It appears that Valve's regular event with Steam Next Fest has done a whole lot of good for developers, with plenty more wishlists and sales happening.
What is Steam Next Fest? Originally starting in the summer of 2020, it's pretty much free marketing for developers. Teams can put up a limited time demo and run livestreams and talks about their games. Nowadays we see Valve talk a lot more about behind the scenes info, and recently they published an update going over some details of the 2020 Steam Next Fest event.
From what Valve said developers saw a 421% jump in daily wishlists for about half of the participating games, around 45% saw a smaller increase and only 5% actually saw a decrease. What's also interesting is that Valve say the rate of wishlisting continued to be higher for the "majority" of the games involved once Steam Next Fest ended with the median game seeing about 15% higher daily wishlisting.
How about sales though? For games that actually released since the event, the median was about a 292% increase in wishlists converted to sales when "compared to converting wishlist additions made in the two weeks leading to Next Fest".
Good news all around then it appears, with Valve noting they "continued to see strong player interest" for later events with "the median number of wishlist additions has increased in the 2021 editions of the fest".
For developers who wish to be involved in the October 2021 edition of Steam Next Fest, they have until August 15 to submit their content to Valve.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Whilst I like this as this is how PC gaming was you either had a playable demo or a shareware disc. It's something I d love to see return given how cheap USB drives are especially in bulk a shareware return would be welcomedThe amount of electronic waste would be dizzying.
That's how it all used to work back in the magazine days of old.
I miss those days! Amiga magazines were amazing, often offering two discs of games, software programs, utilities & Demo scene stuff.
id even be happy if valve rolled out a cloud streaming service just for the purpose of Demoing games with a 2hr limit (to alleviate bandwidth concerns on both ends).. Although, when you download them at least you can see if they work on your system specs / platform so there is that and maybe with anti-cheat in the works for proton that's not so much of a concern anymore.
but yea long live the Amiga.
The amount of electronic waste would be dizzying.
Certainly most things in our throw away society could be described as such, where do you draw the line ? How much waste realistically is a tiny microSD card (fractions of plastic and sand) connected into a SD card reader to PC vs running vast town sized data centers for downloading and the associated electricity costs. Not to mention, not everyone would use this option probably a minority. So im not sure how much more wasteful if you did a cost analysis on it considering if you had a big enough microSD it could double as storage for your steamdeck.
Are people to stop owning things altogether? why can't you recycle the SD card and use it for other things.
It's not all that surprising really. Games that get a little more exposure, and actually let people play a demo to see how it is are more likely to be bought. That's how it all used to work back in the magazine days of old.
During the festival I might give even bit less interesting game ago. There's still so many Linux natives though, that I have to usually skip few.
My wishlist is so full though, that I might not actually end up buying all the interesting ones. I just don't have time to play everything.
furaxhornyx Aug 10, 2021
The amount of electronic waste would be dizzying.
Certainly most things in our throw away society could be described as such, where do you draw the line ? How much waste realistically is a tiny microSD card (fractions of plastic and sand) connected into a SD card reader to PC vs running vast town sized data centers for downloading and the associated electricity costs. Not to mention, not everyone would use this option probably a minority. So im not sure how much more wasteful if you did a cost analysis on it considering if you had a big enough microSD it could double as storage for your steamdeck.
Are people to stop owning things altogether? why can't you recycle the SD card and use it for other things.
There is more to this: if magazines come with a small SD card, what would prevent someone to just open the plastic, and get away with the SD card (this already happened at the time of discs, unfortunately) ? What would prevent damaging the SD card during transport ?
Packaging is usually a compromise between protection (transport, storage,...), preventing stealing, and wasted materials.
Shipping CD at the time was kind of useful, since a lot of people did not have a (good enough) internet connection to download the contents, but nowadays, it would not be so useful, hence mostly a waste.
Also, the trend shifted from demo versions readily available / shareware versions, to no demo / "early access". I am personally glad that demos are a thing again (especially now to check compatibility with proton).
Why it's not like they would do a run of millions, given they could easily just release the shareware on Steam itch etc but I would still like a physical return of media. Yes I know it's more expensive yes I know it's environmentally not sound but doesn't mean I wouldnt love it. It won't happen though for many reasonsWhilst I like this as this is how PC gaming was you either had a playable demo or a shareware disc. It's something I d love to see return given how cheap USB drives are especially in bulk a shareware return would be welcomedThe amount of electronic waste would be dizzying.
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