Steam Curation: Solving a Problem I Never Had

Just last week I questioned if there are too many artists these days, and hence too much Art in the world. This was mostly in reference to physical Art, (what I usually write about), but the concept definitely applies to video games as well. Just look at all the new mobile, Facebook, and Steam games popping up every day; we’re being absolutely overwhelmed with new work – more work than any human has the time or money to experience – and it’s not all good. How do we sort through it all?

(Already 5000+ curators.  There are only 3700 games on Steam)

As we all know, Steam's newest solution to manage this is it's curation system: users can make lists of Art they think is good, thus helping others find hidden gems amidst a supposed sea of rubbish. Curator's put forth the games they genuinely think are worth a second look; much to the benefit of developers like us.  The more potential eyes on our products the better, right?

That said, I feel like curation, in it’s current state, benefits developers far more than actual Steam users.  It may be useful in finding people MORE games, but is it helping them find GOOD games?  There’s already more game curators than there are actual games on Steam, and let’s not forget: Art is subjective.  From the perspective of an “average joe”, these are the problems I have with the system, and some alternate solutions:

1 – I Can't Always Trust the Opinions of Strangers

This may just be a personal hang-up, but I find it hard to take someone's word for something; especially when it relates to Art.  No matter how famous, successful, or skillful they may be, a stranger is still a stranger. They have their own opinions about what constitutes Good Art, and it’s likely those opinions differ from mine. I’ve already heard people talking about finding curators with similar tastes as my own, but to me that’s a far bigger chore than just browsing through Steam trying to find new games by myself.

(Best result I got when image searching for “opinionated”)

If Valve really wants to make this system useful, they should implement a OKCupid style matching system. No really, make me fill out a one-time profile where I list my five favorite games, my five least favorite games, genres I love/hate, game elements I appreciate, (exploration, story, twitch gameplay), preferred game length, subject matter, etc. Have curators fill out a similar profile, and then generate match percentages, (just make sure it doesn't use the same match algorithm that the Discovery Queue uses; a feature theoretically far more useful than curators, if it weren't so consistently off the mark).

Anyway, all the answers would be private, with an option for curators to display theirs publically, so other users can see what those curators value. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’ll get me in the ballpark a lot quicker than manually sifting through thousands of curation pages with the same, “only great games within,” description.

2 – Curation Devalues the Opinions of Friends

My friends know me and know what I like. Even when they play a game they would never recommend to the world, (via a curation page), they might still recommend it to me, knowing I’d love it. I’d be far more likely to check out a game, (for longer than 10 seconds), if a close friend, having my specific tastes in mind, gave the game a hearty thumbs up.

(True story, by the way)

I wrote up a long spiel on how to make this work, then I logged into Netflix and found they’ve just implemented a variation of the idea. When you finish watching something, it pops up a box saying, “Recommend to a friend.” It then lists all your Facebook friends, and gives you an area to write a description. Steam has a generic, “recommend,” feature, but it’s just a general thumbs up/down for the world to see, not a specific recommendation to Mary, who loves 8-bit bullet-hell shooters.

Steam has a friend list already, so this is really a no-brainer: either from the game’s page in your library, or even the Shift+Tab in-game overlay, have an area where you can send recommendations to specific friends. Then the next time your friend goes to the Steam Storefront, the game you recommended is seen first – front and center – with the blurb you wrote explaining why’d they’ll like it: “has one part where a guy does a back-flip into custard, your favorite pastime.”

To keep it relevant you’d have to setup a (private) way to rate how much you value someone’s opinion, that way your Store Page doesn’t get flooded with junk from a Steam friend you barely know. And maybe a limit on recommendations per person, that way your troll friend doesn’t recommend Barbie Dreamhouse Party every hour on the hour.

($20 well spent, my friends)

3 – I'd Rather Follow Artists Directly

Some people already do this on the company scale; I’m sure we’ve all heard, “I’ll buy anything by Blizzard.” I do this on the individual creator/creative team scale, since the people that made your favorite Blizzard game might be scattered to the wind by now. As a some-time AAA developer, trust me, I know that no game is the result of a lone genius sitting on a hill, but I still follow specific Artists within our industry anyway.

If Yoji Shinkawa split from Konami and started making indie games, it would be nice if I could track that outside of wikipedia or MobyGames. I may or may not be interested in the games he recommends, (whats his curator match %, eh?), but I’m certainly interested in anything he’s working on. If I tried to find that information on Steam, I’d be out of luck.

And that’s a shame because this is one of the most reliable ways of finding work I love, in any medium: follow the Artist. Of course, this can’t be the only way to find stuff: how do I follow an Artist if I never discovered them to begin with, but it would still be a welcome addition to help keep track of the artists I already know about.

4 – I Already Have More Games Than I Need

Ultimately, finding more games to play isn’t that hard.  As a typical Steam user, curation is trying to solve a problem I didn’t have to begin with: I don’t need more recommendations, I need more time; my ridiculous backlog isn’t going to clear itself, and I already know what games I want to check out once I’ve burned through what I have. This doesn’t even touch on the upcoming games that I’ll want to play when they come out; pushing everything else back. Even if this new curation system produces ten games out of the mists that I absolutely must try, they go to the end of a very, very long line.

(ULTRAWORLD you say?)

And of course, no point buying them now if I know I won’t be playing them within the next few years. If they happen to be on sale for a stupid-low price, lower than they should ever be, I’ll grab ‘em then and probably forget I did in about a month. If my newest game gets on Steam, it’ll likely fall into the same pit that 95% of our artwork succumbs to: it’s cool when you finally play it, if you ever get around to playing it. Amongst that 95% are some of the greatest works in our medium, but that doesn’t mean they get to cut in line. That’s the true fate of our Art form now; no matter what sorting systems we put in place.  Hell, it's the fate of all Art forms, if we’re being honest.

Which reminds me, let’s not forget we have backlogs in those other Art forms too. I don’t know about you, but there’s plenty of movies, TV shows, books, etc that I want to experience at some point. Yet, even if I was suddenly granted an extra four hours a day I wouldn’t put that time towards gaming, or any of my other backlogs for that matter. I’d probably either do more work or get more sleep. Even with infinite time, my gaming hours would remain the same. I don’t need to constantly consume media. So Steam trying to find me MORE games to play is like offering bottled water to a drowning man; I don’t care if it’s ethically sourced, recyclable, and mineral free: I’m fucking drowning, man!