Do you play games that you win?! [Vent]

I wish I could play all the games I have, I really do!

Unfortunately, I don't have the time for it and I have an addiction to DOTA2 (which takes me almost all my free time).

So, I think it's a bad thing to win a game and never play it, but I have a dream about playing every single game I have someday...

I think I never entered into a giveway made by devs probably because I didn't like the game by the look or it's just not my style but if I ever get interested into a game from a dev, especially if he would appreciate a review or some kind of feedback. I would've definitely play it then

Maybe make it higher leveled? There are most definitely less "collectors" there. But it's not like there aren't collectors even on level 10... :/

All the comments already lectured about how it is and stuff...

[snip]
broke af

Try with this group:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/playing-appreciated

may have been mentioned already, but unless you've chugged your game full of DRM, theres a good chance a % of winners may be playing offline, and thus, you arent seeing anything at your end from them in terms of time played etc,

EDIT: i do mean a % - and not a big one, maybe 5-10%

Dang that really sucks. All my suggestions have already been suggested by others. Raising the level might help. There are two groups that may be perfect for you. "Playing Appreciated" groups rule is that whoever wins has to play the game within a month. "Actually playing games" allows you to set a time by which you want your game played. Not sure if the groups are still accepting people or not.

I never idle games since cards are not really important to me. I only enter for games that I will eventually play no matter what.

I wish you luck in finding a solution!

There's sadly a bit of a "it's free so I should hoard it" mentality here, and with dev giveaways, which are often viewed as completely free (did not cost anything for anyone), it's doubly so. And with the amount of, well, quite frankly trash games that often show up among the dev giveaways, you know the kind that only exists because it has cards, people seem to sadly often view dev giveaways in that light. Your game, sitting at 30 positive and 3 negative, reviews looks like a proper game that you put some effort into, but with dev giveaways, it's a stigma that's hard to shake.

I do hope more people end up playing your game, and that you can find some good way to promote it. Why not do a small forum giveaway for it? Forum goers tend to at least be a bit more keen on at least looking at the game (even if things could still be a lot better here).

Thanks again for the game, Zuurix, and sorry for being a factor of your disappointment. However, at least the GA I won it from is just two weeks ago. While you of course want to get feedback and improve the game fastly, for most users it's right now only +1 for the back log (even if they intend to play it). For me personally I didn't have actually time to play on weekdays last week and the weekend wasn't all about gaming (gladly or sadly? Hmm..), too.

But I've checked serveral games I won here today, and that included yours. It seems to be fun, however, before the next session I really should read that ship building guide. First I had thought that the ship building provides freedom regarding the form, but that parts should stick together. Nonetheless I was able to distribute the parts all over the table leading to a ship that had a really curious hit box.
Also it seemed to me that one could dismantle all parts (even if you need at least one of the part type).

Didn't win the game from you, but gave it a quick go today. I quite like the dark silhouette style of the ships. I'm looking forward to playing again later.

Yes. Slowly.

There's a play appreciation group where people who join will have the intention of playing the game within a month. Maybe try there.

Heh, 10 people have launched Sector Six since I created this discussion.

The intention of this discussion was not force winners - who apparently saw this thread somehow - to play Sector Six, but I appreciate it very much!

Back in the days, the market mostly consisted of AAA games. That has changed. It is (well, was) not only Steam Greenlight, but technology. Nowadays every single person has the possibility to create a game. All by themselves. 1 developer can make 1 game.
Due to this, the market is drowning in the sheer number of games that are available out there. It is quantity over quality. And games are cheap. Sometimes, ridiculously cheap.
My game library consists of a ridiculously large number of games that one needs approx. 2 full lifetimes to actually complete all of them. Impossible.
So what I do is: I play every single one of my games. Sometimes, if it is not to my liking, I only play for 10 to 15 minutes. This is the most amount of time a game nowadays has to suck me in. Because if it fails to do this, there are a bazillion of other games waiting to be played.
And with the sheer amount of games, it takes time to even start a game. Full time job, max 2 hours per evening to test games, 10 to 15 minutes per game equals 8 to 12 games per day. At a maximum. With a backlog of over 6000 games... You do the math.
I plan to play all my games when I'm retired, tho ;)

I recommend this steam group. You have to play the game at least average time.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/playing-appreciated

I see many people recommended Playing appreciated. It is a good idea, but keep in mind that technically so far that experiment is somewhere between a failure and a colossal failure, because according to their own site stats, they are still, to this day, keep kicking out people for non-played wins—which make up third of the games given out there. For a 500-person group, this is pretty damn abysmal.

Granted, it is still a lot better than the site average. To answer your initial question: yes, most of the user base, regardless of levels, enters giveaways only to win and never actually intends to play the game. Additionally, at least 90% of the people never read your description if you say something there; this percentages goes as high to 99% depending on level (level 0) or location (South-Americans).

