What does the November update Steam for indie developers mean?
Hello! Not so long ago, an update occurred on Steam, which for some reason was not covered in Habré. But if you develop games and call yourself the buzzword of indie , this update will affect you in the most direct way.
What happened?
On November 8, Steam Discovery Update 2.0 was introduced to Steam . The main page has changed the structure, the players have more opportunities to get recommendations and much more has been presented in the update, the news of which has a new url speaking for itself in 2016 . Changed the order of the publication of games. Consider the key changes for indie developers:
All that I have provided in the article are observations based on open sources. You can treat the following facts with any degree of trust.
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Previously, the typical indie-start mechanic of a small title was this: Valve gave some pool of guaranteed hits on a large game banner on the main page (as many as a million). From these shows, the starting audience was recruited, which led (or did not, depending on quality) to the game in the " popular news " section. In popular it is quite possible to hang a week, which determines the main sales of the game.
Now the “main” banner has transformed into a carousel, in which recommendations are posted. Recommendations may be due to popularity, having a game with friends, curators to which you are subscribed, according to tags similar to your favorite games. That is, there are no guaranteed hits. This means that you start your journey in the "new games" directory, and only if there is interest in the game, then there is a chance to get into the "popular news" catalog. The trick is that the “new items” section is replenished so quickly that the games leave the first page in two days.
Fact : you have about a day to get a starting audience from organic. If you fail to get into the popular - the game will sink in the updates for 2-3 days.
Previously, in addition to starting shows, the game could be seen in the banner on the main page during major updates. Judging by the video from the leadership of steam, these were 500k rounds of hits. Now they remain, but, judging by the information from the reddit , one reservation appeared: the game will only be shown to those who have already bought it or added it to the wishlist. That is, now it is a way to bring the audience back into the game or remind people of the wishlist about themselves.
Fact : you will not have organic traffic, except starting.
There are many new sections on the main page - it is just full of lists, recommendations and discounts. And even if your game is shown in one of these lists, you need to understand that there are always dozens of banners next to it.
Fact : The CTR of impressions on the main page has decreased.
The game will not be shown in the lists if there is no localization in the player’s language. Here I have no clear information - in fact, the division of impressions by region was before the update:
But now the game is not shown in the list of new products, if the page of the game is not translated into the player’s language. On the one hand, this is good - you do not need people in western Europe if you have a game in Chinese. But on the other hand, there are a lot of non-English speaking regions where owning English is in the order of things and this audience is lost for playing in English. Note: as correctly indicated in the comments, the choice, of course, goes according to the languages that the player indicated in his profile, and there are several of them.
If after the first points you have already managed to remove the repository with your game and submit your resume to the nearest fast food outlet, do not rush to draw conclusions - not everything is so bad:
Even before the November update, Valv changed the policy of reviews : from people who received the game for free (by key), reviews stopped being taken into account in the overall rating and in general to see them the user needs to try - press some buttons, look at some lists, in general, no one this will not do. There was a story with the publication of a list of games, which after that greatly for the worse changed the rating, with a hint that it was obtained not in a completely honest way.
However, now any review (even for a free game) has a chance to appear in the largest banner on the main page of all the friends of the player who made this review. Good news if you had 300 beta testers and 40 of them wanted to write a good review.
Fact : social interactions in the incentive are what you should pay attention to.
Along with reviews from friends, the latest recommendations from the curators appear on the main trendy banner. Unfortunately, if you look through the list of TOP curators, you will find out that half of them did the last review in September 2014, some of the rest are well-known YouTube, which are quite difficult to reach, the other part reviews only games about Japanese girls (and your game , as luck would have it, about clay homunculi ), but all the rest are open for dialogue!
Fact : offering to write a review to all curators seems like a good idea.
Immediately in several new places, Steam began to show games that suit the user based on the tags of games that he recently played.
Moreover, these are not necessarily new products or sales tops, of course, I don’t know the exact algorithm, but in these blocks you can see games that are old and not very salable, and about which I’ve heard for the first time.
Fact : The sales “tail” should theoretically grow. If previously there was no organic traffic except for release and sales, now targeted traffic can get to the game page for a very long time.
Most likely, it will be seen less slag. A game on the last word of the greenlight with the expectation of selling for 30 rubles for a copy of the organics of the stim, having beaten off a month and a half of development, will become harder to live. The mechanics of “the more players, the more sales” should work harder than before. You can make other conclusions yourself.
