I highly suggest people look at Remap's Steam Vent feature, wherein they play games on the Recently Added page rather than other list such as Trending. They've found some gems, while also highlighting how broken discoverability is on platform like Steam.
While it is not a great solution like many of these YouTube features, it's attempting to do something different. Remap has also shown just how many new games have AI content disclosures on Steam.
This is a great read and resonates with several of my views. I'm curious what the potential turnover rate from discovery to sale is with something like YouTube? I suspect the majority of people like to experience the game vicariously and thus never buy it. Still, it a developer can get 2% of the audience to buy, in the case of Wanderbots that's 5,000 sales...
Would you ever consider covering the topic of "hidden gems" on Steam? Because with every other conversation about Steam, it's about discoverability (although I think you have answered it well: how do you design a scalable system that solves an exponential demand > supply problem?
I've been using Steam since its first beta (2002). I've never seen a game that could've, should've, and would've broken out of the famed "1,000 reviews" but did not.
I increasingly think it doesn’t make sense at all for devs to reach out to YouTubers. I know this is sort of a crazy thing to say but your point about how content creators are disincentivized from covering something first and will likely more and more just cover what pays them the most means that the contract is sort of broken.
If you step back it’s easy to see YouTubers less as force multipliers for a games success, and more just content platforms themselves that ingest indie games as praxis to drive their own follow counts.
Which is to say largely the point of the content on people’s channels is not to drive sales of a game, but to drive followers for their channel. As a player, being “into indie games” doesn’t implicitly mean you are “into driving sales for those games” but could easily more mean you’re “into watching videos about indie games” instead of interested in buying them.
Said differently, I think indie games are just becoming gristle for the YT content mill.
Another great article Ryan, thanks. I posted this on my bluesky. It sure is tough getting visibility these days. For Steam, if they have 35,000 games released this year compared to 3500 10 years ago, they can still only feature the same amount of games, so whereas you may have been able to break even if your game is the top 10% in 2015, now you need to be in the top 1% or so just to break even and survive. Obv' pulling these numbers out of my butt, but sure is hard to drive traffic to my game and find an audience, I know that much.
This is interesting. I only play indie games and find games either by searching for them myself or Steam recommends them to me (and it's algorithm is pretty decent at showing me at least one game I'd like).
But Youtube is such a juggernaut. I wonder if I can find one of them game channels and see their videos.
Any ideas for what could potentially help solve this issue or if this is even a detriment for the average consumer? I can see how creators/influencers have this mismatch in demand but I feel players benefit from the abundance of choice (or they could potentially suffer from overwhelming selection). Cool read!
I highly suggest people look at Remap's Steam Vent feature, wherein they play games on the Recently Added page rather than other list such as Trending. They've found some gems, while also highlighting how broken discoverability is on platform like Steam.
While it is not a great solution like many of these YouTube features, it's attempting to do something different. Remap has also shown just how many new games have AI content disclosures on Steam.
Brilliantly written. Amazing insights. Thanks for shedding light on this.
Sorry guys, I just heard from Ryan that he has to delay next week's newsletter. One of the 37 roguelikes he played gave him AWFUL food poisoning.
Many such cases.....
Perhaps one day soon AI can help sort out the wheat from the chaff... perhaps.
This is a great read and resonates with several of my views. I'm curious what the potential turnover rate from discovery to sale is with something like YouTube? I suspect the majority of people like to experience the game vicariously and thus never buy it. Still, it a developer can get 2% of the audience to buy, in the case of Wanderbots that's 5,000 sales...
Thanks Ryan -
Would you ever consider covering the topic of "hidden gems" on Steam? Because with every other conversation about Steam, it's about discoverability (although I think you have answered it well: how do you design a scalable system that solves an exponential demand > supply problem?
I've been using Steam since its first beta (2002). I've never seen a game that could've, should've, and would've broken out of the famed "1,000 reviews" but did not.
Brother you are on fire right now. Hit on hit
Once again an excellent read - thank you, Ryan!
I increasingly think it doesn’t make sense at all for devs to reach out to YouTubers. I know this is sort of a crazy thing to say but your point about how content creators are disincentivized from covering something first and will likely more and more just cover what pays them the most means that the contract is sort of broken.
If you step back it’s easy to see YouTubers less as force multipliers for a games success, and more just content platforms themselves that ingest indie games as praxis to drive their own follow counts.
Which is to say largely the point of the content on people’s channels is not to drive sales of a game, but to drive followers for their channel. As a player, being “into indie games” doesn’t implicitly mean you are “into driving sales for those games” but could easily more mean you’re “into watching videos about indie games” instead of interested in buying them.
Said differently, I think indie games are just becoming gristle for the YT content mill.
Another great article Ryan, thanks. I posted this on my bluesky. It sure is tough getting visibility these days. For Steam, if they have 35,000 games released this year compared to 3500 10 years ago, they can still only feature the same amount of games, so whereas you may have been able to break even if your game is the top 10% in 2015, now you need to be in the top 1% or so just to break even and survive. Obv' pulling these numbers out of my butt, but sure is hard to drive traffic to my game and find an audience, I know that much.
This is interesting. I only play indie games and find games either by searching for them myself or Steam recommends them to me (and it's algorithm is pretty decent at showing me at least one game I'd like).
But Youtube is such a juggernaut. I wonder if I can find one of them game channels and see their videos.
Any ideas for what could potentially help solve this issue or if this is even a detriment for the average consumer? I can see how creators/influencers have this mismatch in demand but I feel players benefit from the abundance of choice (or they could potentially suffer from overwhelming selection). Cool read!