Earth: Year 2066 Removed From Steam For Dishonest Marketing

[Smooth Operator]

I do not think it should be Steam's responsibility to quality control products uploaded to Steam.

Well it is their responsibility to the point where the shit they sell can't be stolen or falsely advertised, those are quite literally against the law.
Digital distributors are just lucky no one is looking at them as serious stores so they go by unnoticed.

 

[softclocks]

While I normally don't think that Steam should function as quality control, I am glad to see them step in and deal with extreme cases such as games like this.

 

[Wolf Hagen]

Woah! Finally some strings pulled byy steam itself?
About time fellas, but as they say: better late then never.

And nice touch with the refunds. Bet someone gets sued by a com,pany, that defenatly can pay for their lawyers.

 

[Tyran107]

If i bought that game at walmart, and got it home and it was crap. I can take it back and get a refund. Same with eveything else they sell. Cant do that with Steam, havnt used it in a while so i dont know if they do refunds. But thats why they need better quality control as its a consumers rights to get refunded - atleast it is in the UK. That 2066 game would have had so many returns that it would have been removed from the shop shelves.

Now I don't know how it works in the UK, but here in the states if you bought a game at walmart and thought it was crap after playing it you can't get a refund. It's already been opened so you can only trade it for a replacement copy. So in that sense walmart is like steam in that you normally aren't allowed refunds after trying the game and finding it shit.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

If only they were more honest and marketed it as the ass cancer simulator that it is, this wouldn't be a problem.

 

[XenoScifi]

I was very specific in my statement earlier. No, it IS NOT Steams responsibility for quality of titles. It should however be their responsibility to issue refunds to consumers. I have never been a fan of the "no return" policy Valve has had.

Working in retail I can say there are a multitude of bad quality items being shoveled out to consumers, but those retail do in fact issue refunds (with a valid receipt for certain items).

All in all, Steam DOES NOT need to quality control developers because that undermines what I believe they are trying to do with giving devs an open house to their projects. Steam DOES however need to start recognizing that WE as consumers do make mistake or get conned into a product we are displeased with and open up their return policy.

 

[Lightknight]

Steam has quality control when the market makes a big enough stink about it.

 

[WeepingAngels]

Steam has quality control when the market makes a big enough stink about it.

This!

If Jim Sterling hadn't made a video about this game Steam wouldn't have reacted. I'll bet Steam is just another project at Valve that no one wants to work on and so they pass the approval process onto consumers. Steam is filling up with shit and who knows what it will look like in a few years.

Steam needs to offer refunds within a specific time period or within a certain amount of time played. Even Origin offer refunds now.

 

[Lightknight]

Steam has quality control when the market makes a big enough stink about it.

This!

If Jim Sterling hadn't made a video about this game Steam wouldn't have reacted. I'll bet Steam is just another project at Valve that no one wants to work on and so they pass the approval process onto consumers. Steam is filling up with shit and who knows what it will look like in a few years.

Steam needs to offer refunds within a specific time period or within a certain amount of time played. Even Origin offer refunds now.

It's a bit more than them not wanting to work on the project. Especially when I'm pretty sure Steam makes them more money each year than anything they've ever done. It's more that they make a profit on every game sold. More games sold mean more cash in their pockets and $20 on a broken early access game feels the same as $20 on a fully functioning AAA game. In fact, it means they'll be done with that game even faster and ready to buy another sooner.

Profit, more often than not, is the most accurate motive to blame. A big enough stink may harm their name enough to lose them business and so they react. If they can ever be harmed enough to consider shitty titles a negative profit then they'd start policing it.

 

[XenoScifi]

I do not think it should be Steam's responsibility to quality control products uploaded to Steam. Valve gives developers an easy place to showcase games (regardless of how good or bad they are) and allows those devs to continue to develop the way they want too. What Valves responsibility is however is just this case. A game that was obviously just a junk cash grab from somebody with no intention to ever develop his craft and become a better developer. IMO, Steams Greenlight and Early Access is working as intended and it really should be more our responsibility to not go willy nilly into a new game that's being featured. All just my opinion.

Physical store are required by law to control the quality of their products to the best of their abilities as well as to prevent scam/stolen material from getting on the shelves. With game stores they are to be place in the bargain bin at a significant reduced cost. These are things that steam needs to do if valve wants it to be a replacement for physical stores.

Any "As Seen On TV" item you buy is 100% complete rubbish. 9/10 they are cheap marketed junk they falsely advertise as a working product, but never really lives up to what you see on the commercial. Granted you can take that back to the store because that's retail. Online digital distribution of games is not the same thing, nowhere close. Also the last I checked you cannot take a game back to any retail and get your money back, so I guess I understand why Steam does not do it. IMO Anything "Early Access" NEEDS to be the exception to Steam return policy no matter how many warnings the developer puts out there.

