Currently when I open “Browse Popular” 90% of them have similar tags. It’d be cool if the algorithm tried to diversify the shown games so that people can see different types of popular games without explicitly having to search them out.
If I wanted to see the all-time most popular of all time I’d either check Top sellers or Top rated, so I don’t think the category loses anything on doing this. It’d always be possible to search for specific tags anyways, if that’s what people want.
Eh, something can be popular within a smaller demographic though. If we define popular in absolute terms like that, then we end up promoting whatever games is appealing to the largest type of demographic. It could also be a separate tab, point would be to have some default way of seeing a more diverse selection of games without knowing exactly what you’re looking for.
The front-page definitely doesn’t work for that, 50% of it is taken up by a single random game until you x it out, then by two different types of new games, then recommended by you. Nowhere there can I see a diverse selection of popular games.
How would you select those smaller demographics? How would you select which small demographic's interests to push? Thought to the conclusion, practically every game is popular in a small enough sub group of users. If everything is "popular", nothing is.
A browse page is selected not by demographic, but by content. So just select a tag or two for stuff that would categorize you into the group of people that like to browse for such games.
In theory, the site could create a profile of your preferences and group you into a demographic that is shown a tailored selection. But this selection would not be called popular games. It would be called recommendations.
Anyways, putting a diversification in popular based on popularity of whatever subgroups would render the section to not be the popular section anymore. It would be the trending in special interest groups section.
Maybe the randomizer would be something you want to use. https://itch.io/randomizer
