u/osoxa

I posted on here 96 days ago releasing my new web app: Steamr.io a simple site that allowed you to see which games you had in common with your friends on Steam, and vote on them together in a group session. I'd finally had enough of sitting on Discord for hours arguing about what we should play lol.

The site got a fair bit of attention, and it's completely changed the way me and my friends decide what game we're going to play on a given night.

Nearly 400 people used the app to vote in that time with a collective Steam Library of 40,752 games ($$$). After collecting metrics on how it was being used and finding what worked/what didn't, I made some significant changes.

I tested many different methods of voting, and landed on two that worked:

• Diplomatic: each person ranks the games they want to play together and assigns them set votes. Whichever game gets the highest votes wins. I've found this to be the best way of choosing games to play, as it's been the most consistent in getting games that some people really wanna play, and others don't mind playing.
• Variety: if you choose to play with the same friend group all the time (I do), Diplomatic ends up choosing the same set of games each time, duh. Variety adds a little bit of spice by allocating a chance of winning per game proportionate to how many people chose that game. This is nice to do once in a while for a bit of, you guessed it, variety.

Additional features:

• Anonymous voting: choose the games you actually want to play with the votes revealed at the end. We ended up agreeing a lot more often, weirdly.
• Vetos: each person gets a single veto on each session. This has probably been the biggest feature that's kept this app alive for me and my friends. Whilst people have games they don't minding playing, most people have a game that they'd refuse to. This gives everyone the power to say no (but only once, choose wisely).
• Non-Steam library games: Whether it's free-to-play games, games that aren't on Steam, or games that not everyone owns - they didn't show in the list. I added a search functionality that looks for it from Steam/public sources and adds it to the vote. This relies on user trust to try and not sneak through a game that not everyone owns, or it just breaks the system hah. But it's been working so far.
• No sign-ups: I felt like if I stumbled across and wanted to use this app myself, a sign-up would put me off, so I stayed true to the original and didn't require them. The old route of needing to capture your Steam profile ID existed though (cringe) - so I integrated Steam's sign-in function to make it faster. This doesn't give the app anything other than your Steam profile ID to make it faster to get started.

Things to consider:

• An app can't solve human problems entirely: This app works well if you play with the same people frequently: sometimes you'll end up playing games you don't love, but sometimes you'll get your play your favourite. Ultimately figuring out what to play is more of a relationship/dynamic problem than a logical one. Honestly this is probably one of the biggest things we've realised playing together.
• Desktop supremacy: I've been a bit lazy and haven't built a mobile version, so it'll load - but it doesn't look great (soz). We've found it works best if you jump on a discord together and chat through it.
• Don't be a dick: as with anything, you can game the system. Adding games that no one owns (and not checking people are happy to buy) or strategically voting can break the trust in the system.
• You'll play more video games: this is why I built it :) My friends have gone from playing once a week/two weeks to a few times a week now. If we're short on time, people will tend to vote for quicker games - if we've got a while, we Paradox.

Thanks to everyone that's used it so far! My email's at the bottom of the home page if any probs, and happy to chat about anything too here.

I swear this text wasn't AI-generated but it deffo reads like it has (I've been claude-pilled); v cringe.