Jimquisition: Air Control - A Steam Abuse Story

[Spearmaster]

Yeah but game developers aren't allowed to lie on the back of their boxes. Same should be true here.

Yeah but they lie, tell half truths and give one sided subjective descriptions on the game boxes all the time. When Diablo 3 or Sim City were having problems at launch people weren't blaming Game Stop or Best Buy for selling it or not having a sign posted in the aisle saying it wasn't going to work were they?

The issue is also what happens when someone goes beyond the back of the box - to the reviews or forum of that game in Steam to get more information, and that information can be altered by the developer without you knowing it, misrepresenting the truth. THAT needs to be fixed as well.

Then what does a developer do if the forums are getting trolled by someone passing along false information of the opposite kind or having their game trashed by someone with a competing game or a scathing review from someone that is trying to run it on substandard hardware?
You cant FIX the problem you state without creating another. Steam would have to have hands on knowledge of a game that's early access, under development by an independent developer to know whats true and whats not, what features are coming and which aren't, What the dev. plans to release next...the list goes on. They would have to have a case worker for every indi game to have regular reviews of everything under development. Or they can leave it to the person who knows the most about the game, the person making it, because valve knows if its not good it wont sell.

As a side note Developers cant moderate comments/reviews made in the general Forums, only the game forums.

 

[xGrimReaperzZ]

-snip-

Ya well the maker of Gmod is to busy not updating rust since it came out like 6 months ago. Not exactly the guy I'd listen to because of steam started removing crap, well their early access game they've sold pretty well is starting to look like something that will never be done, and is pretty crappy on it's own.

I was being sarcastic, ofc..

 

[AnotherRumpKicker]

Frankly, can't believe it's still being sold for money.

 

[Lykosia_v1legacy]

You put my name at the top of a quote that wasn't me. Please update accordingly.

The poster was Abnaxis: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.851575-Jimquisition-Air-Control-A-Steam-Abuse-Story?page=6#21055958

FYI, surgeon simulator is one of the best bang for the buck games you can get. I had a lot of fun with it and was not misled by any marketing of it like the quote you put me on did.

Sorry. Fixed

 

[IrisNetwork]

When did Jim start wearing a pink tie? And why?

 

[Banzaiman]

Just chipping in to say that Steam needs better categorization on top of some quality control. Even if you devoutly believe that all this dredge is good for Steam, it's pointless if the users can't sort through it. Seriously, it's so difficult to just browse for titles you might be interested in.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

This shit is getting beyond parody now. This is going to kill Steam in the long run, virtual monopoly or not. Valve's credibility is going to be in tatters.

If selling human on dinosaur erotic "literature" didn't kill off Amazon's place in the market, then Air Control won't kill off Steam's.

You know what I mean -_- I'm not talking about Air Control in particular, I'm talking about the complete lack of quality assurance on Steam as of late. This will absolutely kill Valve's credibility in the long run.

Between games like this, Guise of The Wolf, Day One: Garry's Incident, The War Z, 7 Days to Die, Earth: Year 2066 and god knows whatever else, unless Valve get their act together and actually vet some of this shit then people are going to lose faith in the service.

And let's not forget all the games from 10-15 years ago that are just shat on to the storefront with absolutely no requisite that they actually work properly. Valve are willingly selling broken products at this point, and thinking that this isn't going to hurt them in the long term is just being naive.

I know anecdotal evidence doesn't really count for much, but speaking only for myself I can say that I now have very little interest in going to the Steam storefront anymore. I don't feel like wading through piles and piles of utter shit to find something that might be interesting.

Yeah, I can't help but feel this current policy will kill Steam in the long run. Steam Sales and Daily Deals used to be something I would look forward too. Nowadays I don't even bother looking at the store. Certainly haven't bought anything off it for a long time

 

[Abnaxis]

And you've no idea of what false advertising is. Surgeon Simulator never says it's an actual simulator. First paragraph on my Steam page says that "Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a darkly humorous over-the-top operation sim game," so it never claims to be really serious sim.

Air Control on the other hand claims that it's the best flight simulator of all time.

