Einhanderc7
Vat dipped, grown and still oozing with perfection
Hello everyone,
Today in light of how the Steam market place is exploding (again) with anger about Fallout 4 I figured I would point out some details about how serious game developers take the average Steam user.
Now I'm sure everyone is thinking, how could 1 single person cause such a ruckus?
Well that is actually a non issue for most game developers. Every game no matter how well made will have a dissenting opinion. However when groups of Steam users begin applying pressure to the dev in the market place things take on a whole life of their own.
For example the Paid mods fiasco that Valve and Bethesda tried a while back. In this case Steam immediately back peddled to squash the damage it was having on the entire market place. Yes the entire market place, what happened in this case was that Steam users were so upset that Valve actually saw a massive boost to activity followed by a sudden drop in numbers. This is numbers across the board for steam use.
Typically a massive spike in usage is good, but if you know how to gauge your demographics, you would know that sudden spikes of this kind only happen when there is something seriously wrong. Not even during a hype train does anyone obtain data on a sudden spike as it is gradual and more long term.
Valve is exceptionally good at reading the numbers, and as I'm sure most of you know has the assets available to actually comb through it all and make reasonable determinations based on the information. They can track who owns a product and who doesn't, as well when a product purchaser revisits steam to leave a review.
Now this is a rather extreme example, however there is another situation that game developers fear (even me). That is the sudden and slow decline of a IP where the Steam community begins to attack and then ignore a product all together. Attention no matter the kind is good, but when the Steam marketplace users begin to completely ignore a product something magical happens.
The game is bumped down in popularity, doesn't show up as often or at all in the marketplace main pages, and will eventually wind up in what I like to call the "all sorts" area of the market place where shovel ware, and other oddities exist. No one comes back from this aether of Steam, most actually get taken down by steam when they sit there long enough.
Curious on how to find these games? Search for games that are seriously disliked. Most are so disliked that they can be fairly difficult to find, and will often be very cheap. These games typically have an inordinate amount of negative Steam reviews.
What to crush a AAA game developer, use Steam. Because Steam can hit them right where it hurts, in their wallets.
Today in light of how the Steam market place is exploding (again) with anger about Fallout 4 I figured I would point out some details about how serious game developers take the average Steam user.
Now I'm sure everyone is thinking, how could 1 single person cause such a ruckus?
Well that is actually a non issue for most game developers. Every game no matter how well made will have a dissenting opinion. However when groups of Steam users begin applying pressure to the dev in the market place things take on a whole life of their own.
For example the Paid mods fiasco that Valve and Bethesda tried a while back. In this case Steam immediately back peddled to squash the damage it was having on the entire market place. Yes the entire market place, what happened in this case was that Steam users were so upset that Valve actually saw a massive boost to activity followed by a sudden drop in numbers. This is numbers across the board for steam use.
Typically a massive spike in usage is good, but if you know how to gauge your demographics, you would know that sudden spikes of this kind only happen when there is something seriously wrong. Not even during a hype train does anyone obtain data on a sudden spike as it is gradual and more long term.
Valve is exceptionally good at reading the numbers, and as I'm sure most of you know has the assets available to actually comb through it all and make reasonable determinations based on the information. They can track who owns a product and who doesn't, as well when a product purchaser revisits steam to leave a review.
Now this is a rather extreme example, however there is another situation that game developers fear (even me). That is the sudden and slow decline of a IP where the Steam community begins to attack and then ignore a product all together. Attention no matter the kind is good, but when the Steam marketplace users begin to completely ignore a product something magical happens.
The game is bumped down in popularity, doesn't show up as often or at all in the marketplace main pages, and will eventually wind up in what I like to call the "all sorts" area of the market place where shovel ware, and other oddities exist. No one comes back from this aether of Steam, most actually get taken down by steam when they sit there long enough.
Curious on how to find these games? Search for games that are seriously disliked. Most are so disliked that they can be fairly difficult to find, and will often be very cheap. These games typically have an inordinate amount of negative Steam reviews.
What to crush a AAA game developer, use Steam. Because Steam can hit them right where it hurts, in their wallets.
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