Scale matters.
Steam has less than 4000 games total.
The App store has 1400 applications every day.
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-reaches-100-million-u... http://www.pocketgamer.biz/metrics/app-store/
This is the first time I have heard Steam described as a positive example in curation in a long time. They're terrible at it. And as others have pointed out here, they have a MUCH simpler curation problem than Apple or Google have to face. I think even Windows Phone or Blackberry have a bigger app curation problem than Steam has an app curation problem. And Valve's response to this is that they want to move to a model of even LESS curation, because running the disaster pit that's Steam Greenlight is too uncomfortable for them.
If they wanted to move towards less curation, then it seems counter to them creating tags, "recommended for you" games, steam curators, discovery queue, or their two new customizable curation panes on their homepage, and more, all in the past year.
Steam is very visibly and actively trying to improve curation, and despite being very poor at it previously, they have very much improved rather quickly.
The entire point of tags and Steam curators is that Valve doesn't do the work, "the community" does. They're not trying to improve THEIR curation, they're trying to give users the tools to do it themselves.
Actually discovery on Google Play is getting a lot better. I get recommendations based on what friends have reviewed all the time. Most of the interesting apps I find and install are because someone I know on G+ installed it and +'d it or rated it.
Re:Fear of Apple
by Alphasite_ on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @05:51PM
(#9259754)
Honestly steam as much a social network as a games platform at this point and that's what gives them the data, and we've see. How Apple and googles multiple attempts at social platforms have panned out.
I barely use Steam as a social platform, and still I have a thousand times better experience when it comes to discoverability. I understand what you're saying — people spend more time using Steam than they do the app stores (and they also have access to social graphs and what-not, although you could argue Apple & Google have this as well via messages).
I would argue that point is kind of moot, since many of the ways I discover games on Steam would work without any friends or a social graph.
The sales (holiday, weekly and daily), curators, user tags etc, etc. They would all still work.
They just don't care.
Re:Fear of Apple
by olivier1664 on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @07:53PM
(#9260409)
Don't forget the steam queue. It use prediction to show games that correspond to your taste. It's not very accurate, but it allow to show new games on each iteration. You do not waste your time on the always same top 100 games. It allow to discover some strange or underated titles .
I bet the average Steam user also spends orders of magnitude more than the average Android/Apple user as well.
I'm not sure what exactly that would suggest if true, but I think it would be interesting.
Re:Fear of Apple
by debaserab2 on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @09:18PM
(#9260706)
Really? I find steams suggestions to be about on par with the App Store: it tends to highlight whatever bid budget game is upcoming and never seems particularly relevant to me.
Oh please.
They just don't care.
Take Steam for instance, I have a thousand times better experience finding new games on there than I have on any mobile app store. I get recommendations from my friends, according to what Steam thinks I would enjoy playing, and they even have curators for apps so people whose reviews I can enjoy can list games with a short review. And those are just a few ways of discovering new games, there are a ton of others.
Neither Apple nor Google are even trying. That's the problem. They don't give a shit.
Valve barely gives a shit about improving Steam — since it'll print more money than they can ever spend regardless — and still they've surpassed both Google and Apple.