Name of the product doesn't matter. What you tell about your product, is what matters in advertising. In real world the guys behind Air Control would've a law suit in their hands before they can say "ha-ha."

So you're telling me that, if you go to the front page of Steam, see the logo and title for Surgeon Simulator (assuming you've never heard of it), that before you click the link and go to the store page, you have not already formed an idea of what you think the game is, that greatly contradicts what the game actually is?

Yes, the store page will set you straight if you read the description at the bottom, but are you really saying that looking at the label, by itself, doesn't belie the actual product it represents?

And at that point, isn't what you're saying is that Air Control should be taken off Steam because they didn't say "No guys, we're totally bullshitting you this is a piece of shit game don't buy it"?

If I'm a policy-maker at Valve, how do I write the policy you're so vehemently advocating for? "Don't make exaggerations about your game, unless you admit they're exaggerations somewhere on your page"?

 

[Thanatos2k]

Yeah but game developers aren't allowed to lie on the back of their boxes. Same should be true here.

Yeah but they lie, tell half truths and give one sided subjective descriptions on the game boxes all the time. When Diablo 3 or Sim City were having problems at launch people weren't blaming Game Stop or Best Buy for selling it or not having a sign posted in the aisle saying it wasn't going to work were they?

Are you seriously suggesting these situations are remotely the same?

The issue is also what happens when someone goes beyond the back of the box - to the reviews or forum of that game in Steam to get more information, and that information can be altered by the developer without you knowing it, misrepresenting the truth. THAT needs to be fixed as well.

Then what does a developer do if the forums are getting trolled by someone passing along false information of the opposite kind or having their game trashed by someone with a competing game or a scathing review from someone that is trying to run it on substandard hardware?

Post in the thread debunking said claims and lock the thread. I'm not saying developers should have no power, but they should have no power to REMOVE criticism.

You cant FIX the problem you state without creating another.

Just because you create a smaller problem while fixing a larger problem doesn't mean you shouldn't fix anything.

 

[Thanatos2k]

And you've no idea of what false advertising is. Surgeon Simulator never says it's an actual simulator. First paragraph on my Steam page says that "Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a darkly humorous over-the-top operation sim game," so it never claims to be really serious sim.

Air Control on the other hand claims that it's the best flight simulator of all time.

Name of the product doesn't matter. What you tell about your product, is what matters in advertising. In real world the guys behind Air Control would've a law suit in their hands before they can say "ha-ha."

So you're telling me that, if you go to the front page of Steam, see the logo and title for Surgeon Simulator (assuming you've never heard of it), that before you click the link and go to the store page, you have not already formed an idea of what you think the game is, that greatly contradicts what the game actually is?

Yes, the store page will set you straight if you read the description at the bottom, but are you really saying that looking at the label, by itself, doesn't belie the actual product it represents?

And at that point, isn't what you're saying is that Air Control should be taken off Steam because they didn't say "No guys, we're totally bullshitting you this is a piece of shit game don't buy it"?

If I'm a policy-maker at Valve, how do I write the policy you're so vehemently advocating for? "Don't make exaggerations about your game, unless you admit they're exaggerations somewhere on your page"?

Again, what kind of fool draws conclusions on what a game is based SOLELY ON THE NAME? Yes, for approximately 3.7 seconds some people may have drawn bad conclusions about what Surgeon Simulator is while the store page loads. That is not Surgeon Simulator's fault.

It's not The Legend of Zelda's fault dumb people think the game is about the legend of a guy named Zelda (seriously, a disturbing number of people STILL think Link's name is "Zelda" based purely on the title. A similar amount of dumb people think Samus's name is "Metroid"!)

 

[Demonchaser27]

Yeah but game developers aren't allowed to lie on the back of their boxes. Same should be true here.

Yeah but they lie, tell half truths and give one sided subjective descriptions on the game boxes all the time. When Diablo 3 or Sim City were having problems at launch people weren't blaming Game Stop or Best Buy for selling it or not having a sign posted in the aisle saying it wasn't going to work were they?

