Jimquisition: Air Control - A Steam Abuse Story

[Alterego-X]

Please list one of these "great" games that could not have come out on Steam if it had minimum quality requirements

Katwa Shoujo.

What in god's name are you going on about? You're the one who started rambling about freedom of speech, like it had ANYTHING to do with what we're talking about here.

You said "because you can't make a system that's 100% effective, don't bother? That's not how things work in real life."

I replied by pointing out a real life examples of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, which are two examples of things working exactly like this in real life too when we realize that our specific ideas of "good" might be conflicting and we fall back to freedom instead of imposing one of the possible regulations and hoping that it will be as close to 100% effective as possible.

 

[LoneWolf83]

Snip

Why did you put it on Greenlight if it was so early in development and whats going to happen if something happens and the game can't be finished?

This highlights an easily fixable issue with Greenlight, games are put on Greenlight that are ether far from finished or otter crap an still get through. The simple solution is: to even be eligible for Greenlight a game should ether be available elsewhere or have a working demo available. It's a simple solution that would prevent a lot of bad games from getting though Greenlight.

We asked beforehand and were suggested to by different people to put it on greenlight as soon as possible.

Ourselves, as a team, thought it would take month for us to be greenlit at all, but we just wanted to be at the ready when we'd be closer to release, like maybe even have a demo or something. Basically we were all thinking "Well in a few months we'll have more gameplay to show, some stuff to send out, etc etc". We wanted to be a bit on the safe side.

Turns out for us the process was just way way quicker than we initially thought. We were happy, although baffled.

Now being greenlit doesn't actually mean anything, except we'll be able to to get our game published on steam when the time comes or have early access if we ever decide to do stuff like that, although unlikely unless we have something VERY stable and fun to show.

But the ease to be greenlit is mostly what I wanted to point out. It only took us a few screenshots (although apparently our art style turned out pretty damn well, which made people vote for us a lot. We ended up in the top 25), a pre alpha vid and a nice text presentation.

Again, we're happy that we're greenlit but other stuff that i'd consider to be way more dubious gets as easy as a time to get up there too

That does make sense. Your original post does highlight how Greelight can be abused. I dabbled in game design for a little while and I have a few things that could be considered pre-alpha, I could make some very touched-up screenshots of one of those, go through greenlight, then sell a pre-alpha for ten bucks on early-access so I could say "it's early-access" when people complain, and then never work on it ever again, duping people out of ten bucks. Given my finical situation part of my brain is saying "do it!", I'm not because I have morals and a conscience but others could and are probably in the process of ding it.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Please list one of these "great" games that could not have come out on Steam if it had minimum quality requirements

Katwa Shoujo.

And what about it would fail to meet a minimum quality requirement?

What in god's name are you going on about? You're the one who started rambling about freedom of speech, like it had ANYTHING to do with what we're talking about here.

You said "because you can't make a system that's 100% effective, don't bother? That's not how things work in real life."

I replied by pointing out a real life examples of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, which are two examples of things working exactly like this in real life too when we realize that our specific ideas of "good" might be conflicting and we fall back to freedom instead of imposing one of the possible regulations and hoping that it will be as close to 100% effective as possible.

Freedom of speech is not a system that works 100% effectively, nor is speech 100% free. So if you were trying to use it as an example to disprove what I was saying you picked a terrible one.

You were the one who suggested that since there's no way to come up with quality requirements that would let every game in, that such an endeavor is worthless. I responded that such a thing is wrong because that's not how such systems work in real life. For example, just because cars occasionally crash and kill people does not mean that cars must be completely safe before we'd let them on the road.

What we have here is a road with no traffic signs. Most cars are playing by the rules, but we have some, like this game, that are playing bumper cars. Some regulation is necessary.

 

[Abnaxis]

So, once again we have the pitchfork and torches out, demanding that the heathen developers leave Steam...

So, for all the people who want Steam to filter content, can you give one consistently enforceable policy, with little to no inherent subjectivity, the would prevent Air Control from being on the store, but still allow Surgeon Simulator 2013? I had great, great fun with that game, because it was terrible.

Copyright doesn't count--if we've learned anything from YouTube by now, it's that content delivery systems should not be proactively engaged in filing copyrights. It's not Valve's job to enforce the DMCA, nor should they try to.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Actually the point was. Misleading or incorrect information was there. The information has now since been changed to no longer be misleading or incorrect. The old information is the equivalent of an error. When a news paper prints an error...and then prints a retraction. That's pretty much it. The devs have more or less done the equivalent of a retraction. Which is vaguely responsible. They saw their information was misleading or inappropriate and they altered it to be less.

