>>> An excellent game is, practically by definition, a game that people would recommend. And the Steam algorithm does a pretty good job of snowballing success. My favorite example here is Kenshi. [1]

Steam early access launched with only 12 games in 2013 and Kenshi was one of them! This is not evidence of the algorithm working, it's evidence of Valve employees personally going out of their way to try to sell this game to you!