The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Spectacle]

Why do you even need 2 people in the TF2 team? That's one guy to pick the coolest hats from the user submissions, and another guy to decide on the price for each?

 

[LESS T_T]

Some interesting bits about Steam from Tom Francis, the developer of Gunpoint: https://www.pentadact.com/2019-04-10-steam-quirks-for-developers/

Steam Quirks For Developers

Talking to people at GDC and Rezzed, especially people just starting in game dev, made me realise I’ve accumulated a load of non-obvious knowledge about how Steam works and how best to use it. Info like this tends to get passed around between established devs, at events and in closed circles, but newer devs and those excluded from these groups don’t get access to it.

Everything marked ‘info’ was either learned by me first hand, or told to me by Valve at events with the express purpose of getting this kind of info out to developers, without request of confidentiality. I say this because I do also get told things confidentially – none of that is in here.



Info: wishlists matter a lot
Getting people to wishlist your game on Steam before launch is the most effective way I know of making your game sell better when it comes out. When Heat Signature launched, 33,000 people had wishlisted it. One month after launch, the number of wishlisters who’d bought the game was 30,000. Some of those may have wishlisted it during that month, of course, but it’s still a good ratio.

People who’ve wishlisted your game get an e-mail from Steam when it’s released, and each time it goes on sale, until they buy it or take it off. This is even better than them signing up to your mailing list, because a) mails from small, new or less established mailing lists generally go straight to spam, and b) it’s free. At this point it costs me $220 to e-mail the Suspicious Developments mailing list. (I still do that too)

Wishlists also factor in to how your game shows up in search results on the store.

Advice: get a store page up as early as possible

Heat Signature had a store page for 1.5 years before launch, and my best guess is this was the biggest (marketing) factor in its success. The fact that the game took longer than expected – which happens to most of us – ended up giving it longer to build interest in a way that meaningfully converted to sales. That was only true because its store page was up so early.

It’s only too early for a store page if:

• You can’t show appealing screenshots. (It used to be mandatory to have a trailer too, but now you don’t need that until you launch)
• Your basic pitch for the game may fundamentally change.

With Wizards, six months ago I was still undecided on things like ‘do units act simultaneously’, and I think building excitement then could have led to disappointment if that changed. Once that was figured out, we focused on making a few interactions feel good and have interesting results, made a trailer and put up a store page. From now on, any effort I put into showing off the game feels like it’s reducing the chance it will fail, and raising the ceiling on how well it could do.



Info: as the developer, you have magic tagging powers
What tags people add to your game affect when it shows up in various places, most notably on other games’ pages, in the ‘more like this’ box. How many people applied each tag matters, and as the game’s developer, you have a secret super power to boost this. If you’re logged into Steam with the account you use for Steamworks, when you go to your own game’s store page and add a tag, it counts extra – the official docs don’t give a figure, but I think I heard you count as 50 people.

I don’t think it’s worth trying to game this system, but check the Steamworks docs page on tags for more details – there’s very specific stuff on which tags count and how they’re weighted, which may influence which ones you want to boost. I’ve heard wildly varying results from this from devs, some say it gave them a huge boost to store traffic. I think I recall it helping for Gunpoint but less so for Heat Signature. It’ll vary a lot per game, because it depends on how popular games similar to yours are, how similar yours is to theirs, and how many others are more similar.



Info: giving testers a beta key takes the game off their wishlist
This is bad. Steam is generally great for beta testing, since everyone has it and it auto-patches. But even if you set up a separate beta package, and generate keys just for that package, when testers redeem the key, the game is removed from their wishlist. When the beta’s over, you can remove the app from the package or revoke the keys, but neither method puts the game back on their wishlist. We lost a huge chunk of our wishlisters for Heat Sig this way.

Advice: set up a separate app

To avoid this, I now create a separate app for beta testing. If you don’t have a complimentary app credit, you use the Contact Steamworks Support option in Steamworks to ask for one – at their roundtables with devs, Valve often stress that this really does go to a human who will try to help.



Info: your user review rating doesn’t affect visibility, unless it’s ‘mostly negative’ or worse
This is straight from Valve, confirmed twice. User review % has no effect on when or where the Steam store promotes your game, unless it’s ‘mostly negative’ or worse. That’s not to say it won’t affect sales, of course: if I see something’s ‘mixed’ I at least scroll down to find out why. Steam also surfaces your user review rating in many places other than your store page, so while it won’t affect when it gets shown, it might affect how many people click through.

