Are There Too Many Games Available?

[neogunhero]

Do we have an over abundance of games to choose from on sale? Does that have a negative impact on how we consume video games? Does it have implications for the wider gaming audience?

There are nearly infinite possibilities when it comes to choosing a game you want to play. Do you want to go on an epic single player adventure? Shoot aliens and defend your spaceship? Roleplay as a thief and hide in shadows as you lurk on your unsuspecting prey? Build a metropolis starting with nothing but a single road? Save the princess and destroy the world’s evils? Solve a puzzle that requires you to think outside of the box? Race against players across the whole world in the latest sports cars?

Or what if you just played Fortnite because all your friends are playing it?

I feel this is the thought process for a lot of gamers when they are presented with almost unlimited choice. Storefronts putting the top sellers and big banner ads on their homepage also helps influence someone to potentially buy something that is more popular and overlook the less popular games.

A game can be good but not popular by any means, and that is due to so many factors that may be completely out of the control of the developer/publisher. Of course they can spend money on marketing and more, but I think these days without marketing or lots of word of mouth, a games success comes down to blind luck.

So, do you think it’s a problem that we have too many games? A problem for those who play or those who make? Is this something that we should just be grateful to have? Or do you see this issue growing larger as the years go by and more and more games become available?

 

[ZedClampet]

Big hit games are selling more than ever. But there is a game level of hell that thousands of games exist in, and it is harder and harder to get out of that and get seen.

However, it isn't nearly as bad as it could be. Those 100 hobbyist games released every day? No one sees them but me and other gamers like me. Now if we Steam explorers find a gem, we buy it and play it and review it, and then suddenly it starts showing up for other people. But in the meantime, as you said, it's the big indies and AAAs that show up on the front page of Steam, and that's the way it should be. Those games have the most to lose.

But this isn't good enough to support the real indie devs. The next level up from the far reaches of niche is the "most popular" lists which initially are related to wishlists. Unfortunately for the devs, this list is too big, and it's a relentless onslaught every day.

As for gamers, it takes a wildly creative act of contortion to determine that more games is bad for gamers. If you don't take the time to learn how to use Steam and find the games that would be fun to you, then it's your fault. I have no problem finding games in my genres of choice. Most of the time I play different games than anyone else on this site. For instance, in your list of types of games, you only hit one of my list of types of games that I like, and I don't want gaming to go back to the way it was and only have a few genres and be at the mercy of large AAA companies.

 

[February's Ghost]

Yes, there are too many games. I think it's a good thing, but I also hate it because there might be some game out there I will enjoy more than any other game I've played and I might never come across it.

 

[Frindis]

Not really. My nephews mainly play newer games, and they wouldn't even know about some of the older ones if I didn’t tell them. It’s just us who get older who feel there is too much to choose from and for good reasons.

Hmmm, come to think of it, one of my nephews did say he would not play Kingdom Come Deliverance (even if I said it was awesome!) because he just did not have the time to juggle between games and real life.

 

[Pifanjr]

The large variety of games available to me nowadays has definitely changed the way I approach gaming. I started gaming from a very young age, so for a long time I had no choice in which games I had available to play. I had very few options and had to make my own fun in them. Even when I started being able to buy my own games, my budget was limited and I didn't have access to reviews yet, so I relied on word of mouth, box art and a healthy dose of luck to select my games.

Nowadays there is a virtually endless amount of games available to me, so I find that I am far less likely to just enjoy a game for what it has. I have far less time to game as well, so if something doesn't grab me I just drop it and move onto the next game. I also experience more pressure to finish a game so I can move onto the next thing, whereas as a kid if I finished a game quickly it meant I had to replay something else, because there was nothing new yet.

I'm not saying it used to be better though, both situations have their upsides and downsides.

 

[Colif]

I would prefer too much to not enough. We aren't all the same, we don't all want the same things. So more choice means that the truly picky among us might find something to play.
I don't bother browsing store fronts for games any more. 30 years ago, maybe. But since internet exists, nope. I normally only go to one when I know what i want. Impulse buying is dangerous
I am more likely to window shop on headphones websites when I know i can't afford any.
If all the genres you play are dying, choice is good.

 

[Rataplan]

The search function on steam isn´t good enough. I have no idea how to make it better but since there are so many games on steam i think they should find a way to improve the search function.

