Steam Next Fest can't continue like this (bonus newsletter)
it's cooked
Hey folks,
This week's bonus newsletter is going to be all about my thoughts and feelings on the current Steam Next Fest (Oct 19-26). If you're waiting for the official LFG picks of the event, that'll be coming your way tomorrow. Steam changed its browsing algorithm from 'random' to 'personalized' this morning and I wanted to spend some time going through and seeing if it would serve me recommendations that weren't just endless vibe coded copies of other games. At first glance, it seems a little better, but I'm not 100% convinced just yet: there's an Unpacking clone and two takes on ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs in my initial list of recommendations. Sigh.
Here we are again, Next Fest: Steam's quarterly celebration of upcoming games. Originally launching in December 2019 as Steam Game Festival in collaboration with The Game Awards, the event highlighted just 14 upcoming games, including Spiritfarer®: Farewell Edition and Chicory: A Colorful Tale. Its next outing, the Spring festival in March 2020, which aligned with what would have been GDC, featured 40 games. The Summer edition that year featured 900.
It's now October 2026, and the number of games in Next Fest is untenable. Sure, it fluctuates: the original list given to press featured 6,700 titles. On the first day of the event, the number ballooned to over 8,000. At time of writing, it's at 7,284. Next Fest, oft purported as crucial to discovery, one of the make-or-break events for indies to get their demos in front of an audience is now... a complete crapshoot.