Jimquisition: Salt Of The Earth - A Steam Fail Story

[Jimothy Sterling]

Salt Of The Earth - A Steam Fail Story

The humiliating story of Earth: Year 2066 is a good example of just how badly Steam can be abused.

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[Hutzpah Chicken]

I'll take note that when I can release my first game to first let Jim tell me how shit it is BEFORE I put it on Steam. Second, to skip that whole Early Access crap. Third, not to put it on the market until it is fully functional. Finally, sell it at $5 because I know most people (myself included) wait until a game is $5 or less on Steam.

 

[Zontar]

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.

 

[Evonisia]

At least EA had the decency to be pathetically funny when it said SimCity was an MMO; this developer just seems sad to me. Thanks for bringing this to the Jimquistion audience and thank God for Jim.

 

[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.

 

[MoltenSilver]

A perfect example of why Steam should absolutely not give that moderation power to the publisher/developers. At the very least there should have to be a big, fat banner that appears at the top of the page informing people of how many posts have been deleted from the page, which might give an at-a-glance clue to how harshly a publisher is wielding the censorship bat.

I'm truly baffled by how steam went downhill so quickly in their standards after actually earning their place on top by offering a worthwhile service and using the fact they're privately traded so as to avoid the uninformed demands of stockholder that drag down other companies.

Hopefully 'early access' scams like this will poison the well sooner than later and put an end to the money that can be milked by this system. And my heart goes out to the Quality-Assurance personnel who have surely been knocked even lower on the totem pole (if that's at all possible) by the publishers that I'm sure exists out there who think early access will be an acceptable replacement.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

Hmmm...I wonder what would happen if someone dared to, I don't know...threaten Muxwell with litigation for violating people's rights to their opinions? Seriously...I say hit these idiots with the potential for the worst case scenario and they may stop this bullcrap.

What do you think, Jim?

 

[Mojo]

New backdrop looks absolutely gorgeous now!
When you stand right in the middle, it looks like you have wings, very nice.

 

[Deadagent]

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". 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.

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.

 

[Renegade-pizza]

Brothers, Sisters and other(s)! Heed my call!

Let us put aside our differences and launch a holy crusade against this sharleton. We must combine our forces, the lowly console peasants and the noble, super attractive and interesting PC master race. Together, we may curb this trend and the name "Troll Tavern" will not be renembered with scorn, but as the signalling of a great uprising.

Stan strong, like any nokia made in the nineties.
Stand togeter, like girls going to the bathroom.
Stand united, unlike those who aren't.

 

[LG Jargon]

Thanks for bringing this to light, Jim. Because of you, I've learned to be a bit more discerning with my Steam purchases. Shit like this, coming from a cockmonger of a developer like Aaron Bishop, is inexcusable and needs to be properly reviewed or vaunted by Steam, or else it will drag the whole service down. Hope this guy gets arrested and is tried like the con artist he is.

Thank God for Jim.

 

[Luminos564]

Is this crap really happening? TRULY?

*Pinches cheeks*

Well that freaking hurt, so nope, I am not dreaming. What a sad state steam is turning into. I don't deal with steam personally since I do not do my gaming on my crud laptop but a good friend of mine loves it and I hate to think this sort of TRASH (I'm sorry, I cannot think of a word that fits this game better than TRASH) and it's developer manchild have the gall to charge 20-flipping-dollars for it.

Thank God for you Jim. You're making the gaming world a much safer place by exposing scum like muxwell.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

How can a person be in the modern age of the internet and not have heard of the Day One: Garry's Incident thing, the Guise of the Wolf scandal and all the other crap that happens? Alternatively, how can you know about those things and still think review censorship will work? It's an astonishing level of stupidity.

Love the new background by the way.

Stan strong

[img/]http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/images/shows/southpark/vertical_video/season_16/1613/sp_1613_promo02.jpg[/img]

 

[Steve2911]

I have to say the brief clips of the game shown here don't do justice to how terrible it is. I'd recommend the full video on Jim's Youtube channel for full context, because it's fuckin' awful.

I'm starting to think Valve are totally distracted right now. Between their efforts to make SteamOS and Steam Machines a thing, pouring their game development and event efforts into Dota 2 and The International (which I love and they should keep doing) and the work they're clearing doing on Source 2 and VR, they've totally neglected the storefront which makes them the vast majority of their money. They've gotten to a point where they can say 'it's like the App store but for PC games' and are content to leave it at that until their pet projects are completed.

I hope they have a wake up call soon. They're easily one of my favourite companies in the entire industry, but the direction they've taken just this last year is leading to a sad state of affairs.

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.

a) This isn't relevent. b) She recieved thousands of death threats and promises of rape and torture before she even started her series. I think she was pretty fucking justified in taking a 'fuck off with your comments' approach.

 

[CorvusFerreum]

That thing's IndieGoGo Page [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/project-earth--2#home] is solid gold.
"Huge open world"
"Strong nonlinear story"
Also: Terrible grammar, stock photo as producer portrait, failed to reach 500$ goal.
Or to quote Mr Muxwell Urban: "I like video games and make it too " [https://www.indiegogo.com/individuals/5305553]


The footage shown in this video doesn't do justice to the game. I recommend watching Jim's squirt play [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHhbvDhPU7U] of it. This sound design can not be described.

 

[jehk]

I'm with you Jim. However, what can Steam do that won't return us to the way it was before?

What needs to be done to filter out games like Earth: Year 2066 and permit games like Starbound.

Is the answer just better quality control?

 

[gigastar]

Huh. Was expecting (dis)honourable mentions of WarZ, Day One: Garrys Incident and Guise of the Wolf.

Still i guess its alright to know of another case. Just more ammo to chuck at Valve when trying to get them to fix this shit.

 

[ShakerSilver]

His avatar is a rageface, probably ripped right off of r/funny or knowyourmeme.

That should tell you how serious he is.

 

[WildFire15]

It always amuses me the lengths idiots like Muxwell go to, but then he's the sort of moron who honestly believes any publicity is good publicity.

I can't see Valve being able to do much against this sort of thing without removing Early Access entirely. You can't properly quality check something that isn't complete and Early Access very much revels in that fact.