Cleaning up Steam, your suggestions?

[NuclearKangaroo]

look fellas, youd be hard pressed to find someone who loves steam more than i, im certain if it wasnt because of it, me and a couple of friends wouldnt be into gaming, atleast not legally, thanks to trading i have been able to earn some awfully needed money off steam in the past, the company behind Steam, Valve, has made some of my favorite games ever and i deeply admire em for their pro-customer and pro-dev morals and their desire to push the industry foward


in short, all Glory to the Astute, Benevolent and Extraordinary Newell

HOWEVER!

recently there was been a huge influx of shovelware on steam, and while i didnt entirely dismiss the problem i thought it wasnt that big of a deal, until now, after reading about dead games being sold on the store and watching this TotalBiscuit video in which he shows an old game so badly ported to new systems, it needs to be burned into a CD in order to run properly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLNh5HPbQPo

the video also shows a few nice features which would help to clean up the storefront

personally i also think Valve could add a recommended selection to the store page, personalized just for you, they could use the data theyve gathered with the steam user reviews and game tags to provide a more or less accurate selection, they could even allow this selection to be refreshed each day or even each time you visit the storefront, im not talking about the recommended section btw, i mean something like "Recently updated" or "Featured PC games"


what features do you think steam needs to properly push quality games to the front page?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Its simple:

ban UIG from steam. 90% of shovelware will be gone. 100% of their games are scams anyway.

However, steam is implementing a way to report steam store items for being scams or issues. people can vote to get a game pulled.

Hopefully people won't troll it, but who am I kidding?

UIG? who are they?

 

[LookingGlass]

Actual quality control might be tough with how many games are coming to Steam these days. But just because there's a lot of crap on Steam doesn't mean I should have to see it.

I like the idea of separating "new release games" from "games new to Steam" and "newly available early access games" on the front page. That's surely a nice step in the right direction. A bit of customisation on the front page would go a long way I think, allowing us to hide certain publishers/genres/content types (e.g. software rather than games) so that we can actually see the content we're interested in.

 

[Rayne360]

Whether you like the titles on Steam or not they have a right to be there. They pay money to put their game up. At the end of the day Valve is a business (who gets roughly 30% of sales on Steam) and it's about making money. The only times games should be removed from Steam is when they are literally unplayable, meaning they don't launch or end support (there is a clause that the developer must support their games to an extent or be removed).

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Its simple:

ban UIG from steam. 90% of shovelware will be gone. 100% of their games are scams anyway.

However, steam is implementing a way to report steam store items for being scams or issues. people can vote to get a game pulled.

Hopefully people won't troll it, but who am I kidding?

UIG? who are they?

Mixed up the names.

UIG are known for agricultural simulator. A scamware game with no support that mimicks farming simulator.

There is another company that shares roughly the same name (UIE) and does the same thing except with random _____ simulators.

They even made woodcutter simulator. Which is an awful game.

They also released Game tycoon 1.5 ONLY after game dev tycoon took off on steam. It was an old scamware game from 2006. It didn't even work for people who bought it on steam, it didn't even come with an exe.

oh fuck i remember that one, i thought that game was a sequel to dev tycoon, until i saw the user reviews

even the damn name is meant to trick people into buying it



god, the last thing i want for steam is for it to turn into another iOS app store, full of clones and shitty games

Whether you like the titles on Steam or not they have a right to be there. They pay money to put their game up. At the end of the day Valve is a business (who gets roughly 30% of sales on Steam) and it's about making money. The only times games should be removed from Steam is when they are literally unplayable, meaning they don't launch or end support (there is a clause that the developer must support their games to an extent or be removed).

the thing is, devs would get more sales (and therefore valve would get more money) if good games get more spotlight than awful ones, i think its only fair to give a little more recognition to games widely accepted as good, but at the very least, they should take totalbiscuits advice and let the people know which games are new to steam and which are brand new releases

 

[Caiphus]

Whether you like the titles on Steam or not they have a right to be there. They pay money to put their game up. At the end of the day Valve is a business (who gets roughly 30% of sales on Steam) and it's about making money. The only times games should be removed from Steam is when they are literally unplayable, meaning they don't launch or end support (there is a clause that the developer must support their games to an extent or be removed).

But shitty games can be bad for business. Especially if they clutter up the front page, and *especially* if people unwittingly buy them, through inadequate research or through false advertising, and then have to jump through hoops to attempt to get a refund.

I used to use the new releases page on Steam to look for interesting new games. I no longer do that; there's just too much garbage.

And TB addresses this in the video in the OP. The new releases page hardly means new releases anymore.

 

[aozgolo]

Steam is a distribution platform plain and simple, I don't think that there needs to be any serious additional monitoring done on behalf of Valve as all the tools for customers to make informed decisions are already there. You can tell by the user reviews whether or not the game is worth it or not.

