I've tried to love Itch, EGS and GOG, but the thing that keeps me coming back to Steam is the ability to say "No, I'm not going to play that, stop showing it". The other stores shove unwanted ads in my face every time I visit, and it's always for the same old games I have no interest in. Steam helps me on my quest to find the diamonds in the rough, and every time I check the front page I usually see 5+ games that I'd consider playing.
Anyone else feel game shops should do more to help us find the right games? What's your strategy for finding good games with so much trash out there?
It's a great feature to have, and honestly I actually haven't had to use it much either. I've found that Steam does a good job curating things properly based on my library, and the way Steam advertises its listings is mostly unintrusive.
Honestly, I think Steam's "suggestions" system is the only form of advertisement that's actually gotten me to buy something. I wouldn't have known about RPG Maker VX Ace without out otherwise.
Which "suggestions"? I find each showcase on the website has its own quirks:
To get to 50k ignores, I made a script to ignore whole pages of search results, and used it with combinations of tags I had absolutely no interest in (e.g. "multiplayer + sports", "sexual content + match 3 puzzle", "zombies", etc.). This made the Discovery Queue MUCH more relevant.
All of them, really. I don't really go through the queue that much but I've never been bothered by what shows up in the "Featured", "Recommended based on the games you play" or "more like this" sections. It does tend to be more of the just popular or big-name stuff but it generally does a good job of at least picking things related to what's already in my library.