 

[Alm]

I do find that having so many games puts me off choosing one to play.

 

[JCgames]

Nope not too many because apparently if I find just one or two games a year that I really like I'm doing well.

I don't think I ever played a game that had 100k people playing. Typically it's under 1k, so what the masses like doesn't really mean much.

The only sad part is it never fails that games I do like are always trolled by people that say the game should never have been made and actually try to discourage people from playing them. No clue why that is

 

[Johnway]

Yes.

You just have to look at all the live service games and how many hero shooters slowly making its way or the BR style games. its happened since the start. when someone comes up with a winning idea the market gets flooded. Another good example was the rhythm games and once they milked that they moved onto the next fad.

Thats also on top of the standard genre games, my backlog would suggest that yes there are more or too many games to play. Thats not exactly a bad thing from a gamers perspective, it shows that there is a healthy market and opportunity, but for businesses? Well, thats a different story. its tough for AAA as they try to out do each other or they just grow stagnate and not daring to release new franchises or ideas.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I think theres good and bad to it. When games came in boxes from the shop I used to replay stuff a lot more than now, but if there werent so many games coming out and I couldnt find them digitally I probably wouldnt have enjoyed quite a lot of good stuff over the last 15 years or whatever since I went full Steam.

It does make it difficult to find stuff, but also theres more stuff to find.

 

[neogunhero]

However, it isn't nearly as bad as it could be. Those 100 hobbyist games released every day? No one sees them but me and other gamers like me. Now if we Steam explorers find a gem, we buy it and play it and review it, and then suddenly it starts showing up for other people. But in the meantime, as you said, it's the big indies and AAAs that show up on the front page of Steam, and that's the way it should be. Those games have the most to lose.

But this isn't good enough to support the real indie devs. The next level up from the far reaches of niche is the "most popular" lists which initially are related to wishlists. Unfortunately for the devs, this list is too big, and it's a relentless onslaught every day.

It's a rat race to get your game in the public eye even just a little bit. There are so many ways and methods for people to hear about games; new sites, social media, storefronts, word of mouth... devs really need to lean into all the tools they have at their disposal in order to break through the cacophony. Having a game that truly stands out on its own helps too, but sometimes that could just be set dressing. A game could have an amazing art style or unbelievable graphics, but if the gameplay isn't good enough to back that up, people will move on.

As for gamers, it takes a wildly creative act of contortion to determine that more games is bad for gamers. If you don't take the time to learn how to use Steam and find the games that would be fun to you, then it's your fault.

I halfway agree with this point. There are tons of tools and functions one could use to search for games, but in a lot of cases, people just simply don't have the time to use them all to finetune their searches. Take a quick glance at the top sellers, see your friends playing the same game, happen to see something on social media... I feel a lot of people fall in this routine for discovering games rather than actually taking the time to search themselves, and perhaps it just comes down to not having enough time but wanting to play some games.

Nowadays there is a virtually endless amount of games available to me, so I find that I am far less likely to just enjoy a game for what it has. I have far less time to game as well, so if something doesn't grab me I just drop it and move onto the next game.

This is increasingly become too familiar to me. I don't mind spending time looking for a game I would really enjoy, but when it comes to actually playing something, it needs to immediately grab me or leave me wanting more for me to continue. First impressions are a big deal to me, I don't want to have to stick with a games' boring 3-hour long intro act just to eventually get to the good part. That could be due to a variety of reasons, whether it's me just genuinely not having as much time as I'd like, or social media and the internet has just shattered my attention span. Perhaps a mix of both.

I would prefer too much to not enough. We aren't all the same, we don't all want the same things. So more choice means that the truly picky among us might find something to play.

The abundance of choice has also allowed more developers to try ideas that would have traditionally been classified as too risky or too niche. Instead of chasing industry trends, we now have some truly absurd, bizarre, yet unique games, and I absolutely love that. Even if those kinds of games aren't for me, I am happy that they exist.

The search function on steam isn´t good enough. I have no idea how to make it better but since there are so many games on steam i think they should find a way to improve the search function.

My method is to click the search spyglass button when the search box is blank. It takes you straight to the "search page", with lots of filters on the side to choose from. Typically, I check "Hide Games I Own", make sure to check "Games" or else you'll see DLC and bundles mixed in the search, and use some tags if you are looking for a specific genre. It's like an advanced search tool for Steam that lets you find stuff you normally wouldn't see on the main store pages, very useful.

