Asset flipping and shovelware are a huge problem
Steam Spy has been very useful when it comes to gleaning various Steam trends. Whether it’s concurrent or total users for games or total sales, glancing at public information can help a lot of people out when it comes to market research or more consumer-friendly stuff like “does this game have a community anymore and will I be able to play online?”
One decidedly unsettling number was just released though —7,672 games were released on Steam last year. That’s 21 games per day on average. Valve has been somewhat fighting the shovelware epidemic by curbing Greenlight, but outside of shedding Silicon Echo Studios (which released a series of notorious asset flipped titles) they haven’t put a meaningful amount of effort into the practice.
Ultimately, it all goes back to the bottom line. Much like YouTube or any other content provider, cutting anything, whether it’s for vague morality clause reasons or quality control, impacts their revenue stream. While long term benefits like consumer loyalty and curation do play a factor, companies can really drag their feet when it comes to snipping out large swaths of their marketplaces. Valve, known for its stubbornness, might have a tougher time with this than most.
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