This statement is much better than the poopy diaper.
[sub][sub]Side note about the old comment.
I'd say it depends on how old the person in question is. If they are 21 and 20 years ago they were in a poopy diaper, that makes sense.
<.< If they're 41......They may need to explain....[/sub][/sub]

That said, the dev was willing to lie about their product and continued to silence those who brought up criticism about the game.

The very least we can ask is that the information on the games page should be trustworthy.
I don't see how devs being able to say whatever they want about their game and being able to delete comments they don't like helps the consumers.

As for your statement. words are cheap.. easily said and easily taken back. IRS usually don't give two licks about what you say so long as they get their money. If not... much like the mafia or pimp... there will be a 'visitation'.

xD Don't worry. They have nothing on me.

They have enough to worry about since they apparently owe money to themselves.
Only 1% of them, true, but that's like saying 1% of vegans eat veal with milk.

 

[weirdee]

So, once again we have the pitchfork and torches out, demanding that the heathen developers leave Steam...

So, for all the people who want Steam to filter content, can you give one consistently enforceable policy, with little to no inherent subjectivity, the would prevent Air Control from being on the store, but still allow Surgeon Simulator 2013? I had great, great fun with that game, because it was terrible.

Copyright doesn't count--if we've learned anything from YouTube by now, it's that content delivery systems should not be proactively engaged in filing copyrights. It's not Valve's job to enforce the DMCA, nor should they try to.

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

 

[Abnaxis]

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

Naming the game "Surgeon Simulator" is about as fraudulent as it gets, depending on how you look at it. Every single negative review for the game came from someone who bought it expecting an actual simulation of performing surgery, and they would have killed the game based on "fraud".

I know Air Control is a crappy game, and not going for the same irony Surgeon Simulator is, but the line between them is a thin, fuzzy, gray one.

 

[Thanatos2k]

So, once again we have the pitchfork and torches out, demanding that the heathen developers leave Steam...

So, for all the people who want Steam to filter content, can you give one consistently enforceable policy, with little to no inherent subjectivity, the would prevent Air Control from being on the store, but still allow Surgeon Simulator 2013? I had great, great fun with that game, because it was terrible.

Copyright doesn't count--if we've learned anything from YouTube by now, it's that content delivery systems should not be proactively engaged in filing copyrights. It's not Valve's job to enforce the DMCA, nor should they try to.

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

That would also have kept Aliens Colonial Marines off Steam, and I think we can all agree that would have been a good thing.

Naming the game "Surgeon Simulator" is about as fraudulent as it gets, depending on how you look at it. Every single negative review from came from someone who bought it expecting a simulator.

Names are not and never will be descriptive. "I went to see Man of Steel and he wasn't actually made of steel! I want a refund!" Sounds stupid? Same thing here.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Stuff like this doesn't happen because Steam lacks quality control, but because Steam lacks a return policy. If Valve weren't so fucking determined to never let go of a single cent they got their grubby hands on, people would just return games like this 10 minutes after purchase and the scammers would stop making them because they'd get no money out of it.

Aye, depending on Valve's policy, either the makers would get nothing, or the makers would get some money before the reviews roll in, and Valve would eat the lost revenue from people demanding refunds, which would push them to implement some quality control. Either way, the problem solves itself.

 

[weirdee]

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

Naming the game "Surgeon Simulator" is about as fraudulent as it gets, depending on how you look at it. Every single negative review from came from someone who bought it expecting a simulator.

I know Air Control is a crappy game, and not going for the same irony Surgeon Simulator is, but the line between them is a thin, fuzzy, gray one.

I believe that issue is with surgeon simulator's advertising, which would, if there was a standard, have to put in something about it being satire on the page. It wouldn't be much to give up for not having utter garbage scams around.

 

[Abnaxis]

Names are not and never will be descriptive. "I went to see Man of Steel and he wasn't actually made of steel! I want a refund!" Sounds stupid? Same thing here.

There's a difference between being non-descriptive and being deliberately counter-factual. The name "Surgeon Simulator" is deliberately misleading for the purposes of irony--the game is quite obviously far, far from even approximating a simulation. That's the joke.

But from another perspective the game is "advertizing" itself as a simulation when it quite clearly isn't one. That is the definition of false advertizing.

 

[Abnaxis]

I believe that issue is with surgeon simulator's advertising, which would, if there was a standard, have to put in something about it being satire on the page. It wouldn't be much to give up for not having utter garbage scams around.

I'm not talking about the format of the Steam page. I'm responding to all the people that demand Valve implement some sort of quality control so that the likes of Air Control would never be sold on their storefront.

I think the system would benefit greatly if there was a better way for people to get information about a game within Steam proper, that is not entirely under the control of the developer. However, that's a whole 'nother can of worms separate from what I'm trying to bring up in my original post.

 

[Alterego-X]

And what about it would fail to meet a minimum quality requirement?

