Steam's tagging system and recommendation system.

-No
-Yes, for laughs (example TBS "Afghanistan '11" gives me FPS "Hell Let Loose" as more like this)
-I don't look for new titles on Steam very often as I'm not into price astronomy.

1.) No, once or twice, I find the system useful for search features.
2.) I don't use the recommended search because typically it's either the same games by the publisher or not related or similar at all.
3.) It's easy to use and I've never not found something I would be interested in playing.

Typically though if I see a friend playing a game I'll investigate, or look at games being bundled to see if I would play that.
During the winter/summer/autumn (etc...) sale I'll typically dig through discounted and/or wishlisted stuff and can easily pick up enough games to amuse me for 3+ months. Backlog keeps me busy anyhow.

• I've tagged some games before. Voted on existing tags. Why not, if I don't forget...
• Not really. I've used interactive recommender in labs and discovery queue but just to try it out / get cards.
• I rarely find new games through those systems, some 3rd party websites work better for me. I did use tags to look for tower-defense games, if that counts.

• I do not, I do not really remember using it. In paper, it is very useful, but in reality it's very chaotic, people often use it for the memes and you don't seem to be able to vote a tag out.
• I sometimes browse it while looking at a game, but mostly to confirm it's similar to games I already know off, not so much to look for similar games. I only ever used LABS once and I didn't really like it, so I never used it again.
• Not really, the problem here is that the act of tagging something is subjective, and as such, what some might consider X tag, I might consider Y, hence is not very useful to look for certain genres or specific content, that is not to say that it doesn't work, but, that you can find a lo of strays under certain tags, or games recommended that have nothing in common with the one you're looking aka the one you're interested in. I think this system is a good idea, but needs to have room for either more curation or customization when categorizing games.

• I've tagged a few games and flagged a few inappropriate tags, but I don't interact with it much.
• I sometimes go through the queue, but I often find that it does an awful job at actually figuring out what I like. When it comes to the recommendation system on the bottom of the page I tend to mostly react to how many games have got the wrong tags so the recommendations become useless. Sometimes the tags are subjective, like where do you draw the line between what is a wargame and what is not, but sometimes you see games that are clearly not tagged correctly, like a turnbased strategy game being tagged as an RTS (that is rather common). Some tags themselves are also pretty useless for a system like that, tags that are too wide in scope.
• I don't find the system itself to be hard to use, I just find the implementation to make it pretty useless. It is very rare for it to recommend something that I would actually be interested in.

"Do you use the tagging system for games? Did you ever tag a game? Do you find the tagging system useful?"
I'll sometimes tag games, but that's mostly with new or unknown stuff that doesn't already have a set list of tags. That's when it's most helpful. Unfortunately, if something's already got a wrong tag, it's there for life. Like putting a puzzle tag on anything with some sort of puzzle in it. One can hardly get enough people together to change a bad tag.
And I do sometimes find the tagging system useful. Just... not always for stuff like the LGBTQ tag. I've been ambushed by futa fetish porn.😣

"Do you use the recommendation system you see at the end of the store game pages that tell you about similar games to the title you are checking right now? What about the automated recommendation system?"
I very frequently scroll to see what else is recommended. I will sometimes even go to the store page of games I already have, just to see what else is there for me. I've found a few new favorites in this way. However, the chances of them being more than loosely related is slim to none. I found Outer Wilds and Stray on Spring Falls. They have nothing in common.

The automated rec system is basically the search terms that pop up while searching, right? I've used those maybe five or ten times. Or you mean the queue? I've used that maybe three times, outside of getting special event cards.

"Do you find it easy or hard to use these systems to look for new titles? Do these systems meet your needs when it comes to finding new titles or titles that meet your interests?"
Easy, for the most part, though they don't always meet my needs. I sometimes look for a specific sort of relaxing puzzle game, and it's not easy to find in the [Puzzle] tag. It would be better if one could search for multiple tags at once. I'd be all over the [Relaxing] [Puzzle] search. Or maybe a tag with puzzles that are solved in a more relaxed manner.

• Yes. Yes, but rarely. Yes.
• Yes. "What about the automated recommendation system?" - Not sure what do you mean.
• Easy, I think. Not really, they aren't that great.

Do you use the tagging system for games? Did you ever tag a game? Do you find the tagging system useful?

No, I don't use it, since I have no need for it. Also, many tags are wrong. I never tagged and game. The tagging system is not useful for me, since i filter my games by quality or discount or price and not by genre.

Do you use the recommendation system you see at the end of the store game pages that tell you about similar games to the title you are checking right now? What about the automated recommendation system?

I don't use any recommendation system.

Do you find it easy or hard to use these systems to look for new titles? Do these systems meet your needs when it comes to finding new titles or titles that meet your interests?

It's easy to use the systems, yes, but also completely pointless to me. So these systems do not meet my needs. Every game has at least one wrong tag which is possible because users can add tags to games and many users don't know what they are doing.

So the recommendations are way off. If, for example, I am looking at the store page of a RPG, how on earth is it useful for me when I get recommended a Shooter like Borderlands just because Borderlands has a skill-system which some users think is the core of an RPG and hence tag Borderlands as RPG?!

-Do you use the tagging system for games? Did you ever tag a game? Do you find the tagging system useful?

Yes but usually only in the attempt to drop tags that seem inappropriate/wrong for a game.

-Do you use the recommendation system you see at the end of the store game pages that tell you about similar games to the title you are checking right now? What about the automated recommendation system?

Rarely. I sometimes experiment with some of their Steam Lab features.

-Do you find it easy or hard to use these systems to look for new titles? Do these systems meet your needs when it comes to finding new titles or titles that meet your interests?

