A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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I honestly just browse steam...
I follow games publishing pretty closely. If something seems interesting, I add it to my wishlist and forget about it.
When I feel like actually buying a new game, I open up my wishlist and sort by discount. Once you have a couple hundred games wishlisted, something is always on sale. Sometimes the steam emails that something is on sale, awakens the itch to play a particular game, too.
I use a wide variety of stuff, for example:
I don't use Steam recommendations or any of those "tools" for finding new games. I just find I get better results from the above than from any recommendation engine.
I'm afraid I'm a victim of algorithms because I pretty much only look at stuff from GOG and Steam front pages or games that are recommended as 'similar' over there. And of course youtube.
As a side note. I should even stop checking those because I just keep playing the same games nowadays instead of chipping away at my backlog.
Steam Discovery/New Releases Queue! I've found a tonne of cool games, both old and new and popular and niche, just by flicking through the queues when I wanted something new to play.
IDK, I've been through like 20 queues (I have 162 games viewed) and have maybe found one or two interesting games. I get far more success just searching "best indie games" or "games like X" or threads on Reddit/lemmy recommendation threads (by far my biggest source of wishlisted games).
Yeah, I usually find these gems a year or two late, but that's kind of the point of patient gaming, right? I probably also miss a ton of gems, but I don't have time to play the games I already have, so I don't worry about it.
I still do try the queue from time to time, but mostly because watching trailers is sometimes fun.
This is how you end up with way too many games in the wishlist
Steam discovery saw me playing a bunch of building games and showed me From the Depths. What an absolute gem, I would never have found it otherwise. Avorion too.
This sub, haha. I had never heard of Omori until someone mentioned it here, I looked it up and it had like all 10 out of 10 reviews in every category, I had to check it out and I am glad I started playing it (Not finished yet, don't spoil anything).
Huh, apparently it was hidden for me because I ignore "RPGMaker" games. Looks like this is one of the gems I've been missing out on.
Thanks! Added to my wishlist!
Very cool, enjoy.
Unfortunately, Youtube is still easily the best. Like, even something as straightforward of a channel as Nintendo World Report gave me awareness of Paranormasight.
I'd love something more formally defined, but nah, the stream of consciousness that is a bunch of small creators making background content has been the better solution.
SplatterCat, AlphaBetaGamer, MandaloreGaming... any other good YouTubers for game discovery? Also RIP TotalBiscuit, he was the best of them all.
I do! I have recommendations! I use this site myself, meaning it is not something I have heard about from my cousin thrice-removed. I use https://gg.deals to find good game bargains. They include all of the official stores and for those who want to, also keyshops. On the site note, GG.deals has a sister site in Poland for those who speak Polish and don't speak English, it is https://lowcygier.pl.
https://m.youtube.com/user/ssethtzeentach
Some of the games I've spent the most time on are games I've discovered through his channel (Dwarf Fortress, Caves Of Qud, Hardspace Shipbreaker, HighFleet, Synthetik, etc...).
I also like to browse grey market aggregators to snatch cheap stuff on discount.
Other than that, Steam sales popup, GamePass, Lemmy PatientGamers.
I don't think grey market is ethical... You better off pirating games than paying the thieves.
Exactly. I used to occasionally buy from grey markets due to cost, but then I realized where they tend to get their keys.
Either buy from an established store, or pirate.
Something I did was create a list on How Long to Beat of games I don't want to play, sort by most popular, and filter out those games and ones in your Want to Play list too. It's not really recommendations at all but it was a good way to look at new games you havent seen before. In terms of getting recommendations, finding a YouTuber with similar taste in games as you could be a good way to do it.
I've got a couple of Youtube channels I follow, ChristopherOdd and Splattercatgaming, who seem to mostly charge through a lot of indy content, giving it a whirl so you can check it out. So that helps to surface anything interesting happening outside AAA studios.
That and just waiting for recs to come from word of mouth.
I use my backlog.