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More games released on Steam in 2014 already than during all of 2013

Is it possible for Steam to have too many games?

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More games have been released on Steam just 20 weeks into 2014 than have been during all of 2013.

According to an Analysis from Gamasutra, the influx of new releases is thanks in part to Steam Greenlight, which has been adding as much as 75 games to Steam at a time recently.

Since Valve’s co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell previously said that the company’s goal is to “make Greenlight go away” and make Steam more of a self-publishing platform, it’s likely that we’ll only see the number of releases increase in the future.

It’s nice to have a huge selection of games to choose from, of course, but it also makes it hard for games from smaller developers to get noticed, and discovering the games you’re particularly interested in.

We can already see Valve trying to mitigate this problem with several crowdsourcing tools like user reviews, the ability to tag games, as well as report them for offensive content. Steam’s front page now also defaults to the “Top Sellers” tab instead of the “New Releases” tab, which turns over very quickly these days.

Do you think Steam has a problem of offering too many games? Let us know in the comments below.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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RogerioFM

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I think it's good, it's the customer's responsibility to choose wisely what to buy and play, if anything it will teach them to no be lazy and do some actual research on the product they are interested on.


A lot of crappy games will be released but a lot of other good or even great ones will too.

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ViskiJack

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Steam is nice but if i had a choice betwen a preemium acount built on say a 100 games in libary i would defenetly chose PSN or XBOX live it cost's more but the games are way better because of the exclusives.

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Grenadehh

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Ha, no.

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wespunk

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Most of them I can,t play on my high Tec pc because of software issues grow a brain and we will all be a little bit dangerous like roxette

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tightwad34

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Okay, how is this news?

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cirugo

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And the majority of them are garbage.

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cirugo

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And "early-access" needs to be its own category.

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Darkmoone1

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No such thing as too many games. All Steam does is put games on their market to give the makers a chance to make something out of the product they worked on. It's all up to the gamers to make the choice on if they should support or to not support that product with the many tools such as community discussion and player recommendations at their disposal.

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gplayer5

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No such thing as too many games. I actually like the fact that they support smaller developers. My only complaint is that their sorting system for games isn't all that great. If they could make it easier to sort Indie games from AAA games, it would be a lot better. Valve is still an awesome company though.

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Gaming-Planet

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It has become a cancerous app store now.

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headbanger1186

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<< LINK REMOVED >> A cancerous app store? Couldn't be further from it.

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Avatar image for bbq_R0ADK1LL
bbq_R0ADK1LL

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >>Have you watched any of TotalBiscuit's videos? There are a lot of terrible buggy games coming out that aren't even new which are pushing new indie games off the new release list.

At least Steam isn't quite as bad as app stores in terms of being full of blatant rip-off copy-cats but there are so many games its hard to find the gems without trawling through a lot of games that just aren't worth the time.

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Avatar image for grenadehh
Grenadehh

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> Totally irrelevant. There's a search for a reason.

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Avatar image for bbq_R0ADK1LL
bbq_R0ADK1LL

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<< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >><< LINK REMOVED >> You fail. First for commenting on a post 5 months late. Second because Steam has basically acknowledged their error by incorporating curated lists & other options to make sure your main page advertises things other than dozens of re-released old games.

Who's the number 1 curator? Oh, just that guy, TotalBiscuit that I mentioned.

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quaker04

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Steam is choosing to quantity over quality. Yes there are good games will always have, but the amount of Early Access unfinished games so-called ready to play us huge.

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cirugo

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<< LINK REMOVED >>

completely agree on the "early access" nonsense. It's getting way out of hand.

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memenotu

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No it actually is NOT possible to have too many games since they are there to get them into the hands of players.

All they need to do is better categorize them including having a set of categorizes for the different types of indie games, so something like "Indie FPS" and "indie RPG".


What we DONT need it is this crap that Trion is attempting to push, turning their game launcher into a steam wannabe creating a situation where companies will be "Exclusive" to one over the other. I will not have my system loaded with 20 different companies platforms, nor am I going to log into each one to find out who has what. Screw that crap, it would be faster to drive to gamestop and buy the damn games I want.

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nyran125tk

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I think what they do need to do though is truly catagorize the games a bit better. If you just want to see AAA games you should be able to do that and INDIE and OLDER games should be in a different section. They do need to clean it up a bit. Some pretty sht games get lumped in with some pretty epic AAA games and some amazing medium level games get lumped with some sht games too.


