The discourse is swirling around Steam Next Fest. This fall's event has just started, and it's chock-full of AI-assisted releases and such, raising questions about its usefulness for promotion. One of the lead developers on Palworld has weighed in, speaking on the reality of what such a platform offers to developers.
On Twitter, John 'Bucky' Buckley, the head of publishing and communications at Palworld studio Pocketpair, went long on Next Fest and its ultimate role for devs. "The number of Next Fest games that get almost no attention has always been very high," he points out.
"Even long before this AI slop era," he continues, gesturing towards the rise in gen-AI. "Steam randomizes the games heavily for the first few days, but even then Next Fest typically settles into a rhythm after the first 24 hours where all the discourse tends to be about the same 25-ish games."
In his mind, one constant is that "the cream rises to the top," meaning if your game is the right confluence of good and trendy, it'll find its audience. Sage wisdom, with some element of truth. Debut games and clever releases are consistently finding communities on Steam, whether through Next Fest or other channels, because people are always looking for fun new experiences.
"Next Fest five or six years ago was a much more niche event," he says. "There were fewer games, but there were also fewer players. I think players back then were the sort who enjoyed playing demos, offering feedback, submitting bug reports, and actively digging around for hidden gems."
This is the intended purpose of Steam Next Fest. People play, wishlist the game, and provide lots of valuable data to the team, who can make appropriate changes before launch. It's a more open forum kind of early access. Since it started in 2021, the environment has changed.
You have a stronger influencer culture and a greater number of players overall. People now look at Next Fest as a place to window shop, thus they gravitate to the most popular and polished games. There are problems here, but they don't all stem from AI technology, Buckley argues.
"We want to blame AI, and sure, Next Fest does have a lot of AI slop, but are gamers really that dumb? Is anyone actually playing this stuff?" he muses. "I suspect the vast majority of it sinks to the bottom and rots almost immediately, just like low-effort games did long before AI existed."
He's got a point - asset-flips and meme games have been part of Steam for years now. The vast majority get zero traction, no players, and die on the brittle vine they sprang from. We're just seeing another layer of that, amid ongoing concerns over how to break through in the industry.
"I’m not saying that discoverability isn’t getting harder, or that AI slop isn’t a problem," he continues. "It absolutely is. But I do think we’re far too quick to brand every disappointing result on the number of games joining Next Fest."
He finishes with some encouragement. "I know it seems discouraging, and I know it might feel like you should give up, but don’t," Buckley states. "Next Fest has always been a gamble, and it’s a gamble I think is still worth taking."
Ultimately, all you can do is keep trying. This fall's festival runs all this week.
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