Statistically speaking most people can find new games in their library they bought and never touched for years. It's a genius marketing strategy on steam's part.
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Front page of GOG and Steam + the steam next fest when it is on
One of my main tools has been SteamDB's instant search - it's basically a giant list of all steam games, sorted by review score, with a TON of different filters you can apply. Looking specifically for something released this year? You can filter for it. Looking specifically for a co-op action shooter, or a singleplayer 2d platformer? You can filter for those too. Wanting to exclude early access games or exclude games with a min/max number of reviews? You can do that too. Very handy tool
Very nice pointer, thanks for that!
Just think of all the poor indie games filtered from my findings because of my “Exclude: Roguelike” filter.
Who cares? I exclude genres I don't like too. Play the games you like. I'm sure those poor indie games will do just fine despite a guy on Lemmy saying he excludes them.
Steam's storefront and various gaming communities on Lemmy.
Word of mouth. YouTube. Pretty much anything that isn't an actual ad because the only games that I usually see ads for are games I do not give a shit about.
Honestly even though I don't do torrents. I found 1337x website to be helpful because it doesn't really seem to be biased and no company will invest into making there product on top there.
Gamescom, then I bookmark the trailer of games I'm interested at with their release date. A few months later I can just open the bookmarks and know what is releasing this month. Whenever I find out a game is delayed, I edit the bookmark with the new date. It's very easy to keep track of new releases that way.
I do it this way, because I've had quite a few good games that I completely missed because of not checking the news in that week.
Browsing the deals section of the playstation store or reading about them on lemmy.
I started a community for free games and now other people post free games there too and I'm accumulating new games to play faster than I can play them!
Honest truth? I have enough games to play, so I only really look into the few that are able to break through the noise. If a streamer/content creator I like isn't interested in a game, it's probably just not worth my time vs something I'm already playing.
I bought V Rising because I literally watched an ad video for it, and it worked on me. I'm not proud, but it is kinda fun.
Nowadays? If you want to get a game in my face, it has to be via word of mouth or be blown in by the winds of Steam.
I took a look through my game library and these are the broad categories of how a game ended up there.
- Friends (though I tend to be the recommender for my friends)
- Path of Exile, Cobalt Core
- I liked the demo at Steam Next Fest
- Moonlight Pulse, Laika: Aged Through Blood, Cassette Beasts
- Announcement through a game I already like
- Jackbox series, Slayers X, Vertigo 2
- YouTube channels
- Game Maker's Toolkit: Neon White, Toodee and Topdee, Assault Android Cactus
- From other channels, but I don't remember which: Gunfire Reborn, A Short Hike, Bug Fables
- Sheer luck
- I found Corn Kidz 64 from a tile at the bottom of a Steam store page, before it was released
- I found Hypnospace Outlaw from Steam's discovery queue…
- …and following through the music credits got me to Queenjazz's Bandcamp site, where I found an OST for a different game, Grapple Dog!
The bulk of my finds come from chat either on Lemmy communities ([email protected], [email protected], or this one) or a couple Discord servers I'm on. Sometimes a game will catch my eye unexpectedly while I'm on OpenCritic looking up something else, too.
Otherwise it's generally gaming news. I get that from also Lemmy/Discord, my RSS feed, or showcases. I always end up wishlisting half a dozen games during the summer showcases. My RSS feed right now is DualShockers, Eurogamer, Gematsu, PCGamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, Siliconera, and Denfaminicogamer (Japanese site). Always open to more suggestions for the feed; the problem is not everyone does RSS these days.
I think I'm on the cutting edge of game releases, mostly focused on indie games. I have a huge Steam collection. This is also my nerd hobby.
Im subscribed to a bunch of game sales (like isthereanydeal) and casually browse steam pages every few days. I often play a genre then search for "games like X". Lately it was metroidvania games. I found a game called Rabi-Ribi, which looks really uncomfortable to play. But the reviewers said to skip the dialog and ignore the loli, because it has really strong game mechanics. (And it does!)
Searching for indie games using steamdb with under 5000 reviews (lately I've been searching for games under 500 reviews), and checking them out.
I also make indie games as a hobby (nothing fancy!), so I like to look for inspiration from other indie game developers.
Lastly, Rock Paper Shotgun or Giant Bomb covers any big budget games I should know about.
I've been playing Gamedle recently. I tend to discover interesting games both as answers and while researching the info I have.
Steam's discovery queue is a great source for finding new games. It shows you a list of games based on the games you own and never repeats itself.
Mine is pretty useless. I have 4 hours of playtime on CSGO from 10 years ago and it thinks I want more FPS.
Manually checking out the similar games section of the ones I do play has been a lot better personally.
Edit: not to say discovery queue isn't good, just that the similar section is another good option
For multiplayer, look at Steam charts for most active players. Any of the top 20+ games are probably worth playing, even if old.
I recently got into The Division 2 and that’s YEARS old. There isn’t much multiplayer until you reach endgame (very quick for essentially an MMO) but then there’s a decent community still.
I've been listening to the NoClip Crew cast podcast - they mostly talk about games they've been playing recently and after a few sessions you can really grok the types of games everyone on the pod enjoys. That mostly matches up with my play style, so it works nicely.
As an added bonus, they tend to highlight more independent/smaller game studios.
Steam frontpage, twitch streamers I watch and sometimes word of mouth.
I look at sales. steamdb, isthereanydeal etc. And if something stands out, I look for details.