Show HN: Dpadd, Goodreads for games, is now open to all

by claytoncorreia • 13 years ago

37 18 13 years ago

I'm not as interested in the social aspect, but oh my god have I been waiting for a recommendation engine for video games for a looooong time. It's especially a problem if you're running on an underpowered rig, where playing the latest titles isn't always an option. This will be great if they can somehow provide a netflix-esq 'play this next' based on your past playing stats. I've discovered some great games like Hearts of Iron II, Mount & Blade just through pure chance. Providing new (read:younger) gamers with a way to discover games made prior to ~2009 would be a big boost for all parties involved.

claytoncorreia5• 13 years ago

Great thoughts, thanks! Better recommendations will come with time for sure. Currently recommendations are focused on what the community is doing but as the user base and data grows we'll be able to do some more interesting/useful things. Cheers! -Clayton (Dpadd guy)

jon-wood2• 13 years ago

I'd be surprised if this isn't already in your backlog, but I'd love to be able to import the list of games I've played from my Steam account (maybe let me import anything which I've put > 1 hour into). The same for Xbox Live would be good as well, but probably harder to implement.

claytoncorreia5• 13 years ago

Yup, it's on the roadmap but I'd like to figure out something more elegant than just importing everything you do on other networks. Other sites have done that and it turns into a "set it and forget it" experience, I want to build something where people actually come to, share gaming experiences and get value out of the discussion.

jon-wood2• 13 years ago

How about doing something with the weekly email that I noticed in my profile settings, giving a list of games played over the last week, and the option to set as your current game or review them?

I'm with you that you probably don't just want another thing that says "Jon played 120 hours of Civilization V", but given you have the information available it would probably increase engagement hugely if you could nudge people to come back now and again. My problem with Goodreads is that I start using it, and then completely forget it exists again!

BESebastian3• 13 years ago

Would be nice that if you signed in with a Steam account, it did a bit of automatic population with what you've already played, are playing, and so on.

Also, some kind of prod with the "to play list" from your unplayed steam games.

Knocked this up a while ago http://bellendsebastian.github.io/steam-backlog/ and it's kinda depressing.

claytoncorreia5• 13 years ago

Totally, it's on the road map. Also, I may very quite interested in your tech :) I'll be in touch.

BESebastian3• 13 years ago

The source is up on github (https://github.com/bellendsebastian/steam-backlog), if you want to take a look or use it or whatever, go for it. It's a bit messy as I wrote it on a hurry one night, but you're free to use whatever if it helps.

naiyt• 13 years ago

I made something kind of similar that also estimates how much time it would take to finish your backlog, and guesses what games you have and haven't beaten:

http://steamplaytime.appspot.com

BESebastian3• 13 years ago

Nice work. My original idea was to have it randomly generate a calendar which would designate games to certain days in an attempt to force myself to play some of my unplayed games (currently 138/269 games), but this was just a fun little thing I did when drunk and got bored of the idea. :D

radioact1ve• 13 years ago

Looking good. I used raptr[1] way back in the day. It is any different? Not sure how much they've change if at all since I used them.

[1] http://raptr.com/

claytoncorreia5• 13 years ago

Good question. I've actually used Raptr before quite a bit. Here's how I see Dpadd differentiating: With Raptr I set up all my gaming accounts and then left and didn't come back. There was no reason to for me to return, it just automatically pulled in all my gaming updates and organized them without me having to be present. I want Dpadd to be more focused on discussion/sharing around gaming updates (hence the Goodreads analogy). So far I've had great feedback from users that this approach is more valuable to them.

nollidge• 13 years ago

Search function is kinda weird. From my journal, under Update Your Journal, I searched for "space quest", and my game wasn't one of the five listed, but there was no scroll bar or way to expand results. So I went to Browse and searched there, and finally found "Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter" roughly 40th in the list.

The game also has 5 sequels which didn't show in the list (unless I didn't scroll down far enough), not to mention it's one of several "quest" games produced by Sierra. Would be good to show related titles on a game's page.

EDIT: also went to the "Space Taxi" page. There should be a clickable Platform listed there, so I can go find more of my favorite Commodore 64 games.

crowhack• 13 years ago

Looks great. Probably too many features for my taste, as I deal with enough social networks in my life.

For the past couple years I've been using http://www.backloggery.com/ to keep track of what I am playing.

snide2• 13 years ago

Hey this uses Giant Bomb data! You have no idea how hard it was to convince the various business parties that a free API of video game data was a good idea.

Glad someone is using it.

claytoncorreia5• 13 years ago

Dpadd wouldn't exist without it! Are you still at GB? I've been talking to some folks over there about some opportunities with GB/Dpadd. Thanks for your hard work!

-Clayton (Dpadd guy)

snide2• 13 years ago

I'm not. Left in March, but still show up on camera every once in awhile.

janson0• 13 years ago

We also use it over at http://gamewisp.com to populate our Let's Plays game hubs (https://gamewisp.com/game/427).

Thanks for making that happen man! That API is fantastically awesome and really saved us. Oh the hours of manual entry before we found it... the horror!

Show HN: Dpadd, Goodreads for games, is now open to all

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