Still, not worth stressing over dropping from ‘overwhelmingly positive’ to ‘very’.



Info: the release date you set in Steamworks is important, even if you hide it
You can hide your game’s release date or replace it with a phrase like ‘When it’s done’, but you do have to set one. And it matters. It will determine when your game shows in the Coming Soon section of the store, and on the date you set, a load of third party services will announce your game has been released – eg Twitter accounts that tweet every new game.

I was alarmed to learn Heat Sig had come out, months before we’d finished it. Luckily it hadn’t actually released, we’d just hit the arbitrary date I’d typed in when we didn’t have a date. But it led to a bunch of people being pissed off and disappointed after our fake surprise launch.

Advice: tell Steam your game is coming out in 3019



Info: Steam’s visibility algorithms are trying to amplify external interest
That means: if the Steam store notices a lot of traffic coming in to a game’s store page, it will start to feature that game more prominently on Steam itself too.

Advice: maximise external interest in your Steam page on launch day

Obviously you’re probably trying to maximise this anyway, but for me this means I specifically promote our Steam page above all else. Getting a few % more of the revenue on another storefront is small fry compared to getting more prominently featured on Steam, where 95% of our sales are going to come from either way. It also means it’s worth asking press and streamers to hold their coverage til launch day, so it hits all at once.

Advice: don’t do pre-orders

Pre-orders spread out your launch sales out over some preceding period, leading to a smaller spike on launch day and less favour from the algorithms.

I didn’t do pre-orders for Heat Signature, and we hit #1 in the charts on launch day, but I noticed only 3% of our store traffic came from people clicking it in the top sellers list. Nice enough, but not a game changer. So I asked Valve if maybe it wasn’t that important to have a big spike of sales on your launch day specifically? They said it still is, because it will determine how much the store promotes you. Having the same number of sales spread out over a week of pre-orders beforehand will lead to being featured less. Intensity matters.

Advice: think carefully about Early Access

Not saying don’t do it, but this is a reason to think twice. If it effectively gives you two smaller launches, you’d fare worse with the algorithms. I still see two situations where Early Access is probably worth it:

• You’re nearly out of money and the game is unfinished. Much better to call it that than pretend it is
• You’re sure you can – and want to – do regular updates until launch

The latter is the route that Dead Cells, Subnautica and Slay the Spire all took, to a level of success way beyond any of my games. I saw talks by the devs of all three at GDC, and all three said the extremely frequent and consistent updates were the key to making this work. Some also said it made the game take dramatically longer than it would have otherwise. For my part, I think having a publicly committed deadline every week or fortnight would break me.

 

[DalekFlay]

Dead Cells definitely set a new standard for early access that very few others are going to be able to live up to, which will make it more challenging in general.

 

[Infinitron]

Relevant to Vault Dweller interests.

 

[Dexter]

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/valve...ican-nation-operates-casino-washington-state/

Valve hit with illegal gambling lawsuit by Native American nation that operates a casino in Washington state
by Nat Levy on April 12, 2019 at 10:25 am

Valve CEO Gabe Newell. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)

A Native American nation that operates a casino in Washington state filed suit against Valve Software, accusing the gaming giant of fostering illegal gambling and benefitting from an environment of unfair competition with casinos that are heavily regulated by state and local governments.

The lawsuit from Quinault Nation, which owns and operates Quinault Beach Resort & Casino in Ocean Shores, Wash., alleges that Valve has facilitated the use of textured digital weapons, known as “skins,” in games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive as collateral in online betting through third-party sites. The lawsuit argues that through so-called “skins gambling” Valve has “subjected Washington citizens to scam, unsafe and unfair gambling.”

“Valve is well aware of the skins gambling that goes on, is well aware that skins have real world cash value, which has increased their popularity and value, and actively encourages and facilitates skins gambling,” according to the suit, filed last week in Grays Harbor County, where Quinault’s tribal government headquarters is located.

Bellevue, Wash.-based Valve has been taken to court in the past and butted heads with regulators on similar illegal online gambling allegations. In 2016, a judge dismissed a class action lawsuit against Valve over alleged illegal gambling with Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

The company has consistently maintained it has no relationship with third-party gambling sites. In 2016, Valve said it sent cease-and-desist letters to more than 40 of these sites that use the company’s Steam gaming marketplace for gambling and shut down the Steam accounts used by those sites.

