Steam Curation!

[Aaron]

So Steam has launched their much anticipated update to improve discoverability; what does everyone think so far?

 

I like the method of presenting you with recommendations in small penny packets, as this reduces the fire hose effect that looking at list of new Steam releases previously had. I think the addition of  a "follow" function separate from the wish list is also a great idea with the popularity of early access games - there's lots of early access I would love to keep up to date with patches, development updates etc... without necessarily saying "I want this to buy this" - perhaps this will lead to fewer early access games essentially being forgotten ala Spacebase DF-9.

 

I am a casual fan of simulation games (DCS, ArmA, Rise of Flight etc...), so I've decided to make a little group (the Sunday Simmers) to curate what I think are the better sims available on Steam, and perhaps also host a little community for those who enjoy the occasional wobbly-winged flight in Sopwith Camel, without necessarily building their own cockpit.

 

Anyone else started some curated lists we could follow? We could do a community Idle Thumbs list too I suppose - would anybody be into that?

[brkl]

I would love an Idle Thumbs community list provided it only contained Far Cry 2.

 

OK, I would love a straight Thumbs curated list.

[Erkki]

Idle Thumbs exists already as a curator. So does Steve Gaynor, and I'm also following RPS.

[hedgefield]

I'm really digging this, the front page is already a lot more useful to me, and I found the perfect niche co-op game my friend and I had been looking for for a while now (requirements: co-op sneaky horror gunplay like a DayZ, runs on his shitty laptop, is preferrably free or under 10 bucks - result: Cry Of Fear, a HL1 standalone mod). So recommendations seem really good and I dig the whole Follow Curators thing. Really great and much-needed move. I think this makes it much easier to connect fans of specific genres with games they would like but maybe never knew about.

 

Bonus content: my curator page, if you like narrative-driven adventure detective fiction with an edge of weirdness here and there.

[Bjorn]

The first suggested game in my personalized queue was DOTA 2. I have never played a single minute of any LOMA. I have never downloaded a LOMA. But it is their top pick for me.

gaben, y u push DOTA 2 so hard

Edited: I realize this has nothing to do with curation, but, whatevs, it is part of the new store.

[Jutranjo]

The first suggested game in my personalized queue was DOTA 2. I have never played a single minute of any LOMA. I have never downloaded a LOMA. But it is their top pick for me.

gaben, y u push DOTA 2 so hard

Edited: I realize this has nothing to do with curation, but, whatevs, it is part of the new store.

 

You should obviously start with the best DOTA clone then. The tutorial is sub 1 hour if you want to try it, it only has bots in it.

[JonCole]

Not to divert too much into ethics talk, but TotalBiscuit caught some flak for putting Planetside 2 on his list with a disclaimer that he was paid to promote it. He's since removed it because of all the cries of conflict of interest, but it just leads me to think now that it'll happen in a more invisible, implicit way. I mean, more or less exactly like how other YouTube LPers and creators are paid to promote things behind the scenes but are reticent to disclose. I guess props to him for fixing things, but his line of "this is totally new, there is no code of ethics" just makes me think that he should have thought it out just slightly more before he went and did it to begin with. With great power comes great responsibility and all that.

 

Here is his response - http://www.twitlonger.com/show/ngf40m

[Bjorn]

I'm just picturing TB in a video rapping, "Fucking Ethics, how do they work?"  It's like magic and shit. 

[Reyturner]

"I don't want to hear form no JOURNAL-ist. Fuckers be lyin' and gettin' me pissed!" 

[Deadpan]

Well, much like the tagging system and user reviews, this already seems to have seen both terrible and deeply ironic uses. I'm not sure what to make of it yet. On the one hand, giving prominent Youtubers and such a way to put their mark directly on the place people shop for games is likely to turn the front page of Steam into a hotbed of payola, on the other hand, it potentially allows for the promotion of otherwise unnoticed games, and the more Steam opens up, the more necessary this is going to become. It all depends on how people will end up using it I guess.

 

I mean, my site already runs a big yearly retrospective in which we recommend dozens and dozens of games from the last year. Might as well tie it into a list on Steam this year.

[coaxmetal]

I took advantage of this great new steam curation feature to curate a game I like, if you would like to see this curation in action follow this hyperlink: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/fallrec

 

also this seems like a good idea poorly implemented, which is a pretty valve thing to do.

[Erkki]

I started Games for Taffing About. For some reason it is showing only 3 games on the store page while I've added 10.

 

Now I'm just trying to not come up with too many ways to say that every game I like contains some taffing about, otherwise it'll be just my favourite games. It'll have immersive sims and other cool first person games mostly, but I had to add Civ 5.

