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Discussions Rules and Guidelines
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The goal would be to encourage players to discover lesser-known games, not to manipulate the review system. So instead of tasks like “leave a review,” it makes more sense to focus on non-intrusive exploration tasks, like:
“Play a game from your backlog”
“Try a demo from a new indie release”
“Reach an achievement in a game with under 500 reviews”
The review system should stay untouched by rewards — fully agree with that. Thanks again for pointing it out.
You already have card drops and badge crafting. That is more than enough. Not everyone has a backlog, and there's nothing concete or official to define or determine what that constitutes.
Not all indie games have demos, and not everyone wants their library clogged up with that nonsense.
How many reviews a game has is immaterial to its quality or popularity.
No need to gamify plsying games any further. Your favorite dinky little game is still just a dinky little game and it's not Valve's job to make it more popular.
There's a reason why the sales minievent games were stopped. They were complete nonsense and exploited to hell and back. And that will most certainly happen with your "give me free stuff for playing games." tin cup rattling proposal. Heck even the Perfect World Arc launcher dropped their gamification system which was not unlike your proposal because it ultimately was, and is, a crap system.
The platform is a store. It doesn't need to be made lively in between seasonal sales. Like any other store, products are on sale throughout the year.
Thanks for your opinion, but you're being a bit overdramatic.
1. No one’s suggesting manipulating the review system — the idea is to encourage discovery, not fake popularity.
2. Gamification isn’t inherently bad. You yourself admit that cards and badges are fine — those are gamification too.
3. Just because some systems were abused in the past doesn’t mean better, fairer ones can’t be created. Incentives don’t have to impact reviews or popularity directly.
4. You might call it a “dinky little game,” but for someone else, it could be the heart of the indie scene. Why not give it a chance to shine?
5. Saying “a store should just be a store” is a pretty outdated take. If you can make the experience more engaging without ruining it — that’s a win.
Games aren’t just products; they’re experiences. And players discovering hidden gems doesn’t hurt anyone — unless you’re afraid they’ll like something you didn’t.
You don't have to suggest it for that to be the inevitable outcome when you gamify them. Which is what inevitably happens when you place potential rewards in or around the system.
And where did I say they were fine? I simply said that they exist, without making a personal judgement on them at all.
Anything that has a reward or incentive added will impact whatever they are added to. And it wasn't just some systems. It was all of them. Steam is big enough where anything they attempt to do will be exploited as much as possible by a large number of users. Sometimes the best fight against that is to not implement unneeded and unnecessary features in the first place. And tin cup rattling features is never needed nor necessary.
And there are plenty of opportunities for that to happen without rattling the tin cup and the "give me free stuff for playing a game" features. And most of that is, and should be, up to the devs as part of their job in marketing their game. Simple as.
Nothing outdated about a store being a store. And as I previously mentioned, exploiters tend to ruin a great many things. rattling the tin cup and the "give me free stuff for playing a game" features are unneeded and unnecessary.
Don't care what somebody discovers or likes. I care about unnecessary bloat and unneeded exploitative features. And there are already plenty of ways for people to discover hidden gems without adding exploitative gamification or tin cup rattling give me free stuff rewards to it.
I understand your concerns about potential abuse — it’s a real issue. But if we reject new ideas out of fear of exploitation, we’ll never see anything new or useful. Gamification can be designed thoughtfully so it doesn’t affect review quality or fairness.
Promoting indie games isn’t just the developers’ marketing job — it’s also part of the platform’s role to help players discover interesting titles. Steam is no longer just a store — it’s a large gaming ecosystem where there’s room for both convenience and fun.
Rejecting improvements out of fear means missing out on opportunities.
Yes, it ultimately is just the developer's marketing job. Doesn't matter what size the platform is, marketing a game is not it's job nor role, outside of what is included in marketing the platform itself.
But thankfully, Valve has already gone above and beyond, by supporting things like Next Fest, Strategy Fest, Sim Fest, VN Fest, et al., along with things like the Discovery Que. So there it is bub, with no bribes other than sales prices necessary.
Not every opportunity is a good opportunity, or a necessary opportunity. "Give me free stuff for doing something" rarely has payoffs that offset the problems that come along with them.