Jimquisition: Salt Of The Earth - A Steam Fail Story

[Imp_Emissary]

Looks like i will need to borrow some of imperator henchgoats and pay you a visit for this one.

I put a warning right on the spoiler Strazdas.

Also, if you look at this warranty, you can clearly see it says these products are not for the eyes of lamas, or alpacas.

Right there in her left pupil.

Spoiler: Warning: reading warranty may cause one or all of the following; shock, anxiety, night terrors, the idea that it's looking back at you, the loss of your soul, cramps, and doing what it tells you to do.

[https://imageshack.com/i/j68lk4j]

If this still displeases you, please talk to our consumer representative.

Spoiler: He can let you know what to do to.

[https://imageshack.com/i/mtthisdogcantread1j]

 

[Alterego-X]

But if some of the nuclear waste can give you superpowers, and there is no simple way to filter that one in advance, then you are still better off letting in the whole package and take control of the whole area, dumps and parks and all, then giving Originville a chance to gain superpowers.

no your not. few supermutants arent worth the slow radiation death of the rest of your population.

Of course not, that's why you build your own nuclear dumps for it far from your parks.

Still makes more sense to keep a finger in all these aspects of land ownership, than declaring that you just want the parks, and every other land is somebody else's problem (or benefit, as it happens).


People who just want to buy Dark Souls II don't have any reason to feel any more vary of buying it from Steam, than from Green Man Gaming, it's the same game either way, even if Steam also happen to sell some other, less trustworthy games.

Just because Steamville's parks are owned by the same person who also owns dumps all around the city, while Green Man Garden is a separate property from the dumps outside of it, the parks are still the same in both cases.

On the other hand, the people who want more than just Dark Souls II, who want to browse through an unfiltered mess to find some hidden gems, are also welcomed to wander away from Steam's parks and try their luck at the dumps of Steamville, while Green Man Garden's visitors are forced to jump accross the walls and give their money to someone else instead if that's what they want.

 

[Zefar]

I see a lot of people whine about this game but here's the thing.

1: It's in Early Access
2: It states it's in even EARLY ALPHA.
3: Videos show how poor the game is.

If you still buy it for that it is honestly your fault. I have no problem with Early Access being like this. It states what condition it is in. Hell it has even given a somewhat release day. 1 Year.

What I find to be a bigger problem is tons and tons of worthless shovel ware showing up on Steam from Publishers with a back catalog of like 600 games. These games show up as full release, released this year and are actually quite shit.

With Early Access I get at least some truth to it.

 

[Strazdas]

Of course not, that's why you build your own nuclear dumps for it far from your parks.

Still makes more sense to keep a finger in all these aspects of land ownership, than declaring that you just want the parks, and every other land is somebody else's problem (or benefit, as it happens).


People who just want to buy Dark Souls II don't have any reason to feel any more vary of buying it from Steam, than from Green Man Gaming, it's the same game either way, even if Steam also happen to sell some other, less trustworthy games.

Just because Steamville's parks are owned by the same person who also owns dumps all around the city, while Green Man Garden is a separate property from the dumps outside of it, the parks are still the same in both cases.

On the other hand, the people who want more than just Dark Souls II, who want to browse through an unfiltered mess to find some hidden gems, are also welcomed to wander away from Steam's parks and try their luck at the dumps of Steamville, while Green Man Garden's visitors are forced to jump accross the walls and give their money to someone else instead if that's what they want.

Yes, build the dumps far from parks, release these games far from steam. And when the mutants spring let them chose to come into the park or not. and yes, when i want to take a walk in a park i dont feel obligated to visit a nuclear dump.

Being owned by same people are not the problem. dumping the waste at the same location the park is - is the problem. if the dumps were seperate location it would be fine. as it is they are both on steam frontpage now.

I see a lot of people whine about this game but here's the thing.

1: It's in Early Access
2: It states it's in even EARLY ALPHA.
3: Videos show how poor the game is.

If you still buy it for that it is honestly your fault. I have no problem with Early Access being like this. It states what condition it is in. Hell it has even given a somewhat release day. 1 Year.

