Podcast, word of mouth, magazines, Reddit Lemmy?
Lemmy mostly, and occasionally friends
Steam tells me about new releases that are in my area of interest. I’m mostly into multiplayer games so there are a few of us who keep an eye out and talk about upcoming games and stuff so it’s not just up to me.
My son. I see him playing stuff when he has his laptop on the kitchen table.
Me: “What’s that?”
Him, knowing what I’m getting at: “Meh. It’s not very good. I’m probably going to return it. There’s no mods.”
“No mods” is probably his number one reason for giving up on games.
Video games?
I watch “let’s game it out” on YouTube a lot and every so often he plays a game where I’m like “ooo that looks really fun”. Currently playing cities skylines and loving it.
Also steam sales.
I don’t follow any game news or anything. I like going through my queues on Steam though. Then I go to the recently released demos to see if anything looks interesting.
There were a few I tried after seeing reccommendations on Lemmy too.
I also used to browse indiedb.com a lot.
I check the new games section of the xbox store everynow and then. Besides that its word of mouth and advertisements.
“get indie gaming” and nitrorad on youtube sometimes. occasional random youtubes that use games as a step to talk about psychology or societal issues.
steam recommendations. “new” section of steam. searching “necromancer” and “villain protagonist” on steam obsessively every few months.
one of my steam friends is also into weird indies so i look at the shit she wishlists.checking out my huge itch bundles. (they do bundles of like, a hundred games at a time, and i like playing baby’s first games ha.) sometimes just browsing itch, they have a lot of sick queer games and books.
checking out humble bundles.“Hi it’s Josh from lets game it out, today we’re going to be breaking this new game the devs sent me”
I honestly try not to find out about new games because in Australia a coke habit would be cheaper and more fun.
Nowadays, it’s through “bait-and-switch” rip vids made by Youtube channels like SiIvaGunner and TimmyTurnersGrandDad.
I also keep a casual eye towards new releases on itch.io.Friends, basically. I’ve got enough of a backlog to play already that I don’t need to go looking for new games, and I know enough about what I like that my friends who I talk to about games can say “I think you’ll really like this” when something specific comes out.
I buy games on sale a lot. Frequently, a game looks really neat but overpriced. I get a lot of games from bundles. And through those games, find others. Most recently, I found AfterImage from a bundle because im into metroidvanias. And looking that game up, read about other recommendations that are now on my wishlist.
For other games, Rock paper Shotgun is my preferred source. They give a lot of attention to indie games.
here
Some from discussion on here actually, but I think mostly from gamingonlinux.com, and steam telling me “this is a bit like the other stuff you like”.
The rogue extra option, is me hoping a game exists and searching the internet to try and find if it does. It’s quite common with old unique games, where you’re looking for “did anyone ever do a remake/sequel of…”
I look through the “Most Downloaded Torrents” lists on GazelleGames.net. You can browse by all sorts of metrics and you can look at “most downloaded torrents” of the Day/Week/Month/Etc.
The IRC channel is pretty dope too.