In an effort to redress some of the confusion caused by the Steam Grand Prix promotion, Valve adds extra incentives.
As part of the Steam Summer Sale, it’s running something called the Steam Grand Prix. In it, you have a chance of winning the top game on your wishlist. As it turns out, that literally means the game in position number one on your wishlist, but that didn’t stop huge swathes of people deleting cheaper indie games from their wishlist to try and ensure they didn’t win something that costs less to buy than a 60-dollar, AAA blockbuster.
Indie developers were understandably quite upset about it. The official Steam Twitter account tried to confirm the parameters of the game, and demonstrate how to prioritise a wishlist without removing games. Alas, the damage was done. Indie devs had seen a massive drop in wishlist numbers, and they were unlikely to get them back.
To try and remedy the issue – because, in the wake of algorithm changes and the rise of the Epic store, Steam can’t take developers for granted anymore – the parameters of the Steam Grand Prix have been changed.
It appears Valve has put forward steps to correct this! 😀 pic.twitter.com/mGyFdqXxG1
— Raymond Doerr (@RaymondDoerr) June 29, 2019
Now, as part of the quests included in the Steam Grand Prix, players are being encouraged to add three items to their wishlist. (In addition to playing a new game, reviewing a game, and watching a broadcast.)
It might smack of shutting the door after the horse has bolted, and the damage to most wishlists has probably already been done, but it does at least show that Valve is listening to indie developer feedback.
