Cut the number of games on Steam? That’s insane, says Rust creator

Developers should worry less about the level of competition on Steam and simply spend the time making a great product, says PC games veteran Garry Newman.

The latest stats on Steam show that more games have launched on the digital platform in the first five months of this year than were released during the entirety of 2013.

It’s an influx fuelled by the likes of Steam Greenlight and Early Access and has led some developers to view the platform as overcrowded. One publisher, Nkidu, has even called for Valve to limit the numbers of games on their stores.

But Newman, creator of Steam success stories Garry’s Mod and recent Early Access sensation Rust, strongly disagrees.

The issue of discoverability is awesome to have. The focus should be on the users, not the developers. Users getting the choice of thousands of games is a good thing," he told MCV. The attitude that Valve should only allow X games a month on Steam is insane. Why would you limit it? Have you released a game and it isn’t selling? Make it better. Do some marketing.

Steam is a digital distribution platform; they put your game on their store and allow people to buy it. Any extra exposure you get by being featured should be seen as an extra-unexpected bonus. It shouldn’t be relied on to sell your game.

I don’t think the Steam front page should be seen as a storefront. If your game is good and people want to play it – people will play it. Work at making your game as accessible as possible.”