I follow games publishing pretty closely. If something seems interesting, I add it to my wishlist and forget about it.
When I feel like actually buying a new game, I open up my wishlist and sort by discount. Once you have a couple hundred games wishlisted, something is always on sale. Sometimes the steam emails that something is on sale, awakens the itch to play a particular game, too.
YouTube reviews of bigger titles, esp. the comments where people compare to other games
bundle sales, like on Fanatical and Humble
I don't use Steam recommendations or any of those "tools" for finding new games. I just find I get better results from the above than from any recommendation engine.
Steam Discovery/New Releases Queue! I've found a tonne of cool games, both old and new and popular and niche, just by flicking through the queues when I wanted something new to play.
IDK, I've been through like 20 queues (I have 162 games viewed) and have maybe found one or two interesting games. I get far more success just searching "best indie games" or "games like X" or threads on Reddit/lemmy recommendation threads (by far my biggest source of wishlisted games).
Yeah, I usually find these gems a year or two late, but that's kind of the point of patient gaming, right? I probably also miss a ton of gems, but I don't have time to play the games I already have, so I don't worry about it.
I still do try the queue from time to time, but mostly because watching trailers is sometimes fun.
Steam discovery saw me playing a bunch of building games and showed me From the Depths. What an absolute gem, I would never have found it otherwise. Avorion too.
I'm afraid I'm a victim of algorithms because I pretty much only look at stuff from GOG and Steam front pages or games that are recommended as 'similar' over there. And of course youtube.
As a side note. I should even stop checking those because I just keep playing the same games nowadays instead of chipping away at my backlog.
This sub, haha. I had never heard of Omori until someone mentioned it here, I looked it up and it had like all 10 out of 10 reviews in every category, I had to check it out and I am glad I started playing it (Not finished yet, don't spoil anything).
Unfortunately, Youtube is still easily the best. Like, even something as straightforward of a channel as Nintendo World Report gave me awareness of Paranormasight.
I'd love something more formally defined, but nah, the stream of consciousness that is a bunch of small creators making background content has been the better solution.
I do! I have recommendations! I use this site myself, meaning it is not something I have heard about from my cousin thrice-removed. I use https://gg.deals to find good game bargains. They include all of the official stores and for those who want to, also keyshops. On the site note, GG.deals has a sister site in Poland for those who speak Polish and don't speak English, it is https://lowcygier.pl.
Some of the games I've spent the most time on are games I've discovered through his channel (Dwarf Fortress, Caves Of Qud, Hardspace Shipbreaker, HighFleet, Synthetik, etc...).
Something I did was create a list on How Long to Beat of games I don't want to play, sort by most popular, and filter out those games and ones in your Want to Play list too. It's not really recommendations at all but it was a good way to look at new games you havent seen before. In terms of getting recommendations, finding a YouTuber with similar taste in games as you could be a good way to do it.
I've got a couple of Youtube channels I follow, ChristopherOdd and Splattercatgaming, who seem to mostly charge through a lot of indy content, giving it a whirl so you can check it out. So that helps to surface anything interesting happening outside AAA studios.
That and just waiting for recs to come from word of mouth.