15-Oct-24: Algorithmic Recommendations and Going Ons

Steam Next Fest is going on as I write this. Personally, I've always enjoyed Next Fest for bringing demos back to wider recognition, and there are some pretty good ones in the mix -- Beastieball, Citizen Sleeper 2, The Rise of the Golden Idol, Wilmot Works It Out. Whether I'll actually pick them up, or if they'll actually release remains to be seen. New to the Next Fest is some weird stream-player-thing which constantly loads up a new trailer that they think you'd enjoy, and... yeah, I haven't seen one I'm interested in yet from that.

There is, perhaps, a lot to say about the indie gaming sphere, especially on Steam. There's a lot of business simulator games using the same boilerplate Unity kit, as well as AI art for their steam art and banners, which, eugh. Also a bunch of horror and sandbox games which I've never really been interested in, but there's definitely a wider interest about them.

But 'there's too much stuff' has long been a problem, which always had the same solution of 'find recommendations from friends and people you trust.' Hell, just gave three of them myself, found Beastieball and Citizen Sleeper 2 from friend recommendations. Word of mouth kind of remains the best method of spreading your game, which leads into my main thought -- were algorithmic recommendations ever actually good?

Even on Steam, I notice the discovery queue tends to just recommend stuff because it's 'popular'. Which includes whatever the next annual sports franchise release or FPS game or racing game, none of which I've shown any interest whatsoever. But at least on Steam, it's trying to sell you a game, it's trying to find what you'd be interested in. Social media algorithms don't actually care about that, engagement is engagement whether good or bad. But somehow I actually have managed to cultivate my 'For You' feed on Twitter to be largely art, even if it needed 22k blocked Twitter Blue users to reach that point. Personalized feeds are shut off for my Youtube and with my channel blocker extension has left the recommendations stale.

It does feel like there should be something. Sometimes you and a friend's taste just don't meet up, and finding proper recommendations for new media is rough. There was Artist Alley for Cohost, that was a good idea for it but once again, sometimes it just doesn't meld! By all accounts I should be the idealized person to advertise for, I'm actively looking for new stuff! Might just be that I'm burnt out on it all after who-knows-how many years of exposure. Maybe advertising has always been a sham.

Aside from that, been working on a visual novel for the Yuri VN Jam. It's uh, been rough. Once again I should have planned a bit more in advance, but even with that I feel like it would have been rough goings on anyways. Writing's always felt like pushing against a brick wall for me. Everyone always says coming up with ideas is the easiest part but it is just ughhhhhh for me, connecting things together and making it work, which drains my ability to do art and it's a mess. Hoping this all turns out well, though! Still a month and a half to go.