Do you ever add tags to games on Steam?

[ZedClampet]

Talking about the official user-defined tags. I think I may have added one or two through the years, but don't really see any point to it, which is why I ask because maybe there's a point to it that I haven't thought of.

What brought this to mind was a non-PCG story about the battles between FromSoftware and prankster Steam users with their upcoming Mech game, Armored Core. Apparently Steam users keep trying to label the game as "cute", "sexual content" and "dating sim" and From keeps removing those tags (currently it is listed as a "dating sim" however).

The article states that the developer can put up to 20 tags of their own in and that only the top 20 tags are used, but it doesn't mention how the tags are weighted.

But this brings up the question of why you would add your own tag if it was already listed? Or maybe that's not what's happening. Dunno.

Anyway, have you ever added your own tags? Maybe you put in something only you would use so you could find those games later?

 

[Pifanjr]

No, but I hardly use Steam anyway. I use GOG Galaxy to keep track of my games and use desktop shortcuts to start them, so I don't really use any of the features of Steam most of the time.

 

[Johnway]

i suppose i do use tags to manage my steam collection, but its more dynamic like unplayed strategy games, RPGs, etc etc. Don't add tags personally myself though.

 

[mainer]

No. As you said, what would be the point. All the games I've ever looked at on Steam have way too many tags as it is, and many of those tags I would consider to be misleading as to what kind of game it is, or of marginal relevance. I can't see a reason to add a tag to an already inflated tag list of a game unless I felt strongly that a game was completely mislabeled.

I've done Steam searches in the past using the RPG tag and found it to be a waste of time as so many games, that I would never consider to be RPGs, have that tag. Yes, I can refine that search, but it still results in a glut of games that I would never consider to be RPGs.

Take for example a recent game that we've talked about, Atomic Heart, it has both the RPG & Action RPG tag, and I would personally never consider it to be either of those:

And I can add even more tags to what's already there! But what purpose would it serve, for me or anyone else as it would only serve to confuse the search feature further. While I appreciate that Steam allows users input in various situations, like tags or even reviews, I think the system as it exists is a bit dysfunctional and needs to be re-worked to become useful.

 

[Brian Boru]

GetOffWishlist is the only one. Must've been a long time ago, before Steam added the Remove function, or I figured out where it was hidden. Here's what I see for Hogwarts:

I have 3 options there:
♣ Click the + beside an existing tag to 'add my vote' and have it appear in the top box 'Tags you've applied…'
♦ 'Enter a new tag' is self-explanatory—eg FPS or GetOffWishlist
♥ 'Apply a tag you've used' lists all you've ever added to any game, and not subsequently removed… I assume. You see GetOffWishlist there in mine; I just added Magic via + to Hogwarts and brought up another game—now Magic also shows under 'Apply a tag you've used'. Then removed Magic from Hogwarts, and it's gone from 'Apply a tag you've used'.

I guess you're talking more about applying existing tags, by clicking the + beside them? I never did that before above little exercise.

many of those tags I would consider to be misleading

Check your account preferences. I had a bunch of tags in the TAGS TO EXCLUDE section of STORE CONTENT PREFERENCES, which is clearly not helpful based on what you say.

put in something only you would use so you could find those games later

That's a good idea!

 

[Pifanjr]

♣ Click the + beside an existing tag to 'add my vote' and have it appear in the top box 'Tags you've applied…'

I agree with @mainer that most games have too many tags that don't really apply, so I would rather have a '-' button to subtract votes from tags.

Only for me though, the average Steam user obviously can't be trusted with that power.

Maybe you put in something only you would use so you could find those games later?

Couldn't you just put it on your wishlist if you wanted to keep track of it?

 

[ZedClampet]

I agree with @mainer that most games have too many tags that don't really apply, so I would rather have a '-' button to subtract votes from tags.

Only for me though, the average Steam user obviously can't be trusted with that power.



Couldn't you just put it on your wishlist if you wanted to keep track of it?

Sure, but I have about 700 games on my wishlist

 

[Brian Boru]

just put it on your wishlist

A lot of my wishlist is/was a MaybeList—ie don't have time to look at it now, but might be interesting. I'd prefer to have those in a CheckOutLater tag than be part of my wishlist sales emails. Keep wishlist for 'Yep, I want this' games.

I have about 700 games on my wishlist

Are they all 'Yep, I want this' games?

I had over 200, still over 100 after some pruning.

 

[ZedClampet]

Are they all 'Yep, I want this' games?

No, a lot of them were "coming soon" and unavailable when I put them on the list. I just wanted to track them. I could probably cut the list significantly if I ever bothered to put the time into it.

Also, my taste in games changes over time. There are a lot of games in there now that I don't want, but maybe my tastes will come back around to them later, so I don't want to get rid of them.

Steam is a massive place. If I remove a lot of these "never heard of them" games, I'll never see them again.

I should point out that I could "Follow" games, but I don't even know how that works, to be honest.

