The strong and somewhat legendary PC gaming store, yes it’s Steam. Valve has been receiving suggestions to limit the number of games featured in the store but Garry Newman, the developer of both Garry’s Mod and Rust, thinks that suggestions concerning limiting the number of games are “insane” and he sees the rapidly increasing number of featured games on this application is actually a good thing for the gaming industry.
“The issue of discoverability is awesome to have. The focus should be on the users, not the developers. Users getting the choice of thousands of games is a good thing,” he said in an interview with MCV. “The attitude that Valve should only allow X games a month on Steam is insane. Why would you limit it? Have you released a game and it isn’t selling? Make it better. Do some marketing.”
Small developers see the front page of Steam as a storefront only featuring the big games and usually small indies or unknown indies don’t make it to the featured slideshow but still they are there in the store available for people to buy. Newman thinks that if your game doesn’t sell well then it’s maybe because your game isn’t good enough not because people didn’t get to see it on the front page.
“Steam is a digital distribution platform; they put your game on their store and allow people to buy it,” he said. “Any extra exposure you get by being featured should be seen as an extra-unexpected bonus. It shouldn’t be relied on to sell your game.
“I don’t think the Steam front page should be seen as a storefront. If your game is good and people want to play it–people will play it. Work at making your game as accessible as possible.”
Steam Greenlight also helps indie devs in funding their games and releasing them on Steam later on. This program have contributed in increasing the total number of games released in 2014 more than 2013. Valve is also trying to add new options to their application by providing players with Suggestions based on what they have liked or played before and a new Recently Updated Games section showing the latest updated games.
Tell us what you think on this issue in the comments section below.
