Valve emailed in today to let us know about the new Steam Labs, a dedicated section on Steam for Valve to show off some experiments they're doing and for you to test and break them.
Behind the scenes at Steam, we create many experimental features with codenames like The Peabody Recommender and Organize Your Steam Library Using Morse Code. For the first time, we're giving these works-in-progress a home called Steam Labs, where you can interact with them, tell us whether you think they're worth pursuing further, and if so, share your thoughts on how they should evolve.
The first three experiments Valve are showing off to the public are up now, which are:
- Micro Trailers - A six second trailer for each game
- Interactive Recommender - A "machine learning" recommendation system to suggest games you might like
- Automatic Show - A daily auto-generated video to show off popular games
All interesting ideas and I do appreciate Valve being a lot more open in the past year or two. This new recommendation stuff is interesting, since the last time they tweaked their algorithm some indie developers were hit hard by it (I see complaints on Twitter daily), so this time they're doing it entirely separate to get it right and co-exist with existing features.
Valve did say this new recommendation system cannot suggest new games that don't have players yet, since there's no data on it. However, once it has a few days of data it can. This time around, the recommendation system is based on what you play and seem to enjoy, rather than what developers can do on Steam like tags, reviews and so on.
See more on Steam Labs. You can give them feedback on it here.
Do let us know what you think in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: orochi_kyoThat is not my opinion, but a fact.Quoting: TheSHEEEPYou can't showcase a game in six seconds - or if you can, you have a super simplistic game on your hand.
That is pretty much your opinion, I can tell with this six second trailers when a game is not for me. It is up to devs to make the right video.
Six seconds is not enough to explain fundamental mechanics of even simpler strategy games like Civilization, for example. What can you show there? A unit moving a tile, the purchase of a building, a glimpse of the tech tree, a camera movement over the map. That's about it, it has to be slow enough that people can still grasp what they are looking at.
That will tell you a tiny bit about the game, in some cases enough to tell you "this isn't for me", in others enough to pique interest.
But it also opens the door to not showcasing a part that someone might have liked, cause you just can't fit everything in there. And that person would then - based on those six seconds - decide to not give a further look.
This technique will lead to a large number of "false negatives". The question isn't if that will happen or not. It will, because it must. You couldn't fully explain a movie in a vine, either, and games are often way more complex than movies.
The question is if that number will be bigger or smaller than false negatives based on just the title screen. And that... no idea. Couldn't tell if this is better or worse for developers. I think it might be better for more action-oriented games, while it might be useless or bad for more cerebral ones.
But that wasn't my point, anyway. I was merely stating that it is impossible to fully showcase a game in six seconds. If that was possible, trailers wouldn't be minutes long.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 12 July 2019 at 6:06 pm UTC
Quoting: TheSHEEEPSix seconds is not enough to explain fundamental mechanics of even simpler strategy games like Civilization, for example. What can you show there? A unit moving a tile, the purchase of a building, a glimpse of the tech tree, a camera movement over the map. That's about it, it has to be slow enough that people can still grasp what they are looking at.
That will tell you a tiny bit about the game, in some cases enough to tell you "this isn't for me", in others enough to pique interest.
But it also opens the door to not showcasing a part that someone might have liked, cause you just can't fit everything in there. And that person would then - based on those six seconds - decide to not give a further look.
It should not explain mechanics. It is not a tutorial.
But you can see that it is a tile-based game, with large world maps, city management, a complex tech tree, historical theme. Probably enough to see that it is a 1 unit per tile, turn-based, "I go you go" style of game. Enough to differentiate it from a tactical RPG with instanced combat in a small map, or a fast-paced real-time game with many units moving in coordination, or a province-based operational level wargame, or a "we go" style of game where you plan your movements and then execute, or a card based strategy game... You can get a good idea of scope, complexity, and of course theme and art style.
Obviously, it is not enough for a purchase decision. But for a quick look and first filter, it is useful - and then you can click on it and see the longer videos, more images, the list of features and developer description and so on.
Personally, a quick glance at the trailers for the "Builder" category allows me to distinguish games with more of a "first person survival game" vibe from those that look more like tower defense from the more management-like games and so on... and that is taking games that are already pre-selected and presumably somewhat similar. For a more general list - the new releases or the discovery queue, for example - it could make a lot of difference.
ProfessorKaos64 Jul 16, 2019
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