[COLUMN] Every Single Gaming Storefront Is Terrible | by Marty Sliva

Over the past year or so, these columns from me have generally been on the positive side of things, and that’s by design. I’ve been doing this for a long, long time, and I’m at a point in my life where I’d rather spend my work energy propping up the stuff I love than tearing down the stuff I don’t. Life’s too short, there’s too much great art out there, yadda yadda yadda.

But this is not one of those columns. Because after having spent time over the past few days on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and Steam storefronts, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are all terrible in their own unique ways, and I cannot fathom why we don’t have a better option for browsing and buying games digitally in the year 2025.

Let’s start with Steam, since it’s the freshest in my mind. This week is Steam Next Fest, which rules. I love being able to load up my Steam Deck with dozens and dozens of demos, finding those few diamonds in the rough that I’ll know to keep a sharp eye on in the coming months and years. Despite the fact that they should probably scale back to holding it only biannually (twice a year, not every other year – words are dumb) to keep some of the magic and mystique alive, I still think it’s the closest that the public can come to feeling what it’s like to attend a trade show like E3 or Tokyo Game Show and spend the week mainlining demos directly into your brain. Cool stuff.

But what isn’t cool stuff is just how much of a pain in the ass it is to navigate the Steam store, even in the section that’s designated specifically for Next Fest demos. It’s just an absolute mess of various sliders and categories, none of which seem to know my gaming preferences whatsoever. Any of these stores that feature a “For You” or “Recommended” tab feels like they’ve just learned of my existence moments ago, and are desperately cobbling together a list of random games in hopes that one might stick. If these companies are going to steal my data on the regular, the least they could do is put it to use in offering me some solid suggestions.

It’s also a bummer that as the number of games participating in Next Fest grows, it becomes harder for anything other than the upper 1% to rise to the top. It feels like the Top Charts are locked in at the beginning of the week, and feature very little movement throughout the event. And given that those games tend to land in ultra popular genres that I’m not particularly the audience for, it means more digging through the clunky UI for me.

One thing I will give Steam credit for is prominently highlighting a section that features all of the games in my Wishlist that currently have Next Fest demos. That’s a great way to easily see a bunch of things that piqued that interest at some point in the past few days/weeks/months/years, which is a great starting point for my demo deep dive. However, needing to go into each one individually to download them is a pain, especially on Steam Deck, which is where I prefer to play these smaller PC games. And yeah, as much as I love Valve’s plucky little portable, navigating the store on it through both controls and touch screen is a mess. Also, once Next Fest is over, there’s still no easy way to just filter your Wishlist by games that feature playable demos.

For an event like this, I end up sourcing a massive list of games to download from various critics, streamers, social media followers, and pals, so I give no credit to Steam for this. But Valve isn’t the only target of my storefront ire. Because for the love of god, have you ever tried to navigate the Nintendo store on your Switch?

We often joke about how Nintendo is a generation ahead when it comes to creativity, and a generation behind when it comes to simple online infrastructure. But honestly, that last one isn’t necessarily true, because it feels like the eShop is still living back in the late ‘00s, except with none of the charming aesthetics of the Wii. Shout out to Nirvana the Band the Show.

The eShop just feels like a Thunderdome that allows any and all manner of asset-flip slop to saddle up to the Newly Released list. If you try to scroll through what’s new, you’re just met with a slew of awful mobile ports, clear copyright infringement, and borderline hentai. And best of all, the UI chugs whenever you try to change categories or scroll through the slop a bit too fast for Nintendo’s liking. Seriously, if the Switch 2 doesn’t bring its online infrastructure into the present, we’re going to have some problems. And by problems, I mean that I will buy it day one and continue to just inaudibly grumble about it, because I’m a sucker and like it when Mario does big jumps.

But it’s not like things are much greener over on the other side of the fence with Xbox and PlayStation. Both of them still suffer from the Steam problem of botching any and all recommendations, despite having my clear history of gaming saved from over the past 20 years or so. The various tiles and categories of the stores have no aesthetic flow to them, and both are inundated with ads and offers for things that I clearly have no interest in, or even worse, different versions of games I already own.

The search functionality is wonky, and it can often be a pain to find a specific thing even when you’re typing in its exact name. I often think about what it would be like if your local grocery store was arranged as poorly as these digital storefronts. No order or structure – just a rat’s nest of chaos and ads that continually push back at you in every single aisle. I feel like the general public would burn that sucker down within a week.

And the thing is, none of these companies have any reason to try and fix things, because there’s really no competition for any of them within their own ecosystems. Each first-party console manufacturer is the king of their own castle, so no worries from them there. And as much as I complain about Steam, there’s no realistic alternative on PC, though I do continually respect what GOG is doing when it comes to game preservation and allowing you to actually own the things you buy, even if they’re digital. 

At the end of the day, all of these botched user experiences kinda make me miss the era when physical game aisles and stores were the main source of where we would browse. It felt like some effort was put into the design and flow of a Toys R Us, Best Buy, FuncoLand, or Electronics Boutique, even though looking at pics of them from the '90s often make them feel like liminal spaces.

Obviously things are a thousand times more convenient now, especially as someone who’s primarily transitioned over to buying new games digitally. I wish there was some lesson to take away from this. Some catharsis in knowing that these stores are improving. But they aren’t, and so our only options are to unplug, or continue to suffer for the love of the art. Besides, how else am I going to find out what new hentai slop released on the eShop today?