We’ve reached out to Valve and Quinault Nation for comment. We’ll update this story if we hear back.

Despite all the recent attention on skins gambling, the Quinault lawsuit alleges that Valve continues to facilitate it. Quinault alleges that skins gambling has been instrumental in the success of games like CS:GO, which has become a centerpiece of televised esports competitions.

“Valve has profited handsomely for years from illegal online gambling, and has made only token efforts to stop it,” the lawsuit says.

Much of the 25-page court document lays out Valve’s alleged involvement in skins gambling, but the lawsuit also claims skins gambling hurts casinos. In order to operate, Quinault’s casino has to take steps to ensure fair and secure gambling conditions and pay taxes and fees to state and local governments. Valve, the lawsuit argues, doesn’t have to do any of that, creating an alleged unlevel playing field.

Washington state has become a battleground over the legality of online gambling. A landmark ruling last year against the then-parent company of Seattle-based Big Fish Games found that it was facilitating online gambling because the chips in the company’s casual casino games represented a “thing of value” under state law because users can’t play without them.

That case is still tied up in court, but it has opened the floodgates for other online gambling lawsuits.

The vague “thing of value” clause also comes up in the Quinault suit. Since skins can be sold for real money on third-party websites, they are valuable, the lawsuit argues.

In the suit, Quinault compares skins to casino chips and Valve to a bar where backroom gambling happens. The lawsuit alleges that Valve knows about what’s going on and isn’t trying to stop it.

“Users buy chips from the bartender, gamble in one backroom and cash out in another, all under Valve’s roof,” according to the lawsuit.

Here is the full filing from Quinault Nation:

Quinault v. Valve by Nat Levy on Scribd

 

[Steamboat Willie]

I guess Indian Casinos aren't brining in bank like they once did.

 

[Country_Gravy]

in before Gabe bribes the casino with beads and firewater

 

[LESS T_T]

Totally accurate top sellers.

Outward is doing pretty well.

#10 - Grand Theft Auto V
#9 - Borderlands
#8 - Outward
#7 - Tropico 6
#6 - Survivor Pass 3: Wild Card (PUBG thing)
#5 - MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD
#4 - Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
#3 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#2 - Risk of Rain 2
#1 - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

Risk of Rain 2 is selling like hot cakes even a week after the "free bonus copy" deal is over.

And look at the rush to get the privilege of owning Anno 1800 on Steam.

#10 - Grand Theft Auto V
#9 - Sekiro Preorder (Asia) (Looks like this was available till April 9th?)
#8 - Outward
#7 - Anno 1800
#6 - Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
#5 - Anno 1800
#4 - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
#3 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#2 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year Edition
#1 - Risk of Rain 2

Also Geralt's bathtub video is still bringing money to CDPR.

 

[Astral Rag]

Wtf is going on with steam lately.

Btw, my categories still haven't returned..

 

[pakoito]

New UI dropping soon. No need to fix as many bugs on the old one.

 

[Don Peste]

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Merlkir]

X: Doubt.

 

[LESS T_T]

Risk of Rain 2 is selling like hot cakes even a week after the "free bonus copy" deal is over.

And look at the rush to get the privilege of owning Anno 1800 on Steam.

#10 - Grand Theft Auto V
#9 - Sekiro Preorder (Asia) (Looks like this was available till April 9th?)
#8 - Outward
#7 - Anno 1800
#6 - Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
#5 - Anno 1800
#4 - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
#3 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#2 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Game of the Year Edition
#1 - Risk of Rain 2

Also Geralt's bathtub video is still bringing money to CDPR.

#10 - Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
#9 - The Elder Scrolls Online - Crown Packs
#8 - Forager
#7 - Total War: WARHAMMER II - The Prophet & The Warlock
#6 - Grand Theft Auto V
#5 - Anno 1800
#4 - Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
#3 - PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS
#2 - Anno 1800
#1 - Risk of Rain 2

More like raining money. Wonder why they needed Gearbox to publish on PC.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

So this is old and I missed it, but basically....

Steam Says They're Going To Wipe Bad Review "Bombs" From The Review Score
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240333155775

User Reviews Revisited
15 MAR @ 8:47PM - TOMB
Some time ago we made some changes to how we presented the User Reviews for games, and their resulting Review Score. We talked about those changes in this blog post. As we describe in that post, we want to ensure that players who've played a game can voice their opinions about why other people should or shouldn't buy the game, and that our summary of those opinions into a single Review Score should represent the likelihood that a future purchaser will be happy with their purchase.