1. this means aboslutely nothing. it does not absolve it of any criticism whatsoever.
2. early alpha should not be put available publicly, let alone asked to pay 20 dollars for it.
3. Cant comment here as the only video of it i saw was on Jim Sterlings youtube channel (well and this juimquisition) and thats third party resources away from marketplace, so they dont count.

No, it is the stores fault for selling a faulty product. To enforce this, we enacted consumer protection laws. Laws that steam repeatedly break. the game does not state what condition it is. the store page flat out lies what condition it is.

 

[Zefar]

1. this means aboslutely nothing. it does not absolve it of any criticism whatsoever.
2. early alpha should not be put available publicly, let alone asked to pay 20 dollars for it.
3. Cant comment here as the only video of it i saw was on Jim Sterlings youtube channel (well and this juimquisition) and thats third party resources away from marketplace, so they dont count.

No, it is the stores fault for selling a faulty product. To enforce this, we enacted consumer protection laws. Laws that steam repeatedly break. the game does not state what condition it is. the store page flat out lies what condition it is.

1: Really? Early Access are for games that are not done and need funding to complete. Criticism is fine but people seems to go on and on about how much of a scam this game is. Without taking in that it might improve itself before it's final release.

2: It's stating that it's in early Alpha and it states it's in Early Access. People stupid enough to buy it without reading needs to learn from mistakes. If this game didn't state it was in any sort of beta or Alpha what so ever. Then I can see all the hate. But right now I just see a game in the making.
The price it's asking for is fine imo. You're funding a game development after all and not just buying it early.

3: It's on the Steam Store page if you want to see it.

Steam is informing the customer that this product isn't ready, that it's in an early alpha and it'll take at least a year before it's finished. So where are the lies?

This is no where near the same quality as War Z(Infestation Survival Stories) which was released as a full game on Steam at start.

 

[softclocks]

Steam should certainly try to pick up on obvious lies and games that aren't playable (like the EA ones that were shut down), but this just seems like a bad game. Is he upset because people are going to be looking to him for reviews now? So that he might have to start doing his job? : 3

Game reviewers have been a joke the last 4-5 years now. They should be grateful someone's making them useful again.

So quick to judge others when you lack even the basic research on the subject. had you actually watched Jim Sterlings video on the game that he has done previuosly you would have clearly understood that this is more than "just a bad game".

I watched all of them.

Sorry if I upset you.

The game is bad, but fully playable.

I won't call them liars until the game has been completed.

No research needed, by my own categorization the game is neither unplayable nor lied about.

 

[Alterego-X]

Yes, build the dumps far from parks, release these games far from steam.

And this is exactly how this whole analogy got started pages ago, to demomstrate that while Steam can be thought of as a single park inside a city (a single branded lineup inside PC gaming), it also has the potential to become the city itself, with dumps and factories and residences as well as the pretty clean parks. (a gathering site of the whole PC ecosystem)

You say "release the games far from the Steam front page which is a clean park". I say, let Steam be bigger than a single park, let it's front page be the entire city, and let users find which offers are parks and which are dumps inside it.

There are plenty of stores that follow that former model of being a single closed market. Gog.com, Origin, Green Man Gaming, all offer narrow lineups of a walled garden. If you want Dark Souls II, or Civilization V or Skyrim, you can get them from such sites.

But you can also get such games from the Steam front page, even if it also has The Last Federation, and Goat Simulator, and Earth: Year 2066, and Banished, and Ascension to the Throne.

It's entirely your call whether you limit yourself to famous proven games that you have heard about before, or also experiment with some of the more obscure ones.

And when the mutants spring let them chose to come into the park or not. and yes, when i want to take a walk in a park i dont feel obligated to visit a nuclear dump. Being owned by same people are not the problem. dumping the waste at the same location the park is - is the problem.

And you can. You can buy Dark Souls II, Civilization V, or Skyrim, without being obliged to also play Earth: Year 2066.

They are not at the same location, any more than a park and a dump are just because they can both be found with the same city map.

Use your own common sense to navigate between the two options, instead of just assuming that you are holding the map of a single park, when evidently you don't.

 

[RoonMian]

I stepped into the "Early Access"-trap some time ago with a game called Stardrive. Now, early access makes me as weary as it does the Jimquisitor and the developers of that game can fuck right off.