 

[Brian Boru]

I could "Follow" games, but I don't even know how that works

You get updates that the dev posts—so might be good for you with a lot of unreleased games.

Also works as a separate list, you can visit yours at:
https://steamcommunity.com/my/followedgames/

 

[Pifanjr]

Sure, but I have about 700 games on my wishlist

I wish I had the time to even consider putting that many games on my wishlist.

I'm curious, how would you use tags to help you organise that? I use tags on GOG Galaxy to divide my games into 3 levels of interest and to tag them as co-op, multiplayer or single-player. But if your interest level varies you can't really organise them by that and most of the other tags I can think of using will already be applied to the game by other users.

 

[ZedClampet]

I wish I had the time to even consider putting that many games on my wishlist.

I'm curious, how would you use tags to help you organise that? I use tags on GOG Galaxy to divide my games into 3 levels of interest and to tag them as co-op, multiplayer or single-player. But if your interest level varies you can't really organise them by that and most of the other tags I can think of using will already be applied to the game by other users.

Well, that's 700 on my wishlist over how many ever years they've had the feature. I haven't watched a television show (other than my sports teams) or movie in years, but as a replacement time-killer I like to wander around the dark edges of Steam and see what's there.

But as I said, a lot of these games weren't out when I put them on my wishlist, so perhaps I could tag them as "coming soon". Then I could pull up the coming soon list and look through it and decide what to do with them when I take the tag off, which would usually mean just removing them from my wishlist.

But that's wishful thinking because I very rarely go through my wishlist.

 

[ZedClampet]

You get updates that the dev posts—so might be good for you with a lot of unreleased games.

Also works as a separate list, you can visit yours at:
https://steamcommunity.com/my/followedgames/

Yikes, that list is long too haha

 

[Pifanjr]

Well, that's 700 on my wishlist over how many ever years they've had the feature. I haven't watched a television show (other than my sports teams) or movie in years, but as a replacement time-killer I like to wander around the dark edges of Steam and see what's there.

But as I said, a lot of these games weren't out when I put them on my wishlist, so perhaps I could tag them as "coming soon". Then I could pull up the coming soon list and look through it and decide what to do with them when I take the tag off, which would usually mean just removing them from my wishlist.

But that's wishful thinking because I very rarely go through my wishlist.

With Early Access titles you can just search for the "early access" tag in your wishlist, they've usually been tagged by other users already. However, that doesn't seem to be the case for pre-releases (at least not for The Last of Us - Part 1 remake). Steam does give you the option to exclude early access and/or pre-release titles from your search, but there is no option to only see those titles.

It would be nice if the search function had some more advanced functionality for custom filters.

 

[mainer]

Steam is a massive place. If I remove a lot of these "never heard of them" games, I'll never see them again.

That's exactly the reason I wishlist certain games, so that I won't loose track of them, because if I don't I'll forget the game's name and that i had some level of interest in it. I find it especially important for indie games, early access games, and what I term "AA" games (as opposed to "AAA"). "AA" games being from established developers, those that don't have a massive budget and are less often talked about, like Piranha Bytes.

I currently have a sedate 94 games on my Steam wishlist, most of which I'll never purchase, but at some point had an interest in. I'll weed it out a couple times a year, but more importantly to me, I'll shuffle the order of games around so that those I have the most interest in are in the top 10 or 20.

The "follow" feature is good for developer updates, but sometimes those can be sporadic, so I find it useful to have a list of games where I can access the store page with one click. The "tag" feature I just personally don't find very useful.

 

[ZedClampet]

That's exactly the reason I wishlist certain games, so that I won't loose track of them, because if I don't I'll forget the game's name and that i had some level of interest in it. I find it especially important for indie games, early access games, and what I term "AA" games (as opposed to "AAA"). "AA" games being from established developers, those that don't have a massive budget and are less often talked about, like Piranha Bytes.

I currently have a sedate 94 games on my Steam wishlist, most of which I'll never purchase, but at some point had an interest in. I'll weed it out a couple times a year, but more importantly to me, I'll shuffle the order of games around so that those I have the most interest in are in the top 10 or 20.

The "follow" feature is good for developer updates, but sometimes those can be sporadic, so I find it useful to have a list of games where I can access the store page with one click. The "tag" feature I just personally don't find very useful.

I'm going to send you my username/password. If you could just take care of my wishlist, that would be great

 

[Brian Boru]

If I remove a lot of these "never heard of them" games, I'll never see them again.

Consider keeping them in a local file—a simple text file of URLs in Notepad would work fine. I have various pages & sub-pages in the General section of my OneNote games book for Buy these, Watch these, Play these, Replay these.

I still keep the wishlists tho because I want the email alerts when games go on sale, and I want the excellent Augmented Steam extension info whenever I'm tempted.

I'll shuffle the order of games around

Well heck, as a Steam vet I can safely say I never knew you could do that! Sort by 'Your Rank' and those sliders appear on left—neat! But I always sort by discount, the Patient Gamer's friend