openmic.social is an uncensored community. You may encounter strong language, controversial opinions, and mature or NSFW material. You must be 18+ to browse. Illegal content is prohibited and removed on sight — please report it. By continuing, you accept that you may see content you personally disagree with.
The reality is they want you to find those other games to maximize profit, which is where all of their work into recommendation engines and personalized release calendars has gone. But it’s not going to convince millions of people who want to play NBA 2K that they should buy the latest indie game instead.
And yet every time a Triple A title drops it gets a custom banner on the store page and a guaranteed panel on the recommendation window, even when those indie titles have outsold them in the past without preferential treatment.
Networking is always important. And those AAA studios probably have dedicated lines of support to Valve that can open up such deals way more easily than an indie trying to email support.
Valve also does try to highlight some successful indies, but that’s a small slice of indie pie. While every other AAA studio is that direct line gained from events, existing networks reaching out, etc.
Yes, I’m aware that what Valve does maximises profit, but it’s a trade-off with quality as we’ve seen the larger studios are more likely to be cashgrabs than even some asset flips.
I don’t think we disagree. I’m just talking about how the sausage is made. Squeaky wheels get the grease.
Someone is probably far more likely to pick up a game like that that they just didn’t know was out rather than one they’ve never heard of before. If they could pull that trick on any game, they probably wouldn’t let a day go by without a banner, like today.