Well call me crazy but I did write a complaint when they still sold Diablo 3 during the issue period without saying anything. In fact my brother and I also found it asinine and filed a complaint when they still sold Monster Hunter on PS2 after the servers were down without making warning that the box is now lying about online play. It very much should be something that all companies should do, especially in real stores where access to information is limited to where you are at the time.

 

[Spearmaster]

Yeah but game developers aren't allowed to lie on the back of their boxes. Same should be true here.

Yeah but they lie, tell half truths and give one sided subjective descriptions on the game boxes all the time. When Diablo 3 or Sim City were having problems at launch people weren't blaming Game Stop or Best Buy for selling it or not having a sign posted in the aisle saying it wasn't going to work were they?

Are you seriously suggesting these situations are remotely the same?

Not really, the games I stated were a finished launch product and were supposed to work fine out of the box and offered no warning otherwise, where an early release alpha game does offer a disclaimer so I guess my examples are actually worse cases of anti consumer activity.

The issue is also what happens when someone goes beyond the back of the box - to the reviews or forum of that game in Steam to get more information, and that information can be altered by the developer without you knowing it, misrepresenting the truth. THAT needs to be fixed as well.

Then what does a developer do if the forums are getting trolled by someone passing along false information of the opposite kind or having their game trashed by someone with a competing game or a scathing review from someone that is trying to run it on substandard hardware?

Post in the thread debunking said claims and lock the thread. I'm not saying developers should have no power, but they should have no power to REMOVE criticism.

So they can just lie calling the critic a moron saying there is nothing wrong with the game and lock the thread, not much different than removing it IMO.

You cant FIX the problem you state without creating another.

Just because you create a smaller problem while fixing a larger problem doesn't mean you shouldn't fix anything.

Have you ever witness a meta critic trolling campaign, that would destroy an indi game on Steam before it even had a chance, Steam was to be a place where indi development was fostered, not a venue for it to be abused and scrutinized before its even finished, a way for developers to possibly make some cash to finish their project, I think you would be creating the bigger problem here. Hell why not just require every game on steam to be solicited under a producer for quality control and kill indi gaming completely?

 

[Darknacht]

Again, what kind of fool draws conclusions on what a game is based SOLELY ON THE NAME? Yes, for approximately 3.7 seconds some people may have drawn bad conclusions about what Surgeon Simulator is while the store page loads. That is not Surgeon Simulator's fault.

What kind of idiot sees "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!" next to a video of a flappy bird clone and thinks "this truly is going to be the best flight simulation in the history of computer games." Hell, it does not even claim that it is the best it just tells you that you should play the best flight sim, which anyone with working eyes and 2 brain cells will know is not this game.

 

[Thanatos2k]

So they can just lie calling the critic a moron saying there is nothing wrong with the game and lock the thread, not much different than removing it IMO.

Do you REALLY not see the difference between locking a thread and deleting it?

You cant FIX the problem you state without creating another.

Just because you create a smaller problem while fixing a larger problem doesn't mean you shouldn't fix anything.

Have you ever witness a meta critic trolling campaign, that would destroy an indi game on Steam before it even had a chance, Steam was to be a place where indi development was fostered, not a venue for it to be abused and scrutinized before its even finished, a way for developers to possibly make some cash to finish their project, I think you would be creating the bigger problem here. Hell why not just require every game on steam to be solicited under a producer for quality control and kill indi gaming completely?

If you have read anything that I've been posting, you'll see I suggested that Steam need only curate games that do NOT have a publisher. This does not "kill indie gaming completely." Stop being overly dramatic.

The problem with metacritic user ratings is that they can't enforce that only people who have played the game can review it. Steam has that system.

Again, what kind of fool draws conclusions on what a game is based SOLELY ON THE NAME? Yes, for approximately 3.7 seconds some people may have drawn bad conclusions about what Surgeon Simulator is while the store page loads. That is not Surgeon Simulator's fault.

What kind of idiot sees "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!" next to a video of a flappy bird clone and thinks "this truly is going to be the best flight simulation in the history of computer games." Hell, it does not even claim that it is the best it just tells you that you should play the best flight sim, which anyone with working eyes and 2 brain cells will know is not this game.

