The criteria were
* all-time peak limit below 250 at https://steamcharts.com (hfdden)
* Metacritic score of at least 80 or 80% or more positive user reviews on Steam (gem)

Children of Apollo of Apollo has troubles with the gem category, maybe because it is too hidden.

Player peaks:
* AI War 2 - 310
* Clea - 36
* Death and Taxes - 317

I'd be for raising the "hidden" bar a bit again. Steam's going from player record to player record in these times, and hidden gems get their (little) share...

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/steam-and-counter-strike-global-offensive-once-again-smash-user-records.16320

Originally posted by Zyro:

The criteria were
* all-time peak limit below 250 at https://steamcharts.com (hidden)
[...] I'd be for raising the "hidden" bar a bit again. [...]

250... I don't know. I think "peak" numbers are coincidental and don't really scale with number of players. For example AI War 2 is estimated to be owned by anything between 20 and 50k people and it hit its all time peak of 310 one time in October 2019 during sale. Lately its average peaks are 6x smaller (~50 people) and it is now - when everybody's playing everything. Does this value increase a chance of game being recommended to people by Steam store or something?

If you look for player to reviews conversion[forums.rpgmakerweb.com] you'll see it's rarely above 1% so maybe 1 review per 100 players. A game needs 10 positive reviews to get a rating tag. So technically game can sell a 500 copies in one day, everyone tries it the same or the next day, it gets 250 peak and doesn't even get ranked.

Maybe some other metric could be considered? I tried to google[www.google.com] the "game title" "steam" "game" and see the number of results on the last page - it doesn't say much, though. I got 94 results for AI War 2 and 173 results for Witcher 3. Maybe number of Steam reviews would be better, can't tell. Maybe number of discussions on game's community page.

What I'm trying to say is I neither agree nor disagree with the idea of rising the 250 all-time peak limit because it's really hard to understand how relevant it is. If we had statistics on how many times the game was promoted on the main Steam store page or how many users have visited its store page, then I'd have some opinion. That'd translate to "hidden" for me.

Originally posted by Zyro:

* Metacritic score of at least 80 or 80% or more positive user reviews on Steam (gem)
[...] Children of Apollo of Apollo has troubles with the gem category, maybe because it is too hidden. [...]

Children of apollo has 9 reviews and 2 of those are negative. That's 77.(7)% percent positive. I'll take a look at it and decide whether I like it or not. If it turns out I do and I write a review, then it'll be 80% positive.

As I've mentioned before, I don't think the original criteria should be seen as something cut in stone, but rather be adjusted as seen fit by the active members of the group. In fact, we've adjusted the criteria a few times in the past to adjust for obvious candidates that didn't fit the criteria at the time.

It will always be an imperfect measure of the "hiddenness" and "gemness" of any game though, as lots of factors can muddle the stats, like an overlooked game that has been part of a bundle (and thus has lots of owners), but still fails to be discovered and appreciated, because either people just installed it and never played it, or because it didn't appeal to the demographic of those bundle owners.

Therefore, I will always trust the opinion of a person of this group, which has played the game, and thinks it's a good fit for recommendation over those arbitrary criteria.

I'd also like to re-iterate that even though I started the group, I always hoped it would be a team effort, and that my opinion doesn't count for more than any of its active members, so feel free to make any decisions you feel is in the spirit of the group. If you need more administrative powers to do so, eg. to create lists, moderate or whatnot, let me know, and I will grant those powers (if you're someone I know and trust, like you two).

Originally posted by Cy:

Since we all have a bit more time on our hands lately I can finally get more familiar with the games I accepted from curator offers and write reviews. Are all of those okay to post a recommendation (provided I find them worth it):

• AI War 2
  
• Children of Apollo
  
• Clea / 克莉
  
• Death and Taxes

My immediate reaction to those games is that I'd probably not consider AI War 2 hidden, since Arcen is a very well-known indie developer, or Death and Taxes, since it got a lot of attention, and was even commercially successful (if I remember correctly). However, considering that Arcen went bust, and given what I just wrote, I dunno. I have no strong opinion on the matter.

As always, I'm totally fine with members accepting curator offers and doing with them what they see fit though, even if it doesn't end up being a recommendation at all, or a review for a different purpose (positive or negative).