Jimquisition: Salt Of The Earth - A Steam Fail Story

[Abnaxis]

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

I still like the idea of not strictly requiring it, just making it plain whether the doc itself exists in a form the developer is willing to share or not.

I.E., put in an obvious section in Greenlight where users can see the design doc, and if the developers don't have one/don't want to share it, people can react appropriately.

EDIT: I imagine design docs are regarded as trade secrets for some devs, who won't want them plastered on their Greenlight page, only to have their concept copied before they finish. I also imagine it will cut down on forgery if someone without the ability to deliver doesn't have to pull something out of their ass to get their poorly-thought-out idea up on Greenlight.

 

[DrOswald]

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

I still like the idea of not strictly requiring it, just making it plainly it exists in a form the developer is willing to share or not.

I.E., put in an obvious section in Greenlight where users can see the design doc, and if the developers don't have one/don't want to share it, people can react appropriately.

I like that idea, but I would also be fine with requiring it because anyone who is trying to make a game without having a decent design document will fail. But your idea is better. They should also have a sort of "how to use steam greenlight" tutorial for the consumer, to tell people what things could be red flags (no design doc, is a zombie game, etc.) and also what are not red flags that might seem like it to those who don't know any better (Place holder art, for example)

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Early access is stupid. It's an even bigger scam than pre-ordering nearly 105% of the time.

When i can buy games like Binding of Isaac which provide +100 hour gameplay for 5 bucks, you can't charge me 20 to test your game. The scammers are douches but everyone who buys into any of the shady business practices the gaming industry is using for years now has had it coming for him/her.
It's sad but nowadays you're bound to do some research before you buy a game. We've a bajillion of bloggers, vloggers and lets players and they've become a necessity because no way i'm going to buy a game based on "trust" or instinct anymore, those times are gone since at least 5 years.

 

[jaymiechan]

There needs to be some form of oversight regarding the amount of control people have over their bits of the discussion on Steam.

As for Deadagent, is it just me, or is he like the Republicans and Benghazi? "It's still relevant, dammit!"

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Spoiler: It is Anita......Just don't open it.

[https://imageshack.com/i/5ii6cjj]

Start adressing actual arguments or shut up.

[https://imageshack.com/i/5ii6cjj]

[https://imageshack.com/i/5ii6cjj]
But I am. If I wasn't, you'd wouldn't have kept talking to me past the point of telling me to shut up. xD

[https://imageshack.com/i/5ii6cjj]
There was no point in that "look out for a scary woman" thing. It was a childish attempt to insult me. I personally dont exactly like to hear the same presumpsuous shit being recycled over and over and over again. "Why are you so afraid of her" "you are sexsist" "blablabla Patriarchy". Been there, I've heard it all. I was telling you to shut up on the matter because you added exactly zero of value to the conversation that was going on the side there.

[https://imageshack.com/i/5ii6cjj]

Sorry, but the whole "she's just out to get tons of money" thing has also become old and boring to me. I can't take it seriously.
Also, I never said Anita scared you, nor did I say anything else you seem to think I am implying by the too pictures.
Nor did I act so rude as to tell you to shut up. I made a dumb joke with a scary picture [sub][sub]0.0 Seriously, I lost some of my soul when I first found that first one from before)[/sub][/sub], and then talked to you about the actual topic of the video.

I would ask why you seem to be so serious about it all and feel it must be talked about with this.
However, I doubt I'll get a straight or truthful answer based on the rest of your post.

Start adressing actual arguments or shut up.

To the issues at hand.

The issue Jim is bringing up isn't simply that there are bad games being put on Steam. It is that the devs doing so are able and sometimes do silence anyone saying something they don't like about their games in the forums.
Some are even putting out fake reviews.

Yeah I can agree that they shouldn't give the devs that much control over the forums

This means that we can't just go by word of mouth and have faith that what people are saying about the game on the site are true.
This is bad because not all people who play games are going on to site like the Escapist and having people like Jim let us know who is trying to lie.

Most people are, and in this case the word of mouth spread fast enough before really big damage could be done. Same happended with guise of the wolf etc.

People for quality control on Steam don't want such because they want Steam to die. They want it so Steam can improve and continue.

I didn't think Jim wanted Steam to die, but calling for Quality control goes directly against opening up the platform wich has been the entire goal for Valve. I dont think throwing greenlight or similar systems out of the window entierly is the solution, Improving it yes. But corporate curated quality control is not the answer. Community managed quality control maybe? An easy way to get a refund? Something like that but not the traditional quality control method definetly.

You and others seem to think that the discussion is about how getting rid of Steam, and other places like it, completely is the only way to go if we want quality control.