Since that post, we've continued to listen to feedback from both players and developers. It's clear to us that players value reviews highly, and want us to ensure they're accurate and trustworthy. Developers understand that they're valuable to players, but want to feel like they're being treated fairly. We've also spent a bunch of time building analysis tools to help us better understand what's happening in the reviews across all titles on Steam. With that feedback and data in hand, we think we're ready to make another change.

That change can be described easily: we're going to identify off-topic review bombs, and remove them from the Review Score.

But while easy to say, it raises a bunch of questions, so let's dig into the details. First, what do we mean by an off-topic review bomb? As we defined back in our original post, a review bomb is where players post a large number of reviews in a short period of time, aimed at lowering the Review Score of a game. We define an off-topic review bomb as one where the focus of those reviews is on a topic that we consider unrelated to the likelihood that future purchasers will be happy if they buy the game, and hence not something that should be added to the Review Score.

Obviously, there's a grey area here, because there's a wide range of things that players care about. So how will we identify these off-topic review bombs? The first step is a tool we've built that identifies any anomalous review activity on all games on Steam in as close to real-time as possible. It doesn't know why a given game is receiving anomalous review activity, and it doesn't even try to figure that out. Instead, it notifies a team of people at Valve, who'll then go and investigate. We've already run our tool across the entire history of reviews on Steam, identifying many reasons why games have seen periods of anomalous review activity, and off-topic review bombs appear to only be a small number of them.

Once our team has identified that the anomalous activity is an off-topic review bomb, we'll mark the time period it encompasses and notify the developer. The reviews within that time period will then be removed from the Review Score calculation. As before, the reviews themselves are left untouched - if you want to dig into them to see if they're relevant to you, you'll still be able to do so. To help you do that, we've made it clear when you're looking at a store page where we've removed some reviews by default, and we've further improved the UI around anomalous review periods.

Finally, we've also enabled you to opt out of this entirely, if that's your preference - there's now a checkbox in your Steam Store options where you can choose to have off-topic review bombs still included in all the Review Scores you see.

While we're working on some other features around User Reviews, we thought this one was worth shipping by itself. As always, if you have thoughts or concerns, feel free to voice them in the comments below.



Q&A

Q: I care about some things that I worry other players don't, like DRM or EULA changes. Review bombs have been about them in the past. Do you consider them unrelated or off-topic?

A: We had long debates about these two, and others like them. They're technically not a part of the game, but they are an issue for some players. In the end, we've decided to define them as off-topic review bombs. Our reasoning is that the "general" Steam player doesn't care as much about them, so the Review Score is more accurate if it doesn't contain them. In addition, we believe that players who do care about topics like DRM are often willing to dig a little deeper into games before purchasing - which is why we still keep all the reviews within the review bombs. It only takes a minute to dig into those reviews to see if the issue is something you care about.

Q: So if I post a review inside in the period of an off-topic review bomb, my review won't be included in the Review Score?

A: Unfortunately, this is correct. We've tested our process of identifying off-topic review bombs on the entire history of reviews on Steam, and in doing so, we've found that while we can look through reviews and community discussions to determine what's behind the review bomb, it isn't feasible for us to read every single review. But as we mentioned back in our first User Review post, our data shows us that review bombs tend to be temporary distortions, so we believe the Review Score will still be accurate, and other players will still be able to find and read your review within the period.

Q: Are you deleting reviews?

A: No, we are only changing the way we calculate a game's Review Score. All reviews are left untouched, and if you still want to see the raw Review Score, you're welcome to make that change in your Steam Store Preferences.

Q: Does this mean you'll be going back to identify and remove old off-topic review bombs?

A: Based on internal conversations and consultation with some of the partners that have experienced off-topic review bombs, we decided not to unilaterally grandfather in what's happened in the past.

Q: What about when I don't agree with you about what's an "off-topic review bomb?"

A: We'd suggest setting your Steam Reviews default to "Include reviews from all Steam purchases in Review Scores" in under the "Review Score Settings" in your Steam Store Preferences

Q: Reviews are extremely important to me: they're one of the few tools customers have to react to deception or discovering something they've been sold is sub-par. I guess that really wasn't a question, but I just wanted to say that.

