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The Big Games Discoverability Problem | Unpacked (Patreon)

Published:
2025-05-30 19:06:50
Imported:
2026-06

Content

This week's episode of Unpacked is now available!

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The Big Games Discoverability Problem | Unpacked

This week on Unpacked, we're talking about the discoverability problem in games, and maybe what you can do to help improve it. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SecondWindGroup Second Wind Merch: https://store.dftba.com/collections/second-wind https://sharkrobot.com/collections/second-wind

Comments

Ryallen

Massive props to you for making this video. (once again lol) If I had the income I'd bump up my subscription just in support of this new video series. The amount of videos, or even channels for that matter, that exist solely to shit on games made by companies like Ubisoft makes me think that these people don't actually like games as much as they enjoy making fun of bad or even just average ones. They never seem to talk about games that actually do well unless they're wildly successful so why do you keep drawing attention to bad ones? It's probably because they're easy targets and people like hating things. "This is what happens when you pay your programmers/voice actors/animators enough" and whatnot. It's tiring seeing these channels pop up on my feed so often, especially considering I don't even watch those videos anymore. As for the request, one smaller game that I adore that no one is talking about is called Those Who Rule, it's a FE-style tactics game about viking-designed kingdom and the political power struggles therein. It shares a lot with Fire Emblem (class promotions, stat functions, map design, etc.) but the biggest difference is that Those Who Rule has hex tiles rather than square ones, which facilitates stuff like backstabs and higher/lower dodge rates. There are a few other systems in place that differentiate it but that's the biggest difference and it adds so much depth to the game as a result. So if you're starving for another FE game, Those Who Rule is a solid choice

Lil' Cass (CJ)

A game many people shat on without trying it due to it being a live-service game, which was understandable but still, is Crash Team Rumble. I first found about it from Canadian Guy Eh talking about all the hints and teases Toys for Bob gave over the years leading up to its release. It's also hard to verbally describe just how much fun Crash Team Rumble is outside of "the gameplay feel is really! good" and if you're a Crash Bandicoot fan you'll definitely get a lot out of the lore it not only plays around with with a lot of the characters but also new lore too in the form of CatBat.

Tippis

No, I don't think I will give away off-site data for anyone to collate and try to make a marketing profile for me, thankyouverymuch. In fact, doing so makes your platform even less capable of fixing the discoverability problem because it will now be hard-blocked from ever being fed any data whatsoever. Rather, for storefronts in particular, the solution is fairly simple: let me choose. Let me apply infinite filters. They cost nothing and improve the odds of purchase immensely. If I have to duck and weave between junk just because the filters aren't enough to cover what I don't want to see, I won't find anything worth-while. That extra exposure you think you're getting creates reduced sales. Let me assign not-negative features — something very few venues seem to understand. Yes, I play a lot of games with pixel-art graphics. No, that does not mean I want to play more games with pixel-art graphics — stop suggesting them. What it *does* mean is that pixel art is a not-negative; that I won't dismiss a game just because it has this one feature. Stop interpreting not-negatives as positives, because they are very different things. If you can't do it algorithmically, just note the pattern and… you know… ask. There will be many of them, of course, which is why infinite filters (or not-filters, in this case) are needed. Make the filters and preferences actually matter. I'm looking at you here, Steam. If I say I don't want to see something, that means I don't want to see it. Don't show it, but slightly greyed out. Let something else that stand more than -∞ chance of purchase take the space instead, since that may actually lead to a purchase rather than an irritated shutting down of the store page. The rest is just word of mouth, and that is and always will be what it has always been. You find a circle that offers trustworthy suggestions and you follow those suggestions. It's the self-discovery that is actively sabotaged by the very people who are trying to convince me to discover something of interest. Not because it's hard, but because they can't be bothered.

Danger World

Thanks for making this video! As the creator of Danger World, I completely agree that discoverability is a huge problem. There are so many games!

Tristan

Discoverability is a big barrier to entry for people to get into indie games. But there’s also the distinct problem that there are too many games for people to play. Discovery can help people find games that are more aligned with what they like, but it doesn’t grant people more time to play them. I think about this, because I spend a lot of time on discovery, it’s part of the fun for me. But at some point I just find more games than I can realistically play.

JDINCINERATOR

One game that I think was victimized very harshly by discoverability problems was 2020's Huntdown. I personally think Huntdown is my favourite game of 2020 because it's a retro CyberPunk shooter with a Duke Nukem-aping swagger about itself. Review coverage wasn't plentiful and barely anybody besides Easy Allies talked about it. Of all the games that came out in 2020, Huntdown was sorely overlooked. If there's a hidden gem out there that didn't get the recognition it deserved-then Huntdown is king among those.

scodiak

That's why I like subscribing to channels that cover only or mainly indie games. I will get suggestions for the big hits and IPs anyway. I even purchased some indie games because I want to support the devs and haven't even installed the games. Anyway, the question remains, how do we turn the tide? Away from "I hate this" to "I love this". I already enabled "don't recommend" on certain channels because they're hate and general dislike for basically everything in gaming was fun once, but it has become exhausting to me.

Tim Wilson

It’s what I used to love about gaming magazines. So many games that became firm favourites that I wouldn’t have heard of otherwise, and not just the front cover stuff, those weird little middle-page titles. I can’t imagine I ever would’ve played No More Heroes otherwise. And on that note, I’m definitely picking up that Mascot game from Yahtzee Tries and Fully Ramblo, no chance I would’ve looked at it twice otherwise.

Greg Kettler

Per your request, I just finished Sonokuni and I loved it. I hear it's a Hotline Miami-like, which I can't address because I haven't played Hotline Miami. (Wait, did I buy that one on sale and lose it in the pile?) But aside from the difficult-but-easy-to-try-again puzzle-like action, what drew me to it was the insane Japanese hip-hop music and a very trippy biopunk setting.