No-one has said or implied this, literally no one thinks Jim wants steam to disappear. Drop the strawmen and actually read what people write. But he clearly said he wants Steam to do quality control, and I'm saying thats opposite to their goals and I think their goals have merit wich is why I'm against the idea of corporate curated quality control on steam.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.847915.20924594

A person we both quoted before, talking about how people want Steam to die so they can say, "I told you so! Filthy pleb!"
Or did you not read the post you quoted to say you agreed with the poster?

To be fair, you didn't say that Jim wanted Steam to die, nor did he.

However, you are saying that they want Steam to get "traditional" quality control, and that would go against their goals.
I'm saying that "traditional quality control" isn't the only answer for the need of quality control that Jim is saying Steam has.

Also, if unfettered freedom on terms of what can get on Steam just gets us, as you put it, "inevitably" more crap, then I don't really see the value in keeping such unchanged.
Just because not absolutely everyone will be able to put whatever they want on Steam doesn't mean most will then be turned away.
Would we really be losing much of value if people acting like Muxwell are kicked off Steam?

 

[Thanatos2k]

To Valve it shouldn't be. Valve should be policing both out of its storefront.

You have yet to provide a "why".

I'm advocating for maximum consumer power. Having Valve tightly control what's being sold isn't empowering to the consumer because of lack of choice. We've been there and done that. Having Valve allow any game under the sun to be sold isn't empowering either because of the potential for abuse. There's where we are now.

There's a point where we can maximum the number of games consumers want and minimum the amount of abuse. Steam hasn't found that yet.

Why? Because all stores don't sell all things. Image, brand quality, and safety of its customers. You're asking why a high class store doesn't sell dollar store junk. If Steam wants to be known as the place to buy quality PC games they need to clean out the trash. Every suspect game offered makes the customers shopping there a little more hesitant to spend their money on anything.

Steam should NOT become WalMart, but that looks like where it's heading. Actually I take that back, even WalMart has some kind of quality control and offers refunds on defective items.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

Woo-hoo! I got a brief shot of fame in that tweet screenshot! Thank God for Muxwell for his insipid forum wipes. And of course, thank God for Jim!

 

[Atmos Duality]

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.

Shit like this really does kill whatever hope I have in the free market (and by extension, part of humanity).
Now, I'm no genius, but for all of my faults at least I'm smart enough to do my fucking research before I buy games.
And I legitimately have played games on Early Access (and from Kickstarter) that were well worth the money.

But seriously. If shovelware scam crap is such an epidemic on Steam, then I really must question what the fuck is wrong with people. No, really: How can they not figure out this fucking "Muxwell" has nothing to offer?
A quick google search was enough to tell me this guy had NOTHING. A trip to the game's forums took even less time.

Or has the average Steam user regressed to the level of earthworms when I wasn't looking?
Because that's the only thing I can do to rationalize what's happened: Consumers who became so used to instant-gratification that they've regressed to spineless, brainless clods who eat every morsel of dirt placed before them.

*Add To Cart...Install*...MUNCH MUNCH OM NOM..NOM..*SPITS* "PLEH! BAD DIRTZ!!! VALVE FIX DIS!! DURR..."

 

[Alterego-X]

But seriously. If shovelware scam crap is such an epidemic on Steam, then I really must question what the fuck is wrong with people.
Or has the average Steam user regressed to the level of earthworms when I wasn't looking?

It's not "the average" user. The average user is buying whatever is popular at the time.

Whether we look at Kickstarter, preorders, or early access, this always affects a smaller circle of core gamers, who know very well that they are risking money, in fact they are quite proud of how they are doing something different from the filthy masses who are "playing it safe" with AAA sequels.

The problem is with the punditry that treats this as a huge problem that affects ordinary consumers.

 

[Thanatos2k]

But seriously. If shovelware scam crap is such an epidemic on Steam, then I really must question what the fuck is wrong with people.
Or has the average Steam user regressed to the level of earthworms when I wasn't looking?

It's not "the average" user. The average user is buying whatever is popular at the time.

Whether we look at Kickstarter, preorders, or early access, this always affects a smaller circle of core gamers, who know very well that they are risking money, in fact they are quite proud of how they are doing something different from the filthy masses who are "playing it safe" with AAA sequels.

The problem is with the punditry that treats this as a huge problem that affects ordinary consumers.

It's still a problem for everyone. If your average AAA mainstream gamer decides to step outside their comfort zone for just a moment and buys one of the many other games on Steam, they're likely to get one of these turds because they don't do research.

Now having been burned by paying money for garbage, they go back into the AAA popular games only bubble and never emerge.

We are doing a disservice to gaming allowing these things to exist.