Maybe at the start page have 3-5 tabs you can click to exactly what you want.


Like AAA new release games and new INDIE games ,should they all be lumped in with older games? I dont know, but it needs to be overhauled. instead of every thing just lumped in together.

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shingui5

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<< LINK REMOVED >>

I agree that there needs to be a complete overhaul of the layout of Steam, but i don't understand the want to segregate indie games and AAA games.

Games are games. A publishing model shouldn't be a factor there.

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nyran125tk

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@shingui5 @nyran125tk what i mean, is if a game say like Resident Evil 4 HD comes out, should that be in the same section as Final fantasy 7 and Skyrim and Wolfenstein New World Order. One is a totally new game that needs exposure and the others are like 5-10 years old.

Shouldnt there be an old games section and a new games section?


Like early Access games, should be in a totally different section.


Say for examples when things are on special. should Wolfenstien New World order be in the same section as Final fantasy 7 if they are both on special?


I suppose you have games under $5 and games under $10 tabs. I dont know, there must be a better way to do it than whats there now.


What it is now is everything is all in a giant bucket and if you just happen to be looking on the front page one day , then congratulations lol.

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shingui5

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<< LINK REMOVED >>

Oh, i agree with you on that. There should be far more categories, and far more customisation and filter options for users so they cna actually find the things they want, or filter things out that they don't have any interest in.

I should be able to filter out these games that aren't actually 'new' games, but are being shoved into the new releases tab because they are new on Steam.

Steam is notoriously bad in this regard, and Valve notoriously bad at giving a crap about it.

I just don't understand this segregation of indie games or AAA games. Those mantles aren't really indicative of anything about the games that fall under them.

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CharlesSwann

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Steam does not have too many games. Filler article.

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Stepn2myworld

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My only criticism of Steam is the lack of curation. Yes, they offer a lot of games in an unorganized blob. The Steam interface needs an real overhaul.

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DAOWAce

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And at least half of them are complete tosh or really old games being sold for unreasonable prices.

It's gotten so bad they changed the default view to top sellers.

Can't fix the problem, hide it..

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deactivated-63e36b38d9211

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More =/= good.

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deactivated-60b838d2a137f

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I just which there were a clear separation between finished products and Early Access things because it seems like Early Access is catching on with a lot of people solely as a way to play a game early, and not actually to help bug finding and general game-play balance (which seems like the major idea behind the program). Like Early Access games have their own tab to search for ONLY their titles, but all other genre specific tabs also include all EA games along with the finished ones... it's a bit of a messy system imo.


Also with no real quality control, people can, in theory, release almost an entirely blank slate and consider it "early access" just to con people into it (we have seen it already) as well as those Early Access titles that have been in such a state for several years, despite gaining huge amount of revenue (*cough* Prison Architect).

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nyran125tk

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@nl_skipper for sure early access should be in a completely different section.


Like AAA Publisher NEW games here, Indie games here>> early access here>>> Old games here>>> etc. etc.


If games are on special new games on special shouldnt be lumped in with games from 2001 that are on special. (ive bought a ton of old games, but there should be sections on the front page. Do i want OLD game specials, NEW game specials? They probably shouldnt be in the same section.

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onixevil

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I want the final hardware that meant for the living room

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mari2kde

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Steam is the savior of PC gaming.


Also it give indie Devs a chance, thats great.


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DrWhoIsCool

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So many people talking bad about this... Steam is the greatest thing ever. So many options, random great deals. Yes some games suck, but that's for every console as well. If you just buy a game with out reading the reviews @ the bottom, then your a dummy anyway & deserve to loose your hard earned difficult to part with $2.00 purchase.

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supersungin

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rock on steam :)

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LiquidButter

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No quality control, EVER!

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DrWhoIsCool

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<< LINK REMOVED >> Every game has reviews by the players. Good & Bad. Since Steam doesn't develop 99% of those games, your comment makes no sense.

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001011000101101

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For me it's always been quantity over quality. I love to have many options on what to spend my hard earned money on, and not-even-half-finished "Early access" games are the best way to do just that. Quality is not a concern to me I just need an excuse to waste hours in front of a screen.

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cratecruncher

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<< LINK REMOVED >> A+ for sarcasm!

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kuda001

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The problem isn't too many games rather it's how you regulate, categorize and quality control all of them.

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