It's premise implies either a trolling attempt or a fetishist porn which would be a cause for removal.

Surgeon Simulator another good example of the same problem but for other reasons. It's not a functional simulator.

What we have here is a road with no traffic signs. Most cars are playing by the rules, but we have some, like this game, that are playing bumper cars. Some regulation is necessary.

There were some towns that tried to remove all traffic signs. Accidents plummeted each time [http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/controlled-chaos-european-cities-do-away-with-traffic-signs-a-448747.html]. Turns out, if drivers actually pay attention to their surroundings instead of relying on regulations, they are driving more safely.

You are right, just because people die from car crashes, doesn't mean that cars must be completely safe.

However, sometimes it might turn out that the desperation to Do Something causes more harm than a more laid-back, permissive regulation.

- Something Must Be Done!
- Well, this here is something.
- Then it must be done!

It's a bad thing that people die from car accidents, but maybe regulating the roads just to do something is even worse than not regulating it at all. It's bad that bad games exist on Steam, but maybe turning it into a walled garden would caue more harm than the bad games themselves.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Names are not and never will be descriptive. "I went to see Man of Steel and he wasn't actually made of steel! I want a refund!" Sounds stupid? Same thing here.

There's a difference between being non-descriptive and being deliberately counter-factual. The name "Surgeon Simulator" is deliberately misleading for the purposes of irony--the game is quite obviously far, far from even approximating a simulation. That's the joke.

But from another perspective the game is "advertizing" itself as a simulation when it quite clearly isn't one. That is the definition of false advertizing.

I don't see how. The game IS simulating surgery, it's just doing it intentionally poorly for the purpose of comedy. The description is factually correct.

And what about it would fail to meet a minimum quality requirement?

It's premise implies either a trolling attempt or a fetishist porn which would be a cause for removal.

Its premise "implies"? You're suggesting that no one at Steam would even look at the game itself before greenlighting or denying it? Why are you suggesting that?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Oh Jimmy boy. Again with your quality control. I dont know Why I have to keep explaining this over and over and over again.
They're trying to make an open platform, and quality control goes directly against that. Understand?
No, you obviously dont.

Maybe I should just leave this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD_1Kyiw1R0] here.

It dosen't matter if you're "Triple A", If you're "Indie", If you're big, small, if you're a team of 600 or if you're a solo man job. If you put shit on the internet and you wanna charge for it, you're offically making a product and you will be critizised as such.

Unless you're an attractive looking woman of course,
then you can scam people as much as you fucking please and get praised for it.

i like how the guy in your video thinks, that being said steam would use the informationg provided by tags and user revieews to give personalized recomendations to users

 

[Abnaxis]

I don't see how. The game IS simulating surgery, it's just doing it intentionally poorly for the purpose of comedy. The description is factually correct.

So where is the false advertizing in Air Control, then? The game IS an airplane simulator with a "realistic mode," it's just a terrible simulator.

 

[Frankster]

Honestly I'm not too fond of the idea of a steam quality control.

Sure you can point to things like Earth 2020 or Airplane but I'm much more worried about GOOD games that have gone through thanks to steams laissez faire policy that wouldn't have made it otherwise, and had steam users had their way, wouldn't have let them in either since it doesn't appeal to their specific tastes.

To give an example, I'm quite fond of some VN games made by winterwolf, who struggled since over a year ago to get their games into steam. Once they were finally in, you had a fair few steam users raging at VN type games and dismissing them as shovelware and moaning about steam letting crappy devs in. Had a rigid steam quality control existed, I'm not confident winterwolves would have made it onto steam.

 

[momijirabbit]

I genuinely think that this game was made for pure ironic purposes, nobody, and I mean nobody can make a game this bad and not do it ironically.

 

[Evonisia]

Watch_Dogs doesn't launch for many people. Some were banned from UPlay for "too many attempts" to activate because keys would not work. To this day, multiplayer will not work for many PC and XBOne users. It was intentionally broken, by the developer, on AMD PC hardware.

"4.5/5" -Jim Sterling

Did you miss the PS4 (Reviewed) part of that review? I'm sure the score would be much lower if he had played the PC version. Maybe even if he reviewed the Xbox One version (I'm not sure whether the whole multiplayer being broken thing is true).

 

[Imp_Emissary]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.851575.21052918

Veal is tortured baby cow! xD They call it that for the same reason they call it rump roast.
No one would eat it if they called it cow ass. ;p

As for the comments, I think it's a larger danger for them to have the Dev decide what gets to stay, than it is that some may decide to give lots of negative comments.

True, lots of negative comments can be misleading, but you can see red flags if they all come from the same person, or if they're all very vague.
There could be a compromise where they could flag comments so they are still there, but people can be told that they are suspicious.