 

[kklawm]

The fact there's no easy refund, no 'early access' refund (hohoho) is the real crime here. It's just not good enough Valve doesn't offer this.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Sorry if I upset you.

The game is bad, but fully playable.

I won't call them liars until the game has been completed.

No research needed, by my own categorization the game is neither unplayable nor lied about.

If you actually think Earth: 2066 is fully playable, then you are in a very small, microscopic group of people.

I wouldn't pay a penny for it. The guy would have to pay me to play it, to compensate the waste of time.

Yes, it can be played, but fully playable, no. It's buggy as shit and doesn't have a proper goal. It is practically a reverse of what I and others point out about programs that we don't consider games. In those cases, we point out that a program doesn't have a lose condition, you can't fail. There isn't a win condition in Earth 2066. There is plenty of losing though.

I watched Jim play this program on a live-stream yesterday. It was horrible. The enemies are annoying and just shy of impossible to kill. The only time Jim was able to kill one was when one of them fell over and clipped into the ground and he sat there for three minutes continually firing the machine-gun at it. Three minutes, but that was because it was actually registering hits finally when the thing was stuck. I saw Jim back away from one for twice as long firing straight at it, and it didn't die.

The other enemy is some mechanical eyeball with tentacles, that didn't get hurt by Jim shooting at it, it just ran into him and exploded. The first enemy, I couldn't get a good look at it, but all I can say is it was a pitiful frame robot with wheels. It made the most annoying sound when following Jim. To be nice, I would say it is like a muscle-car revving it's engine. One commenter in the chat aptly said it sounded like an angry dog humping a lawnmower.

There was no UI to speak of. The weapons barely did anything(heck the gun had a fast grenade launcher setting of sorts, and it did nothing to the enemies, basically pushed them slightly out of the way). The enemies clipped through buildings, got stuck in buildings, and in the ground. There were loads of invisible barriers, that on occasion Jim and the enemies could clip through if they tried really hard. Jim got randomly thrown into the air on occasion and was only stopped by a sky barrier. It has a glitch fest "you lose" screen, that is basically the first person view after death, that shakes around lets you see the inside of the player body, under the ground to see that there is sky under the ground. Some obstacles like vehicles can be pushed aside like feathers while at other times they can't be moved no matter what is done to them.

The game is barely in an alpha state. A state that most game developers, even indie ones wouldn't charge a cent for people to test out, because the goodwill from players being able to test a game for free, is worth more than getting money to fund the project. Twenty dollars for it is lunacy.

I could go on, but I really don't need to.

Other than that, all I can say is, if you find Earth: 2066 to be fully playable, then you are easily amused and have extremely ultra low standards.

 

[ForumSafari]

Those who fail at it miserably are...Planetary Annihilators...

Very much this, it gets worse when you take it to the forum and you realise people are defending them for their shitty game that's lacking features shown in the original trailer. I don't mind about the lack of dynamic camera angles but the UI, the units and the tactical options should be the same.

 

[softclocks]

Sorry if I upset you.

The game is bad, but fully playable.

I won't call them liars until the game has been completed.

No research needed, by my own categorization the game is neither unplayable nor lied about.

snip

Other than that, all I can say is, if you find Earth: 2066 to be fully playable, then you are easily amused and have extremely ultra low standards.

I was contrasting the games that were inaccessible. Multiplayer games where the servers had been discontinued. Games that -literally- can not be played.

No one is denying that it's a terrible game, but what little there is, is fully playable.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

snip

Other than that, all I can say is, if you find Earth: 2066 to be fully playable, then you are easily amused and have extremely ultra low standards.

I was contrasting the games that were inaccessible. Multiplayer games where the servers had been discontinued. Games that -literally- can not be played.

No one is denying that it's a terrible game, but what little there is, is fully playable.

You totally dodged my explanation of why it isn't fully playable by just sniping what I said.

It lacks the components to be fully playable by video/computer game standards.

You are making up a condition to make your point valid in the terms of fully playable. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. There are degrees of playability. Earth: 2066 is around the lowest rung of playability "Can be played". The rung blow that is that you can't do anything in the program. You can do things in the program, but it isn't fully playable. A game isn't fully playable until it is finished. Is Earth: 2066 finished.....obviously not. A fully playable game is a finished product, with goals and win conditions.