Which is why the marketing materials don't tell you useful things about the game, and are intentionally deceptive.

 

[Lykosia_v1legacy]

And you've no idea of what false advertising is. Surgeon Simulator never says it's an actual simulator. First paragraph on my Steam page says that "Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a darkly humorous over-the-top operation sim game," so it never claims to be really serious sim.

Air Control on the other hand claims that it's the best flight simulator of all time.

Name of the product doesn't matter. What you tell about your product, is what matters in advertising. In real world the guys behind Air Control would've a law suit in their hands before they can say "ha-ha."

So you're telling me that, if you go to the front page of Steam, see the logo and title for Surgeon Simulator (assuming you've never heard of it), that before you click the link and go to the store page, you have not already formed an idea of what you think the game is, that greatly contradicts what the game actually is?

Yes, the store page will set you straight if you read the description at the bottom, but are you really saying that looking at the label, by itself, doesn't belie the actual product it represents?

And at that point, isn't what you're saying is that Air Control should be taken off Steam because they didn't say "No guys, we're totally bullshitting you this is a piece of shit game don't buy it"?

If I'm a policy-maker at Valve, how do I write the policy you're so vehemently advocating for? "Don't make exaggerations about your game, unless you admit they're exaggerations somewhere on your page"?

The name itself doesn't mean much, what means is how you advertise your product. Name's job is to only grab customers attention. When you make claims without proof, you're in trouble. If you make statements in the marketing stuff that aren't true, you're misleading consumers and that is misleading or false advertising.

I can tell you real story that happened in my EU country last year. Company A and company B, both teleoperators, were aggressively marketing their 4G mobile networks. Company A started their advertising campaign and claimed that their 4G is the fastest. B didn't like that at all and asked A to prove that claim in court. A couldn't prove it so they had to pull back the campaign just because of one word. This is an example of false advertising.

If you make statements like "realistic" or "the best" when it's clearly not, you're misleading your customers. Customers have rights you know. One of the rights is to know what you're buying. It's really bad marketing if your customers have to get the true information elsewhere.

 

[Darknacht]

Again, what kind of fool draws conclusions on what a game is based SOLELY ON THE NAME? Yes, for approximately 3.7 seconds some people may have drawn bad conclusions about what Surgeon Simulator is while the store page loads. That is not Surgeon Simulator's fault.

What kind of idiot sees "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!" next to a video of a flappy bird clone and thinks "this truly is going to be the best flight simulation in the history of computer games." Hell, it does not even claim that it is the best it just tells you that you should play the best flight sim, which anyone with working eyes and 2 brain cells will know is not this game.

Which is why the marketing materials don't tell you useful things about the game, and are intentionally deceptive.

I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting, its not Steam's job to protect the dimwitted from themselves. Also Basically all marketing is deceptive is some way, this really isn't any worse that most big budget games and in some ways its better, most professionally put together game descriptions are far worse.

 

[Spearmaster]

Yeah but game developers aren't allowed to lie on the back of their boxes. Same should be true here.

Yeah but they lie, tell half truths and give one sided subjective descriptions on the game boxes all the time. When Diablo 3 or Sim City were having problems at launch people weren't blaming Game Stop or Best Buy for selling it or not having a sign posted in the aisle saying it wasn't going to work were they?

Well call me crazy but I did write a complaint when they still sold Diablo 3 during the issue period without saying anything. In fact my brother and I also found it asinine and filed a complaint when they still sold Monster Hunter on PS2 after the servers were down without making warning that the box is now lying about online play. It very much should be something that all companies should do, especially in real stores where access to information is limited to where you are at the time.

Yeah and those are AAA developers that "have" quality control selling a finished boxed product. People seem to be just as upset that steam doesn't have quality control for early access alpha games from an indi developer. I just see it as comparing apples to oranges. How many people were actually fooled into buying "Air Control" anyway? With Diablo3 and Monster Hunter people paid a lot more to someone they should have been able to trust.

