Steam 秋季新品节（Steam Next Fest）开跑后玩家有感参展 Demo 数量与 AI 作品激增，引发宣传效益下滑的讨论。《幻兽帕鲁》（Palworld）开发商 Pocketpair 发行暨公关经理 Bucky（John Buckley）昨（20）日发文提醒外界别从爆红或乏人问津的案例判断新品节成效，也应参考历年资料、留意玩家组成的变化。
Bucky 首先推荐阅读分析平台 GameDiscoverCo 与 How To Market A Game 对新品节数据做的历年深入分析，报名活动的 Demo 确实比以前拥挤许多，但过去六年来游戏获得新增的愿望清单中位数是否变化很大值得查证。
「我们很容易说 AI 垃圾作品（AI slop）正在扼杀你的曝光，但实际情况真是如此吗？」Buckley 表示，参加新品节却几乎没人注意的游戏一直都很多，这种情况早在生成式 AI 普及前就存在。
「Steam 在最初几天会大量随机排列游戏，即使如此，新品节常在最初 24 小时逐渐形成固定节奏，讨论都集中在差不多 25 款游戏上。老话一句，真正优秀的作品终究会浮出台面，背后有一些行销声势确实会有帮助！」
There’s been a lot of discussion about the viability of Steam Next Fest recently, and first of all, I strongly recommend reading all the historical deep dives on NF data by GameDiscoverCo and How To Market A Game. Yes…NF has become ridiculously crowded, but what if the median WL gain hasn’t actually changed that much in the last 6 years? It’s easy to say that AI slop is killing your visibility but is that actually the case? For starters, the number of NF games that get almost no attention has always been very high. Even long before this AI slop era. Steam randomizes the games heavily for the first few days, but even then NF typically settles into a rhythm after the first 24 hours where all the discourse tends to be about the same 25ish games. As usual, the cream rises to the top, but having some marketing momentum behind you certainly helps! So what has changed? I think the gamers have. NF 5 or 6 years ago was a much more niche event. 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. Now, due to a number of factors such as increased discussion around NF, more streamer coverage, and players being more open to trying smaller games (friendslop era effect?), I suspect NF has seen a pretty considerable influx of new players. And where do these players end up? Well, naturally, playing the top demos! We love to talk about the highs and lows on Twitter. The games that explode and get 100k WLs, and the games that didn’t even break 100. But those are the extremes. In between those are thousands of games, and the data suggests that a huge proportion of them gain only a few hundred WLs at most. That’s the reality of NF, and it has been for a long time. We want to blame AI, and sure, NF does have a lot of AI slop, but are gamers really that dumb? Is anyone actually playing this stuff? 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. I’m not saying that discoverability isn’t getting harder, or that AI slop isn’t a problem. It absolutely is. But I do think we’re far too quick to brand every disappointing result on the number of games joining NF. If the number of games has exploded, but the number of players has also increased… and the median WL gains haven’t really collapsed, then perhaps NF isn’t becoming as bad as it might seem? There’s a lot of data out there and a lot of nuance to the discussion, so I think it’s just worth approaching carefully. I know it seems discouraging, and I know it might feel like you should give up, but don’t. NF has always been a gamble, and it’s a gamble I think is still worth taking.
— Bucky | Palworld (@Bucky_cm) October 20, 2026谈到新品节近年的变化，Bucky 回忆「五、六年前的 NF 是一场小众得多的活动，参展游戏比较少，玩家也比较少。我认为那时的玩家比较喜欢玩 Demo、提供回馈、提交错误回报，并主动四处挖掘隐藏好作品。」
如今对新品节的讨论增加、实况主报导更多，加上玩家更愿意尝试小型游戏，可能都让活动迎来不少新玩家，「那么这些玩家最后都去哪里了？很自然地，就是去玩排名靠前的 Demo！」
Steam 新品节自 2021 年开始举办后，让玩家试玩 Demo，再将游戏加入愿望清单与提供回馈，开发团队也能在正式推出前取得资料调整作品，良善循环源自公开测试与交流舞台，但许多人如今把活动当成逛橱窗，先选择人气高且完成度较好的作品。
Bucky 提醒，人们往往聚焦新品节表现最好的游戏和最烂的游戏，「但都是极端情况，两者之间还有数千款游戏，而数据显示，其中非常大一部分顶多只增加几百个愿望清单，这就是 NF 的现实，很长一段时间以来都是如此。」
对于 AI 滥作增加的疑虑，Bucky 承认问题确实存在，但多数这类游戏很快就会失去关注。
「我们很想把问题怪到 AI 头上，没错，新品节确实有不少 AI 垃圾，但玩家真有那么笨吗？真的有人在玩这些东西吗？我猜绝大多数滥作都会沉到底层、立刻烂在那里，就跟 AI 出现前那些粗制滥造的游戏一样。」
换皮游戏与迷因作品在 Steam 上存在已久，多数无法维持关注，Bucky 并未否认游戏曝光日益困难，也没有淡化 AI 低品质作品的影响，但他指出开发者不能把成绩不如预期都简单归咎于参展作品数量。
他还说当参展游戏增加的同时，玩家总数同步增加，而愿望清单新增数中位数没有大幅下滑，那 Steam 新品节就没有那么糟，相关资料很多且讨论牵涉不少细节，因此「值得谨慎看待这件事」。
Bucky 最后鼓励开发者别因为参加新品节收获差就放弃：「我知道这看起来令人沮丧，也知道你可能觉得应该放弃，但别放弃。Steam 新品节一直是一场赌注，我认为这还是一场值得下注的赌注。」