You can't just move the playable bar down, and then say, "Yup, it's fully playable." There are terms to get to fully playable that can't be skipped.

Heck, not even looking at this from an "it's a terrible game" stand point, it isn't fully playable. It's not finished, so it isn't fully playable.

You are using the the dangerous broken stance bad game developers with games in "Early Access" use to try and deflect valid criticism. Just because a game is in Early Access, doesn't mean it is immune to criticism and the qualifications of what makes up the label of a proper fully playable game.

 

[DrOswald]

Holy shit. That's just sad. Steam really needs to get it's act together or it's not going survive. If stuff like this continues Steam is going to earn itself the reputation of the place where all the shit is and people are going to look elsewhere. ...at least I hope so.

The thing is, I think most every Steam user knows better than to buy crap like this.
I'm kind of seeing this differently I guess; the attachment of so much shovelware to me says that the PC market is becoming more popular. I've seen (finished) games that are even more broken than this piece of crap on the ps2. QC isn't just something that needs to be addressed in Steam, something needs to be done across the industry.

Well yeah I suppose that's true, but I don't know of anywhere else in the industry where it's as bad as this.

Almost all of Steam's QC problems can be traced back to greenlight. Earth 2066 was a greenlight game, War Z was a greenlight game, etc. And steam is in the process of getting rid of greenlight. But they need something to replace it with before they can do that.

Steam's greatest sin was their idealistic approach to game approval - let the gaming community decide what gets on our market. It turns out we are really, really bad at it.

Well it would've been helpful if Steam would've screened what was actually allowed on to Greenlight in the first place. So hack developers wouldn't be able to Greenlight hot air and promises. Maybe requiring devs to have at least a playable demo before being allowed on Greenlight would've improved things. ...maybe.

Maybe, but a playable demo is a lot harder than you think. Speaking as a professional programmer who makes games in his spare time, making a playable demo that isn't complete shit is really, really hard. It will take months of work, hundreds of man hours of programming and game design, and a huge amount of initial capital investment (around $1000) to do things like buy sound effects, hire artists for assets, buy necessary software and equipment, etc. And that is for a very small and simple game. Asking people to put that amount of investment into a game before they even know if they are going to be allowed to sell it is a big problem. Steam greenlight was made to give the little guy a chance. Requiring a demo instantly destroys that goal.

Well maybe submit the finished product then. They need to require more than a lick and promise that's for sure.

Require them the complete the entire game before they know if they are even going to have a chance to sell it? Yeah, that surely makes it work for the little guy.

Jehk said a good solid design doc should be required with each. I would agree with that one.

Well as I said, something more than a lick and a promise should be required.

And I am just pointing out that it is a difficult and complex issue with no easy solution. If you make the requirements too stringent you shut out potentially great games, if you make the requirements lax you open up the system for abuse. And there may not be a happy middle ground here. The middle ground might just make it easy enough to abuse but too hard to actually use for the weekend indie developer. I mean, if Earth: Year 2066 got accepted though greenlight then I don't think any amount of requirements are going to fix the problem. This is a game that claims it is going to have great writing only 4 sentences after telling us "You need to find food and armors to make your health well." If that isn't a red flag I don't know what is.

I still think that somthing more substantial than a mere design doc and some screenshots should be required before the submisson to Greenlight is considered and even then Steam should be filtering out all the Earth: Year 2066s and rejecting them before they even get onto Greenlight.

If we are going to have steam vet what gets onto greenlight then we might as well do away with greenlight. It would save time and money all around. But I think there is value in a greenlight like system where a developer can pitch an idea and earn the right to space on a digital storefront. But I do think there is value in a vetting process as well, just much later on. Before a game can be sold it should be confirmed that the product meets the specifications on the design doc (to a point. Obviously changes might be made during development, but nothing too drastic.) If the game is trying for early access, then it should at least contain beta versions of all the major design elements promised. In addition, the game should function on a basic level. I don't think games should be vetted for quality, however. That is far too subjective. A good friend of mine hated Papers, Please for example.

In this way we could be at least sure that the game delivers on the promises made. This would be no real extra work for the developer and would greatly reduce the potential for abuse.