[coaxmetal]

Mine wont actually ever show up anywhere because apparently you need to recommend 10 games for it to show up and I'm never going to recommend more than 1.

[Erkki]

Hmm... I added 30 games and now I want to curate my list so that some games would be more prominent than others. Instead they seem to be stuck with the order they were added in. Yeah, this needs better implementation.

[Dewar]

That's cool, the Idle Thumbs list is on page 4 of the top curators with 824 people following.

[Merus]

I guess props to him for fixing things, but his line of "this is totally new, there is no code of ethics" just makes me think that he should have thought it out just slightly more before he went and did it to begin with. 

 

Apparently TotalBiscuit thinks codes of ethics just magically appear in the air. I enjoy how he needs instructions to act ethically in a new situation when the whole point of codes of ethics is that you're supposed to infer from the specific examples how they might apply outside of the limited situations they discuss.

[Gormongous]

Apparently TotalBiscuit thinks codes of ethics just magically appear in the air. I enjoy how he needs instructions to act ethically in a new situation when the whole point of codes of ethics is that you're supposed to infer from the specific examples how they might apply outside of the limited situations they discuss.

Come on, don't you remember when Kickstarter first got popular and it was wall-to-wall scams because there was no code of ethics yet? Everyone's entitled to as much graft as they can get until things settle down.

[Ben X]

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bgb/curation

[clyde]

I've already seen a benefit of the new store. Some [medieval survival sim?] showed up that I had never heard of. It was called "Life is Feudal" or something. It looks like my type of thing and I hadn't heard of it before. I probably won't play it anytime soon, but I like knowing about it. I've got to load Rust up again sometime soon. I wonder if the new version has surpassed the old one.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Not about curation, but the queue thing that suggests games to you apparently sometimes will show games because they are popular sellers or have a high metacritic score.

 

Boo-urns. I have over 100 games in my library, can't they mostly recommend stuff on that basis?

[Justin Leego]

I've already seen a benefit of the new store. Some [medieval survival sim?] showed up that I had never heard of. It was called "Life is Feudal" or something. It looks like my type of thing and I hadn't heard of it before. I probably won't play it anytime soon, but I like knowing about it. I've got to load Rust up again sometime soon. I wonder if the new version has surpassed the old one.

 

That Feudal game was out this week so is there a chance it would have popped up on the carousel anyway?

[clyde]

That Feudal game was out this week so is there a chance it would have popped up on the carousel anyway?

Sure. I can't remember what it said the reason was. I do remember that it was not because it was "popular" or a "top-seller" which were not useful heuristics for my hipster-taste.

[prettyunsmart]

I'm really digging this, the front page is already a lot more useful to me, and I found the perfect niche co-op game my friend and I had been looking for for a while now (requirements: co-op sneaky horror gunplay like a DayZ, runs on his shitty laptop, is preferrably free or under 10 bucks - result: Cry Of Fear, a HL1 standalone mod). So recommendations seem really good and I dig the whole Follow Curators thing. Really great and much-needed move. I think this makes it much easier to connect fans of specific genres with games they would like but maybe never knew about.

 

Bonus content: my curator page, if you like narrative-driven adventure detective fiction with an edge of weirdness here and there.

 

Thanks for sharing your list! I'm currently going through the Blackwell games, so mystery-themed adventure games are kind of my thing at the moment.

 

After looking at your list, I was wondering if The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was released early to Kickstarter backers. I've been interested in the game for a while, but I hadn't heard much. If you've played it, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it (beyond what's mentioned in the recommendation).

[hedgefield]

Thanks for sharing your list! I'm currently going through the Blackwell games, so mystery-themed adventure games are kind of my thing at the moment.

 

After looking at your list, I was wondering if The Vanishing of Ethan Carter was released early to Kickstarter backers. I've been interested in the game for a while, but I hadn't heard much. If you've played it, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it (beyond what's mentioned in the recommendation).

 

Thanks! The Blackwell games are pretty good too, really enjoyed those, especially the latest one, and the creator is a really cool dude too.

 

I've been following along with the development of Ethan Carter but I haven't gotten my hands on the final build yet, but from what I've seen, it's a really competent mystery with interesting mechanics. I wasn't sure about the paranormal stuff at first, but seeing

put me at ease. I'm receiving my copy tomorrow so I'll be happy to share my thoughts on it after that.

[Merus]

Particularly irritating: the ability for me to say 'I already own this on another service', or, hell, 'not buying this but you've got the right idea, Steam'.