 

[omnifarious]

So TL;DR of this episode: "Hey, look theres a really shitty early accsess game made by a scamming fucktard. Let's make steam more closed platform, because I was right".

In all fairness, Jim didn't say to make Steam a closed platform. Steam did just fine before Early Access and Green Light were even a thing. In fact, there really isn't much mention of Steam in the video this go around, even though he did elude towards his previous statements in regards to the issue of QC on Steam.

I do agree with you that tossing blame of a broken system is the metaphorical equivalent protesting a grocery store because they received a shipment of rotten meat. With that being said, however, it's difficult to not blame said grocery store if it continued to sell rotten meat, despite the protesters at its doors. And as of me writing this, Steam hasn't pulled Earth: Year 2088 from its storefront, despite everything that's been revealed about the game.

Seriously Jim, I said something in your last steam quality control episode that bears repeating:

Welcome to PC Gaming. The only quality control here, is the word of mouth and reviews. Trust em as you would trust the weather report. This is how it has always been, It's the fundamental tradeoff of an open platform. Either learn to live with it or go back to consoles, I really dont care wich.

If word of mouth and reviews are the best there is for PC Gaming, how does that invalidate the prime context of the video? To be honest, had I not watched the video I wouldn't have known about Earth: Year 2088 and all the shenanigans surrounding it. With that, just saying this is how it has always been doesn't justify a whole lot. It could just be me, but I get a sense that there's a hint of "people need to be more vigilant" and ON THAT I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE. The term 'May the buyers beware' has existed long before the telephone was invented.

Also, a scammer saying that everyone who's critizising them is troll, where have I seen this behaviour before? It was with a certain feminist who got a handsome sum of money to do youtube videos that she could have clearly done even without the money.

It's difficult to argue this without sounding like a white knight to either end, so I'll just put this out as bluntly as possible. Her youtube videos did nothing to change the gaming industry. She got her money, she made her series, it was a thing for about a week and now she's barely a memory. Hell, by the end of it all the worse that happened was her videos being contested by other feminists. On one hand, she won. On the other hand, what a bittersweet victory it was...

The biggest problem I have with this statement is this: when you look at the bigger picture, the two really don't relate to each other all that well. One scammed with a product and then paraded the criticism under the flag of 'victim' in an attempt to save face. The other scammed the promise of a product and then paraded the criticism under the flag of 'victim' in an attempt to raise more money for the promise of a product.

 

[Raku-Gosha]

Way to go Escapist lol, somehow bringing Anita into it. You go you, yea..

OT: I never understood Early-Access it screams of Bullshit, visible, physical, smelly Shit just lumped in front of you. With no attempts of hiding, and people eat. it. up. urgh.

Counter argument- but you don't have to buy it if you don't want to. I wish that were true straw man but if it exists now, it will only grow with our without my consent.

If I were to do Early-Access for the supposed claim of I need moneys, or tell me how to make my game, I'd have the decency to sell it in the range of 1-5 bucks dependent on quality and hours of play available. Not charge 20+ and create a troll tavern lol. Really makes us all look bad when this stuff happens.

 

[Alterego-X]

It's still a problem for everyone. If your average AAA mainstream gamer decides to step outside their comfort zone for just a moment and buys one of the many other games on Steam, they're likely to get one of these turds because they don't do research.

Now having been burned by paying money for garbage, they go back into the AAA popular games only bubble and never emerge.

We are doing a disservice to gaming allowing these things to exist.

The thing is, that contrary to how the blind-buying hipsters see the world, the audience is not *actually* that black and white, it's a spectrum.

It's not like everyone who isn't buying Early Access games at entirely random, is this boogeyman stereotype of a narrow-minded mainstream-gamer.

There are people who only ever played a handful of AAA games, there are people who mostly buy AAA games though also bought some of the biggest viral hits like Minecraft and Rust, there are people who are opening up to some niche genres like strategy games, or adventure games. There are people who are buying indie games that are famous enough to be recommended on Rockpapershotgun, and then there are those who buy several indie games a month just because they have been recommended by some users on a small indie gaming forum.

And THEN there are people who are gloating about how they are searching for hidden gems on entirely untested waters.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Whatever. If not for Steam, that guy could still do the exact same thing on his own website. PC gaming is an open platform.

The problem is that by associating with Valve/Steam, the product gains a veneer of legitimacy, deservedly or not. I could use a free hosting site to sell HDMI cables that had a 40% chance of making your television or monitor explode, but if I managed to get them on the shelves in Best Buy- and could wipe any negative reviews off their site- that'd definitely increase my sales.

