easily hire enough people to sift through the games it releases and find the ones that stand out. Heck, the submission fees for these games alone, at nearly $1.5 million a year, could pay 30 people a decent salary for them. I really wish they would.