New Games Suck... Or Is It Just Me?

Reasons why Concord flopped.

• Concord's gameplay was seen as unoriginal and uninteresting.

• The game's story was criticized for being underdeveloped and lacking in depth.

• Poor character design.

• Lack of content. Some people said the game's maps was too similar and not enough to keep players engaged.

• Poor marketing.

• The hero shooter genre is highly competitive, with popular games like Overwatch and Apex Legends already established in the market. Concord may have struggled to stand out and attract players away from these established titles.

Keep in mind that this list is based on reviewers' opinions.

Why does everything has to be AAA or shovelware with nothing in between? What about those games made with small to mid-size studios that's still successful?

Here is random examples of how successful small game on steam looks like:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1689500/Dune_Imperium/
(95% positive with 2.6k reviews)

(This game is made by 2 person, they are Ubisoft employee in fact)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2678990/Minami_Lane/
(97% positive with 4.2k reviews)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2475490/Mouthwashing/
(96% positive with 23k reviews)

This game is made by 1 person:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2835570/Buckshot_Roulette/
(96% positive with 76k reviews. What an accomplishment as 1 man team.)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/
(96% positive with 116k reviews)

There are thousands of games like this, with very positive reviews on steam. It's not AAA production nor it is shovelware. Their team size ranged from 1-20. But they sold fair amount of copies and has fair shares of fans who enjoy them for what they are.

Saying western games are all flop or lacks creativity isn't fair for those small to mid-size developer who still have no problem entertaining their customers. Those 100m+ productions don't represent all sides in this market. Not even close.

There are small studio games that are decent, but they make up like 50 of that 17,000. It's getting really hard to find the gems in this giant pile of s!%t we call Steam Store.

South Park absolutely nailed this explination 10 years ago. It's so easy to put out a gacha game that takes 1 day to develope and 2 hours to alter and make another game. All it takes is a few people buying things to make it worth while.

This is nothing new, NES and PS1 had hundreds of titles that were absolute junk just hoping to capitalize on some franchise or another. Even MSDOS and the freakin Commodore 64 were infested with crap.

I've never installed Steam but have seen people browsing for games to play and it seems pretty much the same thing.

I don't think the problem is "they are too many bad games that good ones are hard to find". Steam algorithm tend to hide shovelware titles from the user. And most gaming community will never talk about them. So you will probably never know any shovelware titles on your own unless you deliberately look for them.

However I think we are getting into the era that there are so many different kind of games that it's more important to know exactly what do you like before searching for a game. Then spend time searching for them in different relevant community. Because a 7/10 game that fits your preference is often going to be more enjoyable than a 9/10 game that isn't.

Following all kinds of forum community for different preferences helps, imo. I've found that many console game community often has Nynja's attitude: "If it's not high production mainstream game then idc about them". There are plenty of community aren't like this. They often share niche but interesting games.

If you know your gaming preference well, and ask very specific questions like: "I am looking for roguelike deck building with less random elements than balatro" or "I am looking for a jrpg with romance/date sim element, ideally with more build variety", you can easily get a dozen answers that may ended up being a title that you like.

Spend time to know what you want and ask people where to find them is key.

This is absolutely not true though. You can't casually browse steam then see a bunch shovelware pop in your face, it's not going to happen, at least it doesn't happen now.

The reason is simple: Steam is a store that aim to make money, when they have a chance to advertise a game in their store to a potential customer, they will took the chance to advertise a game that is more likely to make a sale.

This post explains how steam algorithm works:
https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/08/09/steam-hates-small-games/



That post is pretty long so I only posted the tl;dr part. The conclusion is that shovelware games are absolutely irrelevant to majority of people due to this.

If you failed to find hidden gem, it's probably because big game releases and politics got your attention, not because of shovelware.

I didn't even read what Alfania said...

I just automatically assume it's wrong.

Placid Plastic Duck Simulator - GOTY

Of course you don't, this person doesn't even exist. Or you can't spell because you don't like to read.

Saw a stream of a game called "A Game about digging a Hole" yesterday. And I don't care anything about the semantics of Steam algorithm. I'm sure there are tons of good games to be found there, and an equal number of complete ***ones.

My point was that the video game market has always been saturated, its impossible to make every idea a winner but that doesn't stop tons of people from trying.

That game actually isn't shovelware. It has 90% positive reviews out of 6,438 reviews in less than 2 weeks. Also the graphics looks kinda nice for an indie.

It's the very definition of "that possible hidden gem game people casually skip only because it is indie".

I got bored so I decided to read A Game about digging a Hole's review.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3244220/A_Game_About_Digging_A_Hole/

"A possible hidden gem" what????

People apparently enjoy spending $2-$3 to dig hole in video game. Hidden gem indeed, lol.

People who consider that an amazing game are probably also people who have "skibidi toilet" in their everyday dialog.

I'm gonna say that the fact that tons of people are trying to turn silly ideas (like digging a hole) into games is exactly why indie games are interesting, lol.

Alfania sounds so much better.

Right? Even his name is wrong...


On a further note. Elden Ring Nightreign is amazing. Looking forward to the full release.

And here you are wrong again.

What's next?

Its its.

Maybe in the next generation, if I do enough evil deeds and become THE CHAOS.

Fun fact
If an indie game is a banger, word will get out organically.

Funner fact: an indie game could be a banger, then phil fish goes crazy and *** YoU No SeQuEl

Or whoever made that decision about Days Gone 2

Even funnier fact: its not because an indie game is an indie game that means its made by indians.

Words always go out organically within specific gaming forums/community. Otherwise how did I find out about those games? I don't have a habit of hunting down indie games on my own. I always learn it from other people's discussions on different game or anime forums. Sometimes I learn them from board game groups too, then I'll go search for video game version of the board game recommended.

(Case to the point, I never know about A Game About Digging a Hole until someone mentioned it here. Free advertising!)

“I dont have a habit of looking for indie games, i just go to a bunch of video game and anime and board game and other discussion boards and they get brought up”.


When i say “word will get out”, it means the game will transcend the small niche community talking about it. You dont have to be terminally online across 50 segregated communities.

This is 2025, due to the nature of internet communities, I think effective marketing strategy doesn't work like that anymore.

Many games aren't that well-known by everyone, but they still sell a lot. For example, Buckshot Roulette sold over 4m copies within 1 year. This is very high number, more so if you consider it's made by one person. But are you seeing everyone talking about it? Absolutely not. It is still a successful game though.

Also keep in mind that big publishers like Microsoft, EA, SE etc will forever gain a very huge advantage in marketing over indie games. You will always hear about people talk about EA or SE games everywhere, even if you don't like their games. But we all know that having an advantage in marketing doesn't necessarily mean customers will be happy with their product.

Many people talk about DAV everywhere, but most of the traffic doesn't convert to sales. So does it matter if more people talk about certain titles these days?

Another example is unknown 9, an unknown game made by an unknown studio that only got attention everywhere because Bandai Namco published it. Traffics don't convert to sales in this case either.

By comparison, indie games that accomplished multi million sales entirely through words of mouth in niche communities feels more like an amazing accomplishment imo.

https://deidetected.com/games/-unknown-9-awakening/

People who identify as non-buynary didnt want to waste their money on SBI infested woke garbage. Hope that helps.