MrGabr

Any two party system is the mathematically-inevitable result of first-past-the-post voting, nothing more or less.

I'm not saying it isn't insanely hard (actually I mentioned that fact twice), I'm just trying to point out that Steam gives developers more tools for visibility than any storefront that exists, with most storefronts giving no tools whatsoever. Any game with no marketing budget selling enough to support a multiple-person development team, when they have to compete directly with AAA games, is impressive for both the developer and the platform.

If you want to advocate for improvements and change, you can't just ignore the positive things that already exist.

~Also you clearly didn't read the page about the update visibility rounds, because those have nothing to do with popularity and are completely randomized regarding who among the recently-updated games gets a spot on the front page. In fact, your game gets rotated off that spot once you've gotten 1 million impressions.~

1. Blatantly untrue, as update visibility rounds are one of several marketing tools Steam gives you that can put your game on the front page for free, regardless of popularity.

2. Kitfox Games has published a guide (one among many you can find on the internet) on how to successfully market a game with no advertising budget. While their existing audience definitely helped, and as they mention, it takes a significant amount of time and effort, they do not spend actual money on sponsorships or advertising. This would not be a viable strategy on any other storefront, save maybe Epic, though Epic still gives fewer tools than Steam.

Steam has been coasting on the fact that everyone shoots themselves in the foot, sure, but you should look into the unparalleled level of "free" (30% cut) marketing support Steam gives to developers. On no other platform could developers end up with the visibility they achieve on Steam with nothing more than very strategic timing and good social media presence. It's still insanely hard, but the fact that it's even possible to compete with zero marketing budget against AAA companies speaks volumes.

It is a little insane how many games release on any given day. On July 15, 2025, 150 "titles" (of which 78 are actual games, not demos or DLC) were added to the Steam store. I would guess that their data includes all titles, but even just 78 real games on what should be a slower-than-average random Tuesday could totally contribute to 34,000 games released in a year.

I see lots of discussion about the solution / what used to be done, but I want to point out why unofficial servers stopped being easy/standard/possible to run.

The first time big money entered esports was on private Starcraft LAN tournaments. Blizzard sued to get a cut of the proceeds, but because the privately-owned software (game and server) was running on privately-owned hardware, the courts ruled that Blizzard got no money.

AAA companies learned from this that allowing the playerbase to run their own servers meant losing out on money, so most AAA multiplayer games with even a small chance of ending up as esports make it so they can only connect to servers operated by themselves, longevity of the game be damned. If they weren't so desparate for every scrap of cash they could possibly generate from the game, I would bet most multiplayer game would still let you run your own servers, like they used to.

Graphics are, like it or not, the main thing the majority of people look for first when they go to buy a game, and raytracing is a ridiculously easy way to achieve that in comparison to the time and skill required to elevate traditional lighting to that same level of beauty. PS5 and XSX both support raytracing, and PC graphics cards that don't are coming up on 10 years old at this point.

Any AAA developer is going to see those two facts, that it's way cheaper and runs on most of the market's hardware, and abandon development work on traditional lighting. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is RT-only, and it was a huge success.

DLSS is in a similar boat - it reduces the need to spend time and money on optimization.

Now, let me be clear, I lament both of these facts. I think raytracing looks gorgeous, and DLSS is usually a nice performance boost for minimal tradeoff, but I don't think every game should look photorealistic, and some games just don't look good with DLSS on. What I'm saying is they both make game development cheaper and faster for very little relative downside, so I wouldnt be surprised if all AAA games required raytracing within the next few years.

It seems that several employees of Nexon left and recreated a game that Nexon had been working on, down to buying the same Unreal assets. I saw somewhere (but I have no source so this might be inaccurate) that as part of the legal proceedings, the Dark and Darker team were ordered to provide documentation about the early stages of creating the game as proof of originality, and they had nothing to show.

I disagree with many of his views, but I definitely wouldn't call him right-wing. He seems to me more like a libertarian from before "don't tread on me" actually meant "please tread on me." Hell, he's said the CEO of Nestle should be shot.

The trick is to throw yourself at the ground and miss

Only for chicken, for salmonella reasons, and steak, because I'm terrible at judging doneness without it.

Here, though there isn't anything super concrete.