 

[Voulan]

Hopefully now devs will learn that they can't get away with more barely finished games giving them a quick buck, but then I'm probably just being too optimistic. It's a small victory compared to all the other monstrosities on Steam that need to go.

 

[Qizx]

The guy was trolling the entire time and even Jim Sterling took the bait, lol. Muxwell's already won.

Trolling =/= stealing people's money and giving them a broken product in return. You're thinking of scamming.

 

[Adept Mechanicus]

They will sing songs about this day. Thank god for Jim.

 

[CommanderL]

while I think early accsess is a good idea
for example minecraft,kenshi Overgrowth , and kerbal space program steam should 2 week free money back policy for all early accsess games

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

everyone get your facts straight, valve didnt do this because the game is shitty, they did it because the developer was dishonest


theres a difference

while I think early accsess is a good idea
for example minecraft,kenshi Overgrowth , and kerbal space program steam should 2 week free money back policy for all early accsess games

2 weeks might be a lil too long, but i agree, there should be a refund policy for Early Access games

i mean it even makes perfect sense, unlike normal refunds you dont have to fear people finishing the game and then returning it, the game isnt finsihed, so it cant be finished


of course the refund policy must end before the game is complete

 

[JET1971]

Valve can fix the whole early access mess by simply removing the purchase requirement and instead make a donation system. The early access games would be demos and if it turns out it is shit then theres no money lost. If it looks good there's a way to donate for further development that could net the donators a special version of the finished product or some other incentive.

The developers can use it to find beta testers that give more feedback and give them a link to a more complete version and a private forum access to post feedback on while everyone else gets sections for testing and the public forum. Those who donate can also get access to the more complete version as well.

Doing it that way would eliminate scams because there is no money involved at the very start. If the game is another Earth 2066 then it will not get donations. Right now everyone that tries the alpha/beta game has to pay and that's what the scam works.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Valve can fix the whole early access mess by simply removing the purchase requirement and instead make a donation system. The early access games would be demos and if it turns out it is shit then theres no money lost. If it looks good there's a way to donate for further development that could net the donators a special version of the finished product or some other incentive.

The developers can use it to find beta testers that give more feedback and give them a link to a more complete version and a private forum access to post feedback on while everyone else gets sections for testing and the public forum. Those who donate can also get access to the more complete version as well.

Doing it that way would eliminate scams because there is no money involved at the very start. If the game is another Earth 2066 then it will not get donations. Right now everyone that tries the alpha/beta game has to pay and that's what the scam works.

thats a... bad idea

you might get a lot of people who might not enojoy your game for being too early in development

you might get freeloaders simply trying early access games for free

people who wait until the game is released might complain about the special shit donators get and they dont have access to

people might donate stupidly small amounts of money, so they end up buying the game for like 1 cent or something



theres way too many problems, the main problem with the system itself is lack of developer accountability, besides that is a perfectly fine alternative to standard retail releases

you get to fund a game during its development, hopefully providing useful feedback to make the game better and most of the time, you get the game cheaper than its final release price

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

GOOD. Not only was this game broken and unplayable, the developer was being a COMPLETE asshat.

Then again, as has been said it's hard to tell whether this was removed because it was reported enough times or whether because Valve noticed the amount of media attention it was getting.

Well, guys, if Steam wants the consumer to police the market for them, then if we're gonna complain we better damn well report this crap as well while we're at it.

Hopefully now devs will learn that they can't get away with more barely finished games giving them a quick buck, but then I'm probably just being too optimistic. It's a small victory compared to all the other monstrosities on Steam that need to go.

I think it's worth keeping in mind the actual quality probably had little to do with it's removal, and more of Muxwell's dishonesty and thieving of other people's work. There are still tons of trash-tier games and Early Access stuff that hasn't been updated in months that Valve doesn't seem to care about.

 

[RicoADF]

Any "As Seen On TV" item you buy is 100% complete rubbish. 9/10 they are cheap marketed junk they falsely advertise as a working product, but never really lives up to what you see on the commercial. Granted you can take that back to the store because that's retail. Online digital distribution of games is not the same thing, nowhere close. Also the last I checked you cannot take a game back to any retail and get your money back, so I guess I understand why Steam does not do it. IMO Anything "Early Access" NEEDS to be the exception to Steam return policy no matter how many warnings the developer puts out there.

In most countries if a product or service is faulty or falsely advertised then the law requires the customer receive a refund. The US seems to be the only country that's hasn't caught up to the rest of the western world in regards to consumer rights.

 

[Vault101]

gee I wonder if a certain videogame reviewer had anything to do with this....