Published: February 1st 2018, 10:34:56 pm
Most of what I'm planning is kept up-to-date on my Patreon page so check that out if you haven't already, but I also wanted to talk about some plans I've not shared before.
I want to start working towards the new "dynamic" data-driven site as soon as possible because it will deliver some of the most exciting features people have been asking for. This is currently described in the "To infinity" section of my page, and to be clear, this is still going to take a while to complete but the sooner I start the sooner we'll get there.
To wet your appetite: the "dynamic" site will have a persistent database which means access to historical data and the ability to build custom rankings with your own search criteria. I'm currently picturing new game detail pages with performance graphs showing all the rankings a game is featured on, and its position over time. I hope this gets you excited as it does me!
This new site will most likely coexist with the static site we have right now but I intend for the new one to eventually be exclusive to Club 250 members like you. Patrons of any level would have full access to the site, so it would not matter how much you pledge - you would always have full access to all features of the new site. For everyone else, I might make it free initially, but later introduce a free trial with a time limit, to encourage more people to join the club. The static site we have now would remain exactly the same: free and open for everyone. The goal of this plan is to create more value for patrons like you, giving you new and exciting tools and features to play with, but please bear with me as this will probably take a few months (at least!)
Short term
Short term, I've got a few interesting things lined up, too. Some of you may have noticed our fixed year rankings from about year 2000 to 2005 are a bit crap because there's not many games from that time, and worse, games before 2000 are not ranked at all. We can fix both these problems at once by moving the date cutoff forward to 2006 and creating a new ranking for all games pre-2006. That should hopefully make the earlier rankings more interesting and useful.
The second thing I want to do is create annual rankings based on sales data. Thanks to Steam Spy we have access to the number of copies sold for each game, but for some reason Steam Spy doesn't seem to have a ranking of games based on sales, so we'll do it! I'm currently planning to break the rankings down by year, as described in the last paragraph, plus an all-time sales ranking. Ranking sales data should provide an interesting contrast with most of our current rankings that just use player reviews data.
The other thing I want to focus on a lot more heavily this month is marketing, by reaching out to popular publications to get some stories featured about Steam 250. There are many millions of people out there who would like to know about the site but haven't found it yet and I need to reach them. If it looks like I'm not working on the site as much this month, it's probably because I'm redoubling my marketing efforts! To this end, I'll also be adding some features specifically for the press I'm targeting. You can see a recent example of that with our newest Cosmic Tweets page.
You'll also see new client-side filtering options soon, which will enable you to hide games based on Mac or Linux compatibility. Of course, we already have the dedicated Mac and Linux rankings, but these filters can be used on any ranking, making the whole site more useful to people not on Windows. This will allow me to target specialized publications that focus on audiences from those platforms.
It's definitely going to be a busy time, and because I haven't managed to reach any goals yet, I'll also be starting to look for a new job soon, so it's going to be tough to squeeze it all in, but with your support we'll get it done!
Lots of love 💖
Bilge