Good news it looks like just because a game gets on steam, gets a lot of (bad) press doesn’t actually translate into any sales.
Good.
However the problem goes far deeper than whether these games make any money, but that they eat up valuable exposure time and promotional opportunities that could be better used to showcase other games. In fact I’d argue that even the people making the video’s to criticise the problem games is just as bad as those who do lets plays. In the end it all comes down to what will people watch and clearly ripping into a bad game gets views.
Obviously there is a dilemma in terms of do you make a video to warn the gaming public not to buy some of these extremely bad games ( AirControl or Year 2066 ) or not. Is it a service or are you simply jumping on the bandwagon?
Perhaps if the youTube commentators stopped giving these games additional coverage to that of those who do letsplay of youTube fodder things would improve. Since Jim shows that fodder games don’t translate into sales, why not instead focus on showcasing some quality games. Actually there is a good answer to that, its far harder to create interesting videos about something that is good than it is to critique or make fun of something that is bad.
I would think if total biscuit, or yatzee had a glowing review of a steam game it’s going to translate to sales, though I think it was band waggoning at that point (which is why the 2% of the indies get all the money) I would like to see them pick a more obscure indie game now and then
I’ll give you an example khrunch, eyeball did it but he hardly has many viewers