Valve needs to do something about this, even if it's merely reducing the amount of control Greenlight producers have over their forums on Steam. There's too much incentive to run a scam and virtually no penalty for getting caught out, and every single incident like this splatters a little more mud on Steam's reputation.

 

[Gigano]

Well, who exactly is buying PC games through digital distribution without doing a quick ~20 second Google search about the title they're about to buy for $20?! A developer who delete negative feedback on one platform will obviously find it multiplying on every other one.

The consumer empowerment this information highway entail renders digital supply side hijinks virtually moot. I for one would rather have an open platform with a sea of shit, if this enables a rare few islands of unusual niche gems to spring forth. It's not like it'll take me long to find out about any PC title which catches my eye[footnote]If I'm on a digital console store, I'll have to boot up my PC though. And if I'm at a physical store, I'll have to whip out my smartphone. Oh, the stress![/footnote].

Shitty shovelware has always been put out there, but never has it been easier to find info on it. While the developer put out an unfinished game - the this being a condition of Early Access - game, no false advertising appear to have been involved.

Bottom line is, if you can spend $20 without spending 20 seconds researching what exactly you're spending it on, then your complaints are hard to take seriously.

 

[Dragonbums]

Man Jim I remember watching your Squirty Play video of that game.

You forgot to mention that not only did the dev put shitty text over the intro image, but he also put garbage default Photoshop texture overtop of it as well.

 

[Pete_alreadyinuse]

But seriously. If shovelware scam crap is such an epidemic on Steam, then I really must question what the fuck is wrong with people.
Or has the average Steam user regressed to the level of earthworms when I wasn't looking?

It's not "the average" user. The average user is buying whatever is popular at the time.

Whether we look at Kickstarter, preorders, or early access, this always affects a smaller circle of core gamers, who know very well that they are risking money, in fact they are quite proud of how they are doing something different from the filthy masses who are "playing it safe" with AAA sequels.

The problem is with the punditry that treats this as a huge problem that affects ordinary consumers.

It's still a problem for everyone. If your average AAA mainstream gamer decides to step outside their comfort zone for just a moment and buys one of the many other games on Steam, they're likely to get one of these turds because they don't do research.

Now having been burned by paying money for garbage, they go back into the AAA popular games only bubble and never emerge.

We are doing a disservice to gaming allowing these things to exist.

Who buys random games? Let us take another entertainment medium, movies. I can buy the movie "Fantasy Mission Force" on amazon. I know it, it is a very bad movie, some including me have watched it because watching bad movies with friends can be fun but I do not think that anybody considers it a good movie.
How is your statement different from saying that the movie being on Amazon is a problem because people who usually only watch blockbusters might step out of their bubble and buy it and then never watch a non blockbuster again? Or do you think Amazon selling such a movie is a problem too?
It seems to me that some people here are creating a caricature of an uninformed buyer who buys game without really looking at them but non the less finds an extremely obscure game to bolster their arguments.

 

[newwiseman]

To me, the only games which should be sold on Early Access, are those which can be sold for the labelled price, and without modification be considered a proper purchase. Minecraft, Kerbal and a few others are good examples of that. Those who fail at it miserably are: 2066, Planetary Annihilators, Wasteland 2, and some others.

If you want 20$ or 30$ from me now, you need to give me something WORTH 20$ or 30$ now, not something worth nothing with the promise of something worth the money I pay in the future.

Now, to annex the Sudetenland.

Not to mention MineCraft started out at like $5 while in Alpha and went from around $8-20 over the course of the beta as content was added, and the early adopters were thanked by not having to pay anymore for future updates. A perfect example of how to do early access if ever there was one.

 

[Alterego-X]

Whatever. If not for Steam, that guy could still do the exact same thing on his own website. PC gaming is an open platform.

The problem is that by associating with Valve/Steam, the product gains a veneer of legitimacy, deservedly or not. Every single incident like this splatters a little more mud on Steam's reputation.

And there lies one solution for the whole problem. Best Buy gives legitimacy to it's wares, because it has quality control and a limited amount of sales. On the other hand there is Ebay, another quite successful business model, that doesn't offer much quality control against exploding monitor brands as long as any of it's sellers wants to keep putting it up, and only offers the legal basics of customer protection. And people know that, and that's why they use it.


Sure, Valve can go back to being a walled garden... but becoming known as the platform that lets in everything, as the ebay of game developers, is also a way to avoid giving legitimacy to stuff like that, by making it clear that Valve is NOT a seal of quality.

The latter path would make more sense, because people who have a specific game in mind to buy are unlikely to abandon Valve if it offers the very game they are looking for, while people who enjoy browsing through piles of unproven games, have nowhere else to go to.