 

[Spearmaster]

If you have read anything that I've been posting, you'll see I suggested that Steam need only curate games that do NOT have a publisher. This does not "kill indie gaming completely." Stop being overly dramatic.

How many indi games are released under a publisher? I'll tell you. None. Hence "independent'. It would be creating more hoops for every indi game to have to jump through to get put on steam. Hoops where it is up to the personal tastes and possible cronyism and corruption of a Steam bureaucrat to judge a game that is barley in alpha. How does this not harm indi games on Steam?

I say leave it free and take the good with the bad not to mention this is to stop an almost infinitesimally small amount of these horror story games than an even more infinitesimally small number of people were actually fooled by.

The problem with metacritic user ratings is that they can't enforce that only people who have played the game can review it. Steam has that system.

Review yes but it doesn't keep them from bombing the forums with trash and false claims of a broken or bad game.

 

[Abnaxis]

The name itself doesn't mean much, what means is how you advertise your product. Name's job is to only grab customers attention. When you make claims without proof, you're in trouble. If you make statements in the marketing stuff that aren't true, you're misleading consumers and that is misleading or false advertising.

I can tell you real story that happened in my EU country last year. Company A and company B, both teleoperators, were aggressively marketing their 4G mobile networks. Company A started their advertising campaign and claimed that their 4G is the fastest. B didn't like that at all and asked A to prove that claim in court. A couldn't prove it so they had to pull back the campaign just because of one word. This is an example of false advertising.

If you make statements like "realistic" or "the best" when it's clearly not, you're misleading your customers. Customers have rights you know. One of the rights is to know what you're buying. It's really bad marketing if your customers have to get the true information elsewhere.

I think I see where we're differing here. You say that the name is only there "to grab customers attention." Here's the thing--that's all any marketing material is there to do too. Catch people's attention, and hope they buy your product.

Maybe you draw them in by saying "See how our sanitary towelettes absorb more water than competitor's brands!", maybe you draw people in by saying "Your mom will hate it!". Either way, all you're trying to do is catch a customers attention and shape your product in their eyes.

Obviously, you can't flat-out lie when you're trying to catch people's attention. But what you can do--and what I'm saying both Surgeon Simulator and Air Control do--is stretch people's expectation for what they're going to get.

"Fastest" got in trouble in court, because you can scientifically prove, within a reasonable doubt, which network is faster, and under what conditions. You can't do that with "best" or "realistic" or "simulator," because these are all relative terms. I think everyone present would agree with me the Kerbal Space Program is much more realistic than Air Control. But the spaceship pilots are little cartoon green men, and KSP can't brag "plane compartment is visible."

To you and me, the flight compartment matters as much as balls and Air Control is full of BS for claiming "best" flight sim based on it, but legally, there's nothing at all wrong with Air Control's front page, from a Truth in Advertizing perspective.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Again, what kind of fool draws conclusions on what a game is based SOLELY ON THE NAME? Yes, for approximately 3.7 seconds some people may have drawn bad conclusions about what Surgeon Simulator is while the store page loads. That is not Surgeon Simulator's fault.

What kind of idiot sees "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!" next to a video of a flappy bird clone and thinks "this truly is going to be the best flight simulation in the history of computer games." Hell, it does not even claim that it is the best it just tells you that you should play the best flight sim, which anyone with working eyes and 2 brain cells will know is not this game.

Which is why the marketing materials don't tell you useful things about the game, and are intentionally deceptive.

I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting, its not Steam's job to protect the dimwitted from themselves. Also Basically all marketing is deceptive is some way, this really isn't any worse that most big budget games and in some ways its better, most professionally put together game descriptions are far worse.

....You BOUGHT Air Control? Your irrational defense of it is starting to make sense now.......

How many indi games are released under a publisher? I'll tell you. None.

Since this statement is wrong, everything after it is based on this flawed postulate.

Review yes but it doesn't keep them from bombing the forums with trash and false claims of a broken or bad game.

Why would people buy a game and then bomb the forums falsely that it's a bad and broken game? I won't say it's never happened, but the incentives are not there. Again, give the devs tools to moderate their forum, but do not give them the ability to hide criticism and distort information.