Thanks for attention!
What happened?
On November 8, Steam Discovery Update 2.0 was introduced to Steam . The main page has changed the structure, the players have more opportunities to get recommendations and much more has been presented in the update, the news of which has a new url speaking for itself in 2016 . Changed the order of the publication of games. Consider the key changes for indie developers:
All that I have provided in the article are observations based on open sources. You can treat the following facts with any degree of trust.
')
1. Starting shows
Previously, the typical indie-start mechanic of a small title was this: Valve gave some pool of guaranteed hits on a large game banner on the main page (as many as a million). From these shows, the starting audience was recruited, which led (or did not, depending on quality) to the game in the " popular news " section. In popular it is quite possible to hang a week, which determines the main sales of the game.
Now the “main” banner has transformed into a carousel, in which recommendations are posted. Recommendations may be due to popularity, having a game with friends, curators to which you are subscribed, according to tags similar to your favorite games. That is, there are no guaranteed hits. This means that you start your journey in the "new games" directory, and only if there is interest in the game, then there is a chance to get into the "popular news" catalog. The trick is that the “new items” section is replenished so quickly that the games leave the first page in two days.
Fact : you have about a day to get a starting audience from organic. If you fail to get into the popular - the game will sink in the updates for 2-3 days.
2. Rounds of hits at updates
Previously, in addition to starting shows, the game could be seen in the banner on the main page during major updates. Judging by the video from the leadership of steam, these were 500k rounds of hits. Now they remain, but, judging by the information from the reddit , one reservation appeared: the game will only be shown to those who have already bought it or added it to the wishlist. That is, now it is a way to bring the audience back into the game or remind people of the wishlist about themselves.
Fact : you will not have organic traffic, except starting.
3. Homepage
There are many new sections on the main page - it is just full of lists, recommendations and discounts. And even if your game is shown in one of these lists, you need to understand that there are always dozens of banners next to it.
Fact : The CTR of impressions on the main page has decreased.
4. Localization Targeting
The game will not be shown in the lists if there is no localization in the player’s language. Here I have no clear information - in fact, the division of impressions by region was before the update:
But now the game is not shown in the list of new products, if the page of the game is not translated into the player’s language. On the one hand, this is good - you do not need people in western Europe if you have a game in Chinese. But on the other hand, there are a lot of non-English speaking regions where owning English is in the order of things and this audience is lost for playing in English. Note: as correctly indicated in the comments, the choice, of course, goes according to the languages that the player indicated in his profile, and there are several of them.
If after the first points you have already managed to remove the repository with your game and submit your resume to the nearest fast food outlet, do not rush to draw conclusions - not everything is so bad:
5. Reviews
Even before the November update, Valv changed the policy of reviews : from people who received the game for free (by key), reviews stopped being taken into account in the overall rating and in general to see them the user needs to try - press some buttons, look at some lists, in general, no one this will not do. There was a story with the publication of a list of games, which after that greatly for the worse changed the rating, with a hint that it was obtained not in a completely honest way.
However, now any review (even for a free game) has a chance to appear in the largest banner on the main page of all the friends of the player who made this review. Good news if you had 300 beta testers and 40 of them wanted to write a good review.
Fact : social interactions in the incentive are what you should pay attention to.
6. Curators
Along with reviews from friends, the latest recommendations from the curators appear on the main trendy banner. Unfortunately, if you look through the list of TOP curators, you will find out that half of them did the last review in September 2014, some of the rest are well-known YouTube, which are quite difficult to reach, the other part reviews only games about Japanese girls (and your game , as luck would have it, about clay homunculi ), but all the rest are open for dialogue!
Fact : offering to write a review to all curators seems like a good idea.
7. Tags
Immediately in several new places, Steam began to show games that suit the user based on the tags of games that he recently played.
Moreover, these are not necessarily new products or sales tops, of course, I don’t know the exact algorithm, but in these blocks you can see games that are old and not very salable, and about which I’ve heard for the first time.
Fact : The sales “tail” should theoretically grow. If previously there was no organic traffic except for release and sales, now targeted traffic can get to the game page for a very long time.
Summary
Most likely, it will be seen less slag. A game on the last word of the greenlight with the expectation of selling for 30 rubles for a copy of the organics of the stim, having beaten off a month and a half of development, will become harder to live. The mechanics of “the more players, the more sales” should work harder than before. You can make other conclusions yourself.
Thanks for attention!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/316160/
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