I think the real problem here was not Greenlight but Early Access. Early Access should only be allowed when the developer is in the later stages of development (far enough along that you can actually see the general shape of the final product.)

 

[DrOswald]

Maybe, but a playable demo is a lot harder than you think. Speaking as a professional programmer who makes games in his spare time, making a playable demo that isn't complete shit is really, really hard. It will take months of work, hundreds of man hours of programming and game design, and a huge amount of initial capital investment (around $1000) to do things like buy sound effects, hire artists for assets, buy necessary software and equipment, etc. And that is for a very small and simple game. Asking people to put that amount of investment into a game before they even know if they are going to be allowed to sell it is a big problem. Steam greenlight was made to give the little guy a chance. Requiring a demo instantly destroys that goal.

If you cannot produce a playable product to sell, maybe you shouldnt be trying to sell it then and isntead wait till you have something to show?
And if you want to sell ideas, go to kicstarter, not steam.

Producing the playable product is not the problem. Being required to produce the product before you even know if you will be allowed to sell it is the problem. It is a risk mitigation issue, not a production issue.

 

[C14N]

Serious question here that I really want an answer to if anyone wouldn't mind giving it to me:

Who on earth buys this shit?

To elaborate: How did they find this game? Why did they pick it over thousands of other, better, more popular games? Why were they not instantly turned off after seeing the dreadful screen-captures and trailer? In a world where most games on Steam can be found for $5-10 pretty soon once a sale comes, what made anyone say "no, I can't wait for that, I need this game right now and I'm willing to pay a premium price for it"?

I really just don't understand the thought process of anyone who is willing to use their time and money on something like this at all. Do people who do this just buy random apps on their phone too? Or do they go to iTunes and just buy music they've never heard of?

Again, not a rhetorical question, this clearly happens, I just don't understand how.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Holy shit. That's just sad. Steam really needs to get it's act together or it's not going survive. If stuff like this continues Steam is going to earn itself the reputation of the place where all the shit is and people are going to look elsewhere. ...at least I hope so.

The thing is, I think most every Steam user knows better than to buy crap like this.
I'm kind of seeing this differently I guess; the attachment of so much shovelware to me says that the PC market is becoming more popular. I've seen (finished) games that are even more broken than this piece of crap on the ps2. QC isn't just something that needs to be addressed in Steam, something needs to be done across the industry.

Well yeah I suppose that's true, but I don't know of anywhere else in the industry where it's as bad as this.

Almost all of Steam's QC problems can be traced back to greenlight. Earth 2066 was a greenlight game, War Z was a greenlight game, etc. And steam is in the process of getting rid of greenlight. But they need something to replace it with before they can do that.

Steam's greatest sin was their idealistic approach to game approval - let the gaming community decide what gets on our market. It turns out we are really, really bad at it.

Well it would've been helpful if Steam would've screened what was actually allowed on to Greenlight in the first place. So hack developers wouldn't be able to Greenlight hot air and promises. Maybe requiring devs to have at least a playable demo before being allowed on Greenlight would've improved things. ...maybe.

Maybe, but a playable demo is a lot harder than you think. Speaking as a professional programmer who makes games in his spare time, making a playable demo that isn't complete shit is really, really hard. It will take months of work, hundreds of man hours of programming and game design, and a huge amount of initial capital investment (around $1000) to do things like buy sound effects, hire artists for assets, buy necessary software and equipment, etc. And that is for a very small and simple game. Asking people to put that amount of investment into a game before they even know if they are going to be allowed to sell it is a big problem. Steam greenlight was made to give the little guy a chance. Requiring a demo instantly destroys that goal.

Well maybe submit the finished product then. They need to require more than a lick and promise that's for sure.

Require them the complete the entire game before they know if they are even going to have a chance to sell it? Yeah, that surely makes it work for the little guy.

Jehk said a good solid design doc should be required with each. I would agree with that one.

Well as I said, something more than a lick and a promise should be required.

And I am just pointing out that it is a difficult and complex issue with no easy solution. If you make the requirements too stringent you shut out potentially great games, if you make the requirements lax you open up the system for abuse. And there may not be a happy middle ground here. The middle ground might just make it easy enough to abuse but too hard to actually use for the weekend indie developer. I mean, if Earth: Year 2066 got accepted though greenlight then I don't think any amount of requirements are going to fix the problem. This is a game that claims it is going to have great writing only 4 sentences after telling us "You need to find food and armors to make your health well." If that isn't a red flag I don't know what is.