I do find that having so many games puts me off choosing one to play.

This is definitely an issue I have as well. Buying so many Humble Bundles and keeping that Choice subscription active for so long has made my Steam library count skyrocket to about 1,300 games. Steam gives lots of great tools to filter out your library, but I still struggle finding something that will stick with me that I already own. My brain tends to want to look at the games I don't own yet before looking at the ones I do own.

 

[isleepinabed]

For me this isn't a problem currently because I don't find an abundance of new games worth playing.
On the other hand I am preoccupied about games that cease to be available, be it because they were taken down, the hardware is not available, etc.
I would actually welcome more republishing of old games or a sort of universal platform that had everything.

For instance, last year I "discovered" text adventures. This opened hundreds or thousands of games (some more clearly interactive fiction than games themselves) to try. Obviously I am not interested in trying them all. But I was disappointed that some of the more better ones are not easily available to try anymore.

 

[ZedClampet]

I halfway agree with this point. There are tons of tools and functions one could use to search for games, but in a lot of cases, people just simply don't have the time to use them all to finetune their searches. Take a quick glance at the top sellers, see your friends playing the same game, happen to see something on social media... I feel a lot of people fall in this routine for discovering games rather than actually taking the time to search themselves, and perhaps it just comes down to not having enough time but wanting to play some games.

It is neither time consuming nor difficult, and in my friend group almost everyone plays odd games, but that's how we found each other.

 

[Colif]

I want to counter what that Colif post says:
Too much choice can be bad as well. I used to find it was easier to find a song I wanted to hear if I didn't have access to all my music and just a small selection. Now... well, with Tidal I have access to way more but I just listen to a random playlist of 1050 songs so I don't notice the ocean of choice around me.

So only having limited supply can make it easier, provided you like the choices.

Freedom from choice

 

[JCgames]

Yes.

You just have to look at all the live service games and how many hero shooters slowly making its way or the BR style games. its happened since the start. when someone comes up with a winning idea the market gets flooded. Another good example was the rhythm games and once they milked that they moved onto the next fad.

You know it's funny how often people talk about her shooters and live service.

In my world those things barely exist. While over the years I've played sa few live service games it's typically been 1 at a time. A couple mmos then mechwarrior online, now it's a couple idle games. They do typically take more of my gaming time but I've never had an issue with finding non live games to play.

A big part is gaming for so long, but there must be 50 games in my account that I never even launched but picked up for a couple bucks which is nice because that means if nothing peaks my interest for years I'll be just fine. I maybe pick up 10 games a year that span the last 20 years as I normally wait to buy thing. I think I own 5 games released in the last 5 years, last year for instance I played 3 games, only one was bought a VN called atom eve which was quit good. I played a couple games I had for years too on a couple evenings.

I'm the kind of gamer that gets sucked into a single game which is why I say there is maybe 1 or 2 a year that interests me. In the last 15 years I think I've bought 4 games at launch. Typically I buy stuff that was released years ago and Im big fan of retro gaming. Lots of the newer games I have bought could of been AAA games 25 years ago.

Anyway enough of my rambling the basic point is even if only a couple games a year are worth it to you in 20 years you'll have 40 or 50 games you can enjoy

 

[COLGeek]

I don't think we have too many games, books, movies, etc. Variety is good and keeps things interesting and, hopefully, keeps drawing in new and keeping existing users engaged.

With few exceptions, once I complete a game, I tend to be rid of it (uninstall it). Books and movies that I really enjoyed may get another reading/viewing, games lesser so. There are exceptions, of course, and I have been known to reinstall and play something later, but not very often.

 

[Zloth]

It certainly has changed things. I'm seeing more and more really good games that I want to play but can't because there are even better games. I used to be able to put all those on my wish list and, eventually, a dry spell would come along, and I would get to them. Now they just languish on the list. It's a real embarrassment of riches!

That's got to be pretty horrible on the business side of things. You make a great game, the people you test with really want to play it, and sales are terrible because there are a dozen other games in the same boat that you have to divide your revenue up with. I keep thinking that we'll get an exodus from the industry to something where the competition isn't so crazy, but it never happens. (Or maybe it's just starting to happen?)

 

[JCgames]

You just need to be more picky.