It's only the fault of the consumer if they make poor buying choices when given the knowledge to know better.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Steam is a distribution platform plain and simple, I don't think that there needs to be any serious additional monitoring done on behalf of Valve as all the tools for customers to make informed decisions are already there. You can tell by the user reviews whether or not the game is worth it or not.

It's only the fault of the consumer if they make poor buying choices when given the knowledge to know better.

sure, user reviews are there to avoid people making terrible buying decision (though some sorry lad has to buy the damn thing in the first place for these reviews to actually be of some use), but why couldnt steam help people make GOOD buying decisions?


take for instance, totalbiscuits suggestions, by allowing customers to easily find new games customers might have a better chance of enjoying something like say, luftrausers, an aparently fantastic new indie 2D dogfighting titles released just a couple of days ago, but right now is about to slip to the third page of the new releses section

if steam implemented something similar to my suggestion it would help people easily find some hidden gems for their library, hell id be happy if more Platformers fans out there got to enjoy FLY'N, a criminally under appreciated Puzzle Platforming title with cool level design, fantastic art style, lots of charm, resonably challenging gameplay and an incredibly relaxing soundtrack, or maybe Noitu Love 2 Devolution for the Action fans, a really fun, tough short 2D action game which id describe as a combination of a beat em up and metal slug

the idea a propose would take into account favorable user reviews and game tags in order to show the player good games that hes likely to enjoy considering his existing library, the games showed would also change each time he/she refreshed the page or every day/couple of hours in order to always show the player something new

 

[aozgolo]

I still see no real reason to have to really change anything to be honest. The front page of the Steam store has a Featured Items Bulletin right at the top that highlights new and popular releases in addition to the New Releases tab (Luftrausers is even one of the currently featured games). While I have no issue with a report feature on games that no longer function properly or simply don't work, I don't see a need for any further moderation beyond what's already there.

For instance I'm an active member of the RPGMaker community, some games of which have released on Steam, there are those who dislike these kinds of games and may consider them amateurish but for others like myself who greatly enjoy these games and are willing to purchase and play them, well... who's to say that a game shouldn't be on steam just because some people don't like that particular kind of game?

Now if nobody can play it and it's just broken beyond all levels of playability for everyone then I can understand it being an issue, other than that, anything else I think has it's place. That's why Greenlight works the way it does, it allows Valve to know which games people will actually pay money for.

 

[Zipa]

Totalbiscuit made a good video about this the other day. Bascially saying Steam actually need to be more like GOG and curate what goes on the Steam and have filters that are on by default so new releases don't get pushed off the front page by shovelware re releases.

It is all well and good becoming an open platform like Gabe Newell said they were aiming for in his recent AMA but some form of quality control or at the bare minimum is needed so that actual new releases don't just get buried under the waves of shit that publishers are starting to sneak onto there.

 

[Zipa]

Steam is a distribution platform plain and simple, I don't think that there needs to be any serious additional monitoring done on behalf of Valve as all the tools for customers to make informed decisions are already there. You can tell by the user reviews whether or not the game is worth it or not.

It's only the fault of the consumer if they make poor buying choices when given the knowledge to know better.

At minimum they need to make sure games actually work before they are put up on the platform, the Escapists own Jim Sterling found a game that was missing its .exe file in the download from Steam making it broken right out the gate.

Steam need to check for that kind of thing, not everyone has enough know how to fix something like that unlike Jim and it is utterly unacceptable to sell a broken product. That is something that makes GOG superior to Steam, all the games are tested to make sure they actually work before going up for sale.

 

[rofltehcat]

Whether you like the titles on Steam or not they have a right to be there. They pay money to put their game up. At the end of the day Valve is a business (who gets roughly 30% of sales on Steam) and it's about making money. The only times games should be removed from Steam is when they are literally unplayable, meaning they don't launch or end support (there is a clause that the developer must support their games to an extent or be removed).

They actually do not have a right to be there. Valve has the right like any retail store to choose which products to carry and which ones not to. Their current course is damaging their goodwill from gamers and their image as a reliable high quality platform.


OT: I think they will try to crowd-source it once more, a bit like they did with Greenlight. A few days ago there were reports that there is a new function in Steam (not yet active) that allows users to report games for things like scam, not working etc.
However, I think this will end up being a bad solution because idiotic people will just flood it and abuse it because of miniscule or nonexisting reasons as well as out of pure spite.
This solution still requires new people to be hired and Valve doesn't seem to be willing to do that in a sufficient manner. Instead, they try to automate it or crowdsource it.