I still think that somthing more substantial than a mere design doc and some screenshots should be required before the submisson to Greenlight is considered and even then Steam should be filtering out all the Earth: Year 2066s and rejecting them before they even get onto Greenlight.

If we are going to have steam vet what gets onto greenlight then we might as well do away with greenlight. It would save time and money all around. But I think there is value in a greenlight like system where a developer can pitch an idea and earn the right to space on a digital storefront. But I do think there is value in a vetting process as well, just much later on. Before a game can be sold it should be confirmed that the product meets the specifications on the design doc (to a point. Obviously changes might be made during development, but nothing too drastic.) If the game is trying for early access, then it should at least contain beta versions of all the major design elements promised. In addition, the game should function on a basic level. I don't think games should be vetted for quality, however. That is far too subjective. A good friend of mine hated Papers, Please for example.

In this way we could be at least sure that the game delivers on the promises made. This would be no real extra work for the developer and would greatly reduce the potential for abuse.

I think the real problem here was not Greenlight but Early Access. Early Access should only be allowed when the developer is in the later stages of development (far enough along that you can actually see the general shape of the final product.)

I'm opposed to getting rid of Greenlight. It's a failed concept anyway. However when I first heard of it I was under the impression that it was for Steam users to vote on what FINISHED PRODUCTS get to be put on the Steam Storefront. Instead we have a shit tonne of hot air an promises that ultimately amount to nothing. So having some minimum requirements for developers to have before they'll even be put before Greenlight couldn't hurt at all. Also what's the difference between containing a beta and having a playable demo like I suggested and you vehemently opposed?

 

[DrOswald]

Holy shit. That's just sad. Steam really needs to get it's act together or it's not going survive. If stuff like this continues Steam is going to earn itself the reputation of the place where all the shit is and people are going to look elsewhere. ...at least I hope so.

The thing is, I think most every Steam user knows better than to buy crap like this.
I'm kind of seeing this differently I guess; the attachment of so much shovelware to me says that the PC market is becoming more popular. I've seen (finished) games that are even more broken than this piece of crap on the ps2. QC isn't just something that needs to be addressed in Steam, something needs to be done across the industry.

Well yeah I suppose that's true, but I don't know of anywhere else in the industry where it's as bad as this.

Almost all of Steam's QC problems can be traced back to greenlight. Earth 2066 was a greenlight game, War Z was a greenlight game, etc. And steam is in the process of getting rid of greenlight. But they need something to replace it with before they can do that.

Steam's greatest sin was their idealistic approach to game approval - let the gaming community decide what gets on our market. It turns out we are really, really bad at it.

Well it would've been helpful if Steam would've screened what was actually allowed on to Greenlight in the first place. So hack developers wouldn't be able to Greenlight hot air and promises. Maybe requiring devs to have at least a playable demo before being allowed on Greenlight would've improved things. ...maybe.

Maybe, but a playable demo is a lot harder than you think. Speaking as a professional programmer who makes games in his spare time, making a playable demo that isn't complete shit is really, really hard. It will take months of work, hundreds of man hours of programming and game design, and a huge amount of initial capital investment (around $1000) to do things like buy sound effects, hire artists for assets, buy necessary software and equipment, etc. And that is for a very small and simple game. Asking people to put that amount of investment into a game before they even know if they are going to be allowed to sell it is a big problem. Steam greenlight was made to give the little guy a chance. Requiring a demo instantly destroys that goal.

Well maybe submit the finished product then. They need to require more than a lick and promise that's for sure.

Require them the complete the entire game before they know if they are even going to have a chance to sell it? Yeah, that surely makes it work for the little guy.

Jehk said a good solid design doc should be required with each. I would agree with that one.

Well as I said, something more than a lick and a promise should be required.

And I am just pointing out that it is a difficult and complex issue with no easy solution. If you make the requirements too stringent you shut out potentially great games, if you make the requirements lax you open up the system for abuse. And there may not be a happy middle ground here. The middle ground might just make it easy enough to abuse but too hard to actually use for the weekend indie developer. I mean, if Earth: Year 2066 got accepted though greenlight then I don't think any amount of requirements are going to fix the problem. This is a game that claims it is going to have great writing only 4 sentences after telling us "You need to find food and armors to make your health well." If that isn't a red flag I don't know what is.