Imho the recommendations you mentioned above are more for people who need basic guidance.
But the genre/tag hubs like this are really useful. Either to find new additions for the wishlist or the best genre-specific deals during a big sale.

Yes

i tagged wrong tags back in the day but not anymore.
I check out sometimes the recommended similiar games if the picture or name is good .
only used the auto recommendation like 4-5times not that often .bought maybe 1 game from that .
finding gems is in all ways kinda hard i gues

if your also including the bit where it says if it's relevant based on other games played then no - sometimes the games could not be more different

-Do you use the tagging system for games? Did you ever tag a game? Do you find the tagging system useful?

I have used it a few times to add tags to games that didn't have any or had few, yes.
I would find it more useful if people weren't using it for fun or to be assholes but that wouldn't be the internet if they didn't, right?

-Do you use the recommendation system you see at the end of the store game pages that tell you about similar games to the title you are checking right now? What about the automated recommendation system?

I tried. I ended up laughing a lot, or scratching my head about what lead them to those recommendations. I mean... they know the games I buy. They know the games I have in my library and they know which games I play out of all of those, and which I play the most. You wouldn't think it would be too hard to get at least in the ballpark of what's interesting to me... and yet...

-Do you find it easy or hard to use these systems to look for new titles? Do these systems meet your needs when it comes to finding new titles or titles that meet your interests?

I usually find it easy to use but useless. I am now mostly using it during sales to check for games I have not heard about that are upcoming or for games that may be on sale that I didn't know about yet but it's usually a lot of time wasted, which is why I only do it twice a year.

Good luck on your thesis.

the tag system would be extremely useful if it didn't have a bunch of totally useless tags and a ton of idiots (devs and players alike) ruining the whole thing. I sometimes add a tag or report one but since it's pointless, I tend not to.

never bother with recommendations, it's pretty useless as well, telling me to buy things because they're on sale or popular.

I think that every content should have it's "Tags":
-Movies
-Series
-Anime
-Adult Content
-Games
(Especially Content directed to Kids)

I very rarely add or "contest" a tag on a game, only if it really needs a useful tag, or it's mislabeled, but I don't check it too often.

Some genre tags are absolutely useless imo - action and indie and I guess adventure being the worst offenders, because they are so, SO widespread, it barely helps narrowing it down or properly describing the product.

Recommended feature - I don't check it too often. They often do it because it's also an action or adventure title, which makes it untrustworthy. Also it kind of too often recommends my already wishlisted games to me... good reminder, and they really try to sell them to me, but finding out new games would be better.

LA Noire had these games as "similar titles": God of War, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Death Stranding, Halo Infinite, Sekiro, Disco Elysium. While there are some similarities (I guess exploring well-developed, interesting worlds, some story and characters) they are wildly different in so many things, including main presentation and gameplay loop. TP action-adventure in a mythological setting, turn based RPG, open world atmospheric walking sim, FPS, TP Soulslike, isometric cRPG. Also out of the 12 suggestions I had 4 on my wishlist, and I even own (!!!) a different one (Mafia, so it's a spot-on recommendation, but I'm in the middle of a big game, and I don't often scroll down to its reviews for recommendations).
Personally I think it would be better if the system would take genre tags into consideration, but find interesting titles on content tags, and maybe show them in groups, like they started doing sections during sales. Still riding on LA Noire's case: third person games /open world games, detective games, atmospheric games.

Also - I think discovery Q sometimes have games recommended to you because you played / liked X. Now THAT is a feature I would like to have separated from the standard discovery Q, that is filled with popular games I know about but not ignore/WL-worthy, positively review games that I'm likely not interested in, or games with 6 review because they are new.
I think ifferent, thematic discovery queues would be a really nice change.

-Do you use the tagging system for games? Did you ever tag a game? Do you find the tagging system useful?
Yes I use it, more to report a wrong tag than to add one myself. The tagging system is somewhat useful to give a first impression, but often is so misused that sometimes you need to watch the video and read the description to give you an idea of the real gameplay. Sometimes even after reading all the reviews I am still lost as to what kind of game I'm looking at.
My two main gripes with the tagging system is misuse/overuse and lack of actual definitions. First, many developers put too many tags for their games so they appear in as many search results as possible. Imagine it's a puzzle. You have to think? Strategy! There's text to read and a character? RPG, Story rich and visual novel, at least. It's randomized (not even procedural generation, just randomized)? Then Roguelike, Roguelite, Action Roguelike and Procedural generation to start. Too many visual novels I've seen with tags Simulation and RPG, and they don't put Story rich which would fit, because people rarely search for that tag. Also some fans of games go too far in describing their fav games with tags. Or it's simple trolling, since it's an open system and everyone can put every tag. "In Doom, you take the role of a space marine" -> RPG.
Second, there's no actual definition of each tag. Sometimes I look for strategy games and half of them aren't strategy games as the genre you and me think of. Anything involving rogue-something is badly misused because everyone has a different idea of what rogue-something is. And so on.

-Do you use the recommendation system you see at the end of the store game pages that tell you about similar games to the title you are checking right now? What about the automated recommendation system?
It suffers from the tag system. We all know how these similarities and automated recommendation things go, but for them to be worth it, they need a good tag system behind. In iMDB it works pretty good, in Steam sometimes you get WTF-level recommendations or similar games. So a majority can go well but there's always the odd choice, or for certain games Steam can't choose the right games.

-Do you find it easy or hard to use these systems to look for new titles? Do these systems meet your needs when it comes to finding new titles or titles that meet your interests?
Sometimes yes, sometimes not. It's a hit-n-miss system, and I also guess it's down to personal experience. I bet there will be people saying it works well for them, and others say they never use it because it's right down dumb.

I think I added Denuvo tag to a few games. Oh and I tagged "Genital physics" for Conan Exiles 😎