If you find the TotalBiscuit video posted by the OP and Zipa interesting, you can also watch (part of)
Co-optional podcast 29 with Jim Sterling [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVSqhTCASHw] in which Jesse Cox shares some insights from GDC and TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling, both of which have commented on the Steam issues before, expand their criticism. It was recorded on Tuesday, so it is a bit older than the other TB video but it is still pretty informative.
I just don't remember which part of the 3 hours podcast is the right one, sorry

 

[V8 Ninja]

While I really don't like TotalBiscuit (for various reasons), his recent video on Steam's current practices does have some helpful suggestions. Basically, Valve needs to have a filter in their "New Releases" category so that brand new games can easily be distinguished from simple re-releases. If implemented, that filter would eliminate publisher backlog dumping from taking over the spot of a legitimately brand new game.

As for anything beyond filtering re-releases? Honestly, I'd rather let Steam continue to function the way it has. Sure, it would be nice to eliminate the games that don't function properly, but to me that's an issue that can be debated. What are the "Acceptable" functional standards of a video game? While there's a pretty good standard by which most use in determining a functional game (adjustable resolutions, rebindable controls, Vsync options, etc.), there's not a universal standard by which most use in determining a non-functional game. If a set of functional standards was set up by Steam, that would make Steam bias against certain games that may in fact be completely fine. And last I checked, that would work against what a lot of people said about Steam two years ago. ("Steam is too restrictive!" and etc.)

 

[BrotherRool]

I don't agree that Steam needs to curate games to any great extent. But what they do need to do is

1. Offer refunds. You can curate your games, or you can offer refunds. You can't allow crud onto your platform and then not allow people to get their money back. Other platforms curate games and offer refunds.
2. Emphasise community feedback mechanisms. Again it's fine to be a platform for all games, but you need to provide ways for people to avoid the crud ones. Community feedback is huge, making playtime statistics easily available might be good too.
3. Make the front page only show 'good' content. Whether it's curated or based on feedback mechanisms, the first thing a person sees should be a good game, not shovelware. The good games deserve to sell more and it benefits the platform if they do

 

[-Dragmire-]

If steam wants its' default appearance to contain the titles as it currently is, I recommend having two to three category columns. New Release, new to steam(no overlap with first column) and possibly a third for season pass/ dlc.

The main issue with this is that it will clutter the main page(especially for people with smaller screens) and possibly make it harder to load for some people.

I don't agree that Steam needs to curate games to any great extent. But what they do need to do is

1. Offer refunds. You can curate your games, or you can offer refunds. You can't allow crud onto your platform and then not allow people to get their money back. Other platforms curate games and offer refunds.
2. Emphasise community feedback mechanisms. Again it's fine to be a platform for all games, but you need to provide ways for people to avoid the crud ones. Community feedback is huge, making playtime statistics easily available might be good too.
3. Make the front page only show 'good' content. Whether it's curated or based on feedback mechanisms, the first thing a person sees should be a good game, not shovelware. The good games deserve to sell more and it benefits the platform if they do

2 and 3 are kind of open for abuse. Think of the divide between what people think of the yearly releases of Call of Duty.

 

[CriticalMiss]

The only real monitoring Valve need to implement is:

1. Check that a game functions without any fiddling on the part of the customer. If it doesn't run as soon as it is downloaded and installed it shouldn't be for sale.

2. Check that the store page is accurate, if a game says that it has certain features but doesn't then the game shouldn't be accepted on Steam. It would avoid the whole War Z thing from happening again and stops developers/publishers from falsely advertising their game.

Maybe they could also have some kind of community rating system using the reviews, showing the percentage of customers like like the game compared to those who don't. As long as only those who have bought the game can post a review it is harder to review bomb a game so the scores would be at least a little more credible than metacritic. I'd also like to see reviews have a 'meh' option rather than just thumbs up/down.

 

[Rayne360]

Whether you like the titles on Steam or not they have a right to be there. They pay money to put their game up. At the end of the day Valve is a business (who gets roughly 30% of sales on Steam) and it's about making money. The only times games should be removed from Steam is when they are literally unplayable, meaning they don't launch or end support (there is a clause that the developer must support their games to an extent or be removed).

But shitty games can be bad for business. Especially if they clutter up the front page, and *especially* if people unwittingly buy them, through inadequate research or through false advertising, and then have to jump through hoops to attempt to get a refund.

I used to use the new releases page on Steam to look for interesting new games. I no longer do that; there's just too much garbage.

And TB addresses this in the video in the OP. The new releases page hardly means new releases anymore.

It's not Valve's job to hold your hand during a purchase. Buyer beware. Everyone should do research on a game not just blindly hit purchase because it might be interesting. Personal responsibility is going out the window these days. Just because you don't like a game doesn't mean you deserve a refund.