I still think that somthing more substantial than a mere design doc and some screenshots should be required before the submisson to Greenlight is considered and even then Steam should be filtering out all the Earth: Year 2066s and rejecting them before they even get onto Greenlight.

If we are going to have steam vet what gets onto greenlight then we might as well do away with greenlight. It would save time and money all around. But I think there is value in a greenlight like system where a developer can pitch an idea and earn the right to space on a digital storefront. But I do think there is value in a vetting process as well, just much later on. Before a game can be sold it should be confirmed that the product meets the specifications on the design doc (to a point. Obviously changes might be made during development, but nothing too drastic.) If the game is trying for early access, then it should at least contain beta versions of all the major design elements promised. In addition, the game should function on a basic level. I don't think games should be vetted for quality, however. That is far too subjective. A good friend of mine hated Papers, Please for example.

In this way we could be at least sure that the game delivers on the promises made. This would be no real extra work for the developer and would greatly reduce the potential for abuse.

I think the real problem here was not Greenlight but Early Access. Early Access should only be allowed when the developer is in the later stages of development (far enough along that you can actually see the general shape of the final product.)

I'm opposed to getting rid of Greenlight. It's a failed concept anyway. However when I first heard of it I was under the impression that it was for Steam users to vote on what FINISHED PRODUCTS get to be put on the Steam Storefront. Instead we have a shit tonne of hot air an promises that ultimately amount to nothing. So having some minimum requirements for developers to have before they'll even be put before Greenlight couldn't hurt at all. Also what's the difference between containing a beta and having a playable demo like I suggested and you vehemently opposed?

If you misunderstood what greenlight is then that is your problem. Greenlight was never exclusively about finished products, it was about helping smaller developers secure a good method of selling their game. It was always known and intended that developers would often try to get a game approved on greenlight before completing development. Greenlight is as much a risk mitigation tool for developers as it is a way for gamers to get access to games that might otherwise have been overlooked. If you remove the risk mitigation part of the equation by making big requirements then the entire purpose of greelight is undermined.

Requiring a demo/beta to get onto greenlight is a bad idea because it requires the developer to make a huge investment and take a big personal risk before they even know if they will be allowed to sell the game or if anyone would be interested in buying the game they intend to make.

Requiring a functioning beta to begin selling the game on the store front is a good idea because before the developer can take peoples money they must demonstrate that they have fulfilled the promises they made about what their game would be.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Holy shit. That's just sad. Steam really needs to get it's act together or it's not going survive. If stuff like this continues Steam is going to earn itself the reputation of the place where all the shit is and people are going to look elsewhere. ...at least I hope so.

The thing is, I think most every Steam user knows better than to buy crap like this.
I'm kind of seeing this differently I guess; the attachment of so much shovelware to me says that the PC market is becoming more popular. I've seen (finished) games that are even more broken than this piece of crap on the ps2. QC isn't just something that needs to be addressed in Steam, something needs to be done across the industry.

Well yeah I suppose that's true, but I don't know of anywhere else in the industry where it's as bad as this.

Almost all of Steam's QC problems can be traced back to greenlight. Earth 2066 was a greenlight game, War Z was a greenlight game, etc. And steam is in the process of getting rid of greenlight. But they need something to replace it with before they can do that.

Steam's greatest sin was their idealistic approach to game approval - let the gaming community decide what gets on our market. It turns out we are really, really bad at it.

Well it would've been helpful if Steam would've screened what was actually allowed on to Greenlight in the first place. So hack developers wouldn't be able to Greenlight hot air and promises. Maybe requiring devs to have at least a playable demo before being allowed on Greenlight would've improved things. ...maybe.

Maybe, but a playable demo is a lot harder than you think. Speaking as a professional programmer who makes games in his spare time, making a playable demo that isn't complete shit is really, really hard. It will take months of work, hundreds of man hours of programming and game design, and a huge amount of initial capital investment (around $1000) to do things like buy sound effects, hire artists for assets, buy necessary software and equipment, etc. And that is for a very small and simple game. Asking people to put that amount of investment into a game before they even know if they are going to be allowed to sell it is a big problem. Steam greenlight was made to give the little guy a chance. Requiring a demo instantly destroys that goal.

