Game Saturation

[applemusician]

While I'm all for the development of new titles by both independent and AAA studios, I can't help but feel that recently the game market has been flooded with countless games that has over saturated the market as a whole. Steam is still the main platform I use to buy and play PC games, but lately it seems like there's just too much out there to comprehend.

What do you do to sift through it all to find the hidden gems? I have a bit of a backlog of games so I won't be buying anymore soon, but even if I were, I don't know how I could possibly find something amidst all the other thousands of games being published.

 

[Alundra]

I guess it depends what you're into. I wouldn't say it's saturated with games per se, it's saturated with little crappy games as opposed to RPG or story/strategy type games that's true (games with substance)...but you have to learn how to filter your results to find the gems.

Some tips:
1. Check the featured list. Usually these are picked because they're popular or different in some way. Sometimes because of payments/affiliations/sponsorships but it's usually worth the risk.
2. Filter the results to look for highest rated by people who have played them. If you can filter it by day, week, month, check those out too!
3. Read the reviews. Often if the game is high rated but rather awful the reviews will let you know what you're in for.
4. Know your favourite developer companies. For example, when it comes to mobile games I am madly in love with Kairosoft and I frequently check their profile and website to learn if there are new releases. You should do the same, even set up email alerts or join their mailing list.
5. Talk to people who like games or use websites/yahoo answers to find games similar to the ones you already like. For example, I love the game Alundra. By knowing this I can discover that I might also love Zelda, and then I might find I also like Neverwinter Nights, and so on so forth.

As for Steam, if you haven't tried From Dust yet, give that a go. It was featured not long ago and it's absolutely fabulous. I've played through it a couple of times now.

 

[Aladar]

Steam is giving away the illusion of the market being oversaturated, because they stopped courating games and let everything on nowadays. So every publisher just dumps all the trash they have rights to there in hopes of a wuick buck - most of those games are really old, though. Also, the lack of couration lets all kinds of dumb troll games thru.

 

[AFKATafcar]

Just because you have a backlog of games doesn't mean the industry is oversaturated by any means. There might seem like a lot more games available than in years past but only because Steam lets a lot of games onto the platform. There are hundreds of games that are available and not on Steam, though. Plus, Indie developers have always been around but with less visibility to mainstream gamers.

 

[jayres]

The Steam greenlight platform is really good for promoting indie developers' work. I would definitely go and have a look. It is hit and miss. Indie developers do release some interesting stuff often with new mechanics that you won't find anywhere else. It does mean that a lot of the content is mediocre but if you can sift through the average games there are some gems to be found.