You Have Nothing to Play

Yes, despite the growing number of games released each year for every current platform, it is getting harder and harder to find the next game to play. A post on reddit with the headline “I have nothing to play” and a screenshot of user’s huge steam library got 7730 upvotes and 573 comments.

First, we need to understand why that happens:

1. Every platform has its own marketplace. They behave as closed gardens that do not have any interest to recommend games outside of their markets. Although today users play on more than one platform.

2. The number of new games is growing every year. Greenlight is dead and Polygon’s Ben Kuchera writes that Steam is flooded with releases. It’s very hard to pick up something when there are so many options, so in the end you have ‘choice paralysis’ and decide to play nothing altogether.

3. To make an informed buying decision users rely on different sources. Streams on Twitch, YouTubers’ opinions, gaming media and user reviews — all is examined and taken into account. This process takes time, effort, and ultimately not all type of games are streaming or media friendly. A lot of niche but creative games from talented devs don’t have a chance in such space.

4. Not a lot of players know their favourite game creators. Sure, they remember Blizzard or Bungie, but what about the artists behind Braid or Jim Guthrie who made a score for Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP? Trust and loyalty to talent is very important and drives other entertainment industries.

We strongly believe that a change can be made and for the past year we have been developing a cross-platform infotainment video games service.

We started with the basics and have been continuously improving the service. At this moment, RAWG has a catalog of over 50,000 titles for all modern platforms and old classics, with each game page featuring a variety of related sources all over the net on the one hand, and, on the other hand, has an easy import from all platforms into one profile enhanced with noteworthy statistics.

There are lots of new features in this release but i’ll focus on the two most important ones.

The game page

We are used to three types of video game pages:

• On media websites, highlighting the editorial news, articles and game reviews.
• Video game store page with curated press-kit materials.
• Wiki-style reference pages on game characters, setting, story and background.

What we have been creating is rather an infotainment resource. Not just facts and stats combined together, but the database that is powered by the useful info already available around the net and personal player experiences.

We aggregate information from all popular review sources an average user would go to while making a decision as to buy another game or skip it. This includes Twitch, Youtube, Reddit and more. RAWG’s game page is not isolated from the global web; it takes into account the popular content and rank it like the original platform does, so you can start with the best content. We are also using the platform data where we can to display the average playtime (also a thing that helps you choose what to play) and most valuable in-game achievements.

On the Bioshock Infinite page, aside from general info, you can find a TV commercial, a 15-minute gameplay footage, a walkthrough video, cosplay photos of Elizabeth, stream recordings and other games that were made by Bioshock’s creators. We think that is a great entry point into the world of this game where you can dive in for more.

Furthermore, RAWG gives its users tools not just to watch the content but to create it and engage with the game: mark it if you have finished it, add it to your wish list or suggest to other users’ collections. Plus on the game page you can find its rating based on RAWG funny 1-click emoji review system and more RAWGish community-related discussion section for Q’and’A type of posts that will show up in the feeds of people that have this game.

Highlighting game creators

Unlike movies and TV industry celebrities, video game creators are far from being in the spotlight. Actually not a lot of players know the people who created their favourite interactive experiences. You might say that nobody cares.

But you also might be surprised that Terry Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna was a writer on Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015), Mirror’s Edge, Overlord, and a bunch of other highly acclaimed games! Or we have a creator type profile for Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Do you know the game his music is scored for?

We used Wikipedia public API to populate the site with the initial data and combined it with our game database. You can find the game credits on sites like MobyGames, but RAWG treats the data in a different way that allows us, for example, to display the game stats for each creator, most known games, and their average scores.

What’s next?

In short, a lot. There are some rough edges here and there (that’s why it’s called a beta!), we are aware that not every game’s data is 100% accurate and it is a high-priority for us to fix this. We are aiming to make the database fully user editable and with the help of our growing community make it bigger and more accurate.

We will be building personal cross-platform recommendations based on player’s past gaming experience. There is no point in creating yet another ‘you may also like’ section. We must do what no other platform can and recommend you a new puzzler on iPhone, knowing that you liked The Witness on PS4.

We will continue to highlight game creators in a more personal way, so that RAWG users can learn more about their preferences and learn about new games that these talented people are building right now. Because we know who matters most — people on the both sides of the industry: gamers and creators.

Welcome to the new updated RAWG!