Well maybe submit the finished product then. They need to require more than a lick and promise that's for sure.

Require them the complete the entire game before they know if they are even going to have a chance to sell it? Yeah, that surely makes it work for the little guy.

Jehk said a good solid design doc should be required with each. I would agree with that one.

Well as I said, something more than a lick and a promise should be required.

And I am just pointing out that it is a difficult and complex issue with no easy solution. If you make the requirements too stringent you shut out potentially great games, if you make the requirements lax you open up the system for abuse. And there may not be a happy middle ground here. The middle ground might just make it easy enough to abuse but too hard to actually use for the weekend indie developer. I mean, if Earth: Year 2066 got accepted though greenlight then I don't think any amount of requirements are going to fix the problem. This is a game that claims it is going to have great writing only 4 sentences after telling us "You need to find food and armors to make your health well." If that isn't a red flag I don't know what is.

I still think that somthing more substantial than a mere design doc and some screenshots should be required before the submisson to Greenlight is considered and even then Steam should be filtering out all the Earth: Year 2066s and rejecting them before they even get onto Greenlight.

If we are going to have steam vet what gets onto greenlight then we might as well do away with greenlight. It would save time and money all around. But I think there is value in a greenlight like system where a developer can pitch an idea and earn the right to space on a digital storefront. But I do think there is value in a vetting process as well, just much later on. Before a game can be sold it should be confirmed that the product meets the specifications on the design doc (to a point. Obviously changes might be made during development, but nothing too drastic.) If the game is trying for early access, then it should at least contain beta versions of all the major design elements promised. In addition, the game should function on a basic level. I don't think games should be vetted for quality, however. That is far too subjective. A good friend of mine hated Papers, Please for example.

In this way we could be at least sure that the game delivers on the promises made. This would be no real extra work for the developer and would greatly reduce the potential for abuse.

I think the real problem here was not Greenlight but Early Access. Early Access should only be allowed when the developer is in the later stages of development (far enough along that you can actually see the general shape of the final product.)

I'm opposed to getting rid of Greenlight. It's a failed concept anyway. However when I first heard of it I was under the impression that it was for Steam users to vote on what FINISHED PRODUCTS get to be put on the Steam Storefront. Instead we have a shit tonne of hot air an promises that ultimately amount to nothing. So having some minimum requirements for developers to have before they'll even be put before Greenlight couldn't hurt at all. Also what's the difference between containing a beta and having a playable demo like I suggested and you vehemently opposed?

If you misunderstood what greenlight is then that is your problem. Greenlight was never exclusively about finished products, it was about helping smaller developers secure a good method of selling their game. It was always known and intended that developers would often try to get a game approved on greenlight before completing development. Greenlight is as much a risk mitigation tool for developers as it is a way for gamers to get access to games that might otherwise have been overlooked. If you remove the risk mitigation part of the equation by making big requirements then the entire purpose of greelight is undermined.

Requiring a demo/beta to get onto greenlight is a bad idea because it requires the developer to make a huge investment and take a big personal risk before they even know if they will be allowed to sell the game or if anyone would be interested in buying the game they intend to make.

Requiring a functioning beta to begin selling the game on the store front is a good idea because before the developer can take peoples money they must demonstrate that they have fulfilled the promises they made about what their game would be.

Well that's obvious. Regardless some standards and minimum requirements for Greenlight are still necessary. Allowing a bare concept on there is just bad for everyone, except maybe for the faux-develpers who get to take everyone's money. So requiring a beta/demo/whatever ensures that Steam users are more informed on what they're voting on and hopefully filters out abusers. I mean if Greenlight didn't exist these devs would still be taking a risk on whether or not anyone is going to like they're game.

 

[Lapin Logic]

my simple solution at the moment is to not buy anything from steam "GREEN SHITE" or "EARLY CRAPFEST" it seems to be full of nothing but horrid school projects, unfinished and never to be finished garbage and stuff that would not have gained a positive review even if it had come out at the beginning of the N64.