This, of course, counts in the at least 11000 users of the AutoJoin bot, the additional thousands using those bots which are not public, and the tens of thousands using some of the many one-click-entry method users (of which several methods were released to the public in these forums). The bots enter anything and everything, and you are lucky if they at least activate the game on their account to card-farm it, instead of selling it instantly.
Then again, in your case, the latter should be better, as the buyer at least may show some inclination to play the game.

Using higher levels rarely pays off, considering level 2 already means 1% of the user base, level 6 means less than 0.1%. I have to add though that so far I show the largest playing rates in the mid-range: level 5-7. Lower levels like to hoard for wins/G2A market material, higher levels hoard for large library.
Groups have been mentioned already.
Whitelist is a thing, but in your case it is, frankly, easier to just send the keys directly to anyone you would put on a whitelist. You cannot gain anything on this site sending them using a giveaway, so why not cut out the middleman?

Still, in the end, if you want feedback, then this site is just barely a step up from doing a public 10k keydrop. This site is only good to promote the game's existence, that is all.

Sad to hear how people are focused on cards and just enter gibs for a few cents steamwallet... maybe they don't know how to make bitcoin... :P

Good to hear that you don't give up on it and will try it again on Playing Appreciated groups... going to join them in the next weeks, maybe im lucky enough to get hands on your game... :)

if it's from my wishlist, I'll definitely play it.

I'll be honest, I'm more of a collector at this point as most games really don't hold my attention anymore. Either they're too long (like the Witcher), or they just aren't well made (like every Digital Homicide game). I find myself playing more older games than anything else, and prefer games I can either play with my gf or pickup and play afew round then put down again and have fun. Sure, I'll run a couple of longer games with story if I'm invested in it already, but with my irl issues right now, I really just don't have the time or energy to do so for every last game. If your game intrigues me, I'll give it a 30 minute test run if I win it in a giveaway or find it in a bundle or good enough of a sale (no money to buy games XP inbetween jobs and about to go off to Uni), but if it's really not something I find interest in, then I'll maybe enter a giveaway for it, but it'll be on my backlog and I might run it if I have nothing else I'm interested in playing at the moment.

I'll be honest, looking at your game, it looks up the alley of the pickup and play for a session or two while I'm waiting on stuff. And if I did enjoy it past 30 minutes of play, then I would even probably stream it on nights my gf is busy or I can't get to sleep and she's already out XD Speaking of which, I really need to make some content for my YouTube and get back to streaming XP been a month since I've done anything, And i'm still getting 5-20 views a day on that stupid Minecraft benchmark parody video I made (I swear, I regret making that thing, it was a joke to get something on my channel and people take it too serious and try to give me crap in the comment @-@).

If you'd like to shoot me a key, I could try out your game and leave you some feedback XD just be warned, I give my own team hell and nitpick a lot on things. Thankfully they are good natured and actually are interested in my thoughts :P

Nice to see that you found possible solution - hope it's gonna work. But in case if you need more ideas i'll add something.

I added this game to "hide all giveaways for" list because after checking I saw that it's Shoot 'em Up and I simply don't like this genre (tried few of them but I gues it's not for me)..

So maybe there are groups for Shoot 'em Up lovers?

I always do, sooner or later. For example, I ended up playing Brutal Legend two years after getting it as a gift (I didn't win it on steamgifts, it was just a gift). Other games, I play them immediately. It depends on the game and many other factors. But some others, like Black Sails and Life is Feudal: Your Own (that I won here), were completely broken and I couldn't manage to play them, even though I tried. Other games were a complete piece of sh*t and I stopped playing them really fast after starting them, because I thought they were good and I ended up getting bored and angry by them. And other games, I started playing them a bit and then completed them after a long time or will complete them in the future. For example, I had played a bit of Fire (a game that I won here), but I didn't like it in the beginning, so I stopped playing it, but started playing it again after some time and eventually completed it.

I try to play the ones I win, but admittedly I haven't got through them all.

Your game Sector Six does look pretty interesting though. I genuinely mean that. Wishlisted and I would definitely consider it.

I really don't get why (almost?) none of your winners played the game. It looks nice and has a clean interface.
Even if its main gameplay part is a standard sidescroller shootemup (atleast that's what it looks like on the store page) it's nice to look at and I'm sure really worth a try.
Nice to see you found your solution - good luck on getting useful feedback! :3

Following up on my earlier comment, I played (and streamed) Sector Six. I will play a bit more and write up a review in a few days. I will say that while streaming, I had a few random viewers pop in for a time that are not regular followers. Not sure how much it will impact your game/visibility overall, but there's something!

For now, I will say that I really enjoyed it, though it is quite challenging! There's so much to play around with in terms of customization that my first session was far from enough to see what the game has to offer overall. Good work!

Thanks for venting and bringing attention to this game that I should have paid more attention to in the first place.