A: We agree. We remain in active conversation with you, the community, about what you want from reviews along with the various partners who sell their games on Steam. Reviews are an important part of Steam, which is why we continue to do the work to make sure that they are not being manipulated by anyone. It's the same reason that we decisively ban partners who engage in review manipulation -- customers need to be able to trust the system for it be valuable.

I've wondered why I have been clicking on supposedly "mostly positive" games and seeing a bunch of negative reviews lately.

Finally, we've also enabled you to opt out of this entirely, if that's your preference - there's now a checkbox in your Steam Store options where you can choose to have off-topic review bombs still included in all the Review Scores you see.

lol, 90% of people (myself included) won't know or notice. They are deceptively altering the review score on the main page because they know it affects sales. Especially since reactions to horrible DRM or EULAs are getting so common and devs keep pushing them on us.

 

[LESS T_T]

I've wondered why I have been clicking on supposedly "mostly positive" games and seeing a bunch of negative reviews lately.

What games? I think Borderland games are only ones Valve used this new measure to date? You should see white star (asterisk) marks next to review scores.

 

[Hirato]

Assassin's Creed; Unity has also been getting review bombed lately - but with positive reviews as they're doing a free give away so that "people can experience notre dame in all its splendour".
A nice gesture, but utterly hypocrtical for valve to not also mark these reviews as off topic as well.

It's not like I expected any different

 

[LESS T_T]

Well, FWIW, from the Valve's post above:

First, what do we mean by an off-topic review bomb? As we defined back in our original post, a review bomb is where players post a large number of reviews in a short period of time, aimed at lowering the Review Score of a game. We define an off-topic review bomb as one where the focus of those reviews is on a topic that we consider unrelated to the likelihood that future purchasers will be happy if they buy the game, and hence not something that should be added to the Review Score.

Off-topic, likely, but with this definition, I guess they don't consider that as review "bomb" to begin with.

 

[Irata]

More like raining money. Wonder why they needed Gearbox to publish on PC.

Dunno, but despite enjoying RoR(1) it will keep me from playing it until it doesn't have any connections to Gearbox or it is dirt cheap. Yes, I'm petty like that.

 

[Irata]

Steam Says They're Going To Wipe Bad Review "Bombs" From The Review Score

Does hiding your review still impact the average and the positive/negative score? If so, then people should just put something tame in the text section. Like "I didn't like it." and just hide the review. Sure your "off topic" complaint can't be seen, but it would still lower the score.

 

[Hirato]

Steam Says They're Going To Wipe Bad Review "Bombs" From The Review Score

Does hiding your review still impact the average and the positive/negative score? If so, then people should just put something tame in the text section. Like "I didn't like it." and just hide the review. Sure your "off topic" complaint can't be seen, but it would still lower the score.

other way around - Reviews are still there but all reviews made within that period (positive and negative) don't count to the score.

 

[Black]

So this is old and I missed it, but basically....

Steam Says They're Going To Wipe Bad Review "Bombs" From The Review Score
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1808664240333155775
I've wondered why I have been clicking on supposedly "mostly positive" games and seeing a bunch of negative reviews lately.

lol, 90% of people (myself included) won't know or notice. They are deceptively altering the review score on the main page because they know it affects sales. Especially since reactions to horrible DRM or EULAs are getting so common and devs keep pushing them on us.

Based Valve is going to raise the quality of games that get on Steam through the roof. One way or another.

 

[TheChickenKing]

That's a pretty funny way of improving the quality of games on your store. Not through curation or just not letting people release shitty asset flips. Just gotta bend some review scores.

 

[GrainWetski]

Assassin's Creed; Unity has also been getting review bombed lately - but with positive reviews as they're doing a free give away so that "people can experience notre dame in all its splendour".
A nice gesture, but utterly hypocrtical for valve to not also mark these reviews as off topic as well.

It's not like I expected any different

They never care about positive "review bombs". Consume, consumer, and like everything.

 

[DalekFlay]

lol, 90% of people (myself included) won't know or notice. They are deceptively altering the review score on the main page because they know it affects sales. Especially since reactions to horrible DRM or EULAs are getting so common and devs keep pushing them on us.

Giving something a low score because of DRM or whatever is actually reviewing the product. Those should not be removed, and I don't think we have an example of Valve doing that. With Borderlands 2 or Metro people are complaining about shit that has nothing to do with that particular game, which is they are being and should be removed.