Jimquisition: Salt Of The Earth - A Steam Fail Story

[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.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

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

Funny, because Steam doesn't seem to have an issue with selling those either.
Still, I'd like to point out to you that there's a hell of a lot more more with this whole thing than the game simply being incomplete. The developer has been using copyrighted material, cencoring criticism of his game and blatantly trolling people. I take it you haven't heard about the Earth: 2066 Jim Sterling addition?

 

[softclocks]

Infernal Lawyer: I'm fully aware that Steam has sold a few of those, that's what I pointed out for contrast in the opening post.

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.

"Making up a condition"?

I'm explaining my choice of words.

I don't care whether or not that explanation satisfies you, nor should it matter to you whether or not my definition is the same as yours.

Once again then. At the moment you can do whatever little the developers intended for you to be able to do at this stage in the game. Regardless of whether that lives up to your own degrees of playability, according to me, when compared to Steam games where the gameplay-part is not accessible, that game is fully playable.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

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.

well the thing is, thats not exactly reasonable, theres a reason why wasteland and planetary annihilation are worth that much

 

[Strazdas]

1,2,3

1. being early acess does not absolve any game of criticism. Nor does it allow you to lie on store page or "moderate" the forums like the guy does. Not to mention the guy is a known scam artist already.

2. It also states a lot of other things, things are are blatant lies. Not to mention that "EArly alpha" should not even be shown to people, let alone sold. at best you can do is free beta testing.

No. on kickstarter you are funding a game developement. On indiegogo you are funding a game developement. On Steam Early Acess you are buying a game in its alpha stage in hopes the developer will be bothered to ever finnish it.

3. the lies are everything else in the description. even the video itself shows thigns that arent in the game.

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.

I guess we use different definitions of playable then. Mine does not end with "Game does not crash on start".

parks and nuclear waste dumps

But we dont want our parks to become cities. In fact, parks are specifically places there so people could get away from the city life and relax in there. Steam is a single park in side the city. the city is called PC gaming. you want steam to open its gates and let everyone set up shop till there is no grass left to sit at.

Youk now what happens when a new person enters a city? confusion. you dont want your paying costumers confused.

No, i cannot get them from such sites, because they still require steam activation.

And you can lay down and relax near a nuclear dump as well, till you eventually die of radiation leaking from it.

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.

good point, but steam is not a be all end all store. You have to provide a product before store agrees to stock it. If steam does not allow you to sell it (store thinks your product is not their style) you can go to another service for selling (go to another store more appropriate to your product).

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.

people who find items at Steam front page and trust steam enough to believe that the decription on store page is not a blatant lie. People who like the idea of the game like this and expect the game to deliver at least the basic of what is in the description.

and yes, people do buy random things, thats how they find greatness. i often watch random movies from as little as ap oster and two line summary. ive found some gems amonth the massive amount of trash. the thing is, most of them were actually watchable. this game is not playable.

"Making up a condition"?

I'm explaining my choice of words.

just because you made up your own definition does not mean its a good argument in discussion. You of course can continue using it and we can continue point out your wrong.

 

[Alterego-X]

But we dont want our parks to become cities. In fact, parks are specifically places there so people could get away from the city life and relax in there. Steam is a single park in side the city. the city is called PC gaming. you want steam to open its gates and let everyone set up shop till there is no grass left to sit at. Youk now what happens when a new person enters a city? confusion. you dont want your paying costumers confused.

But all the park-like, safe areas of the industry are still there on Steam. If you just want famous big games that you have already heard about elsewhere, they are all there, you can just use your map (search function) to find he parks without interacting with the rest. You can find whatever you want, even if it is not literally the only thing sold there and being pushed to your face.

And if you just want to buy random things to "find greatness", Steam is still the only place to go, because it's the only place that sells random things in the first place.

You can't really watch "random movies" in a theatre that has pre-filtered it's lineup for you, that will just be proven and tested movies.

If Steam would do the intuitive thing and lock out any games, they would have nothing to win. Anyone who just wants to visit a safe nice park can already do so inside Steam, by looking for famously praised best-selling games, so their numbers wouldn't increase because Steam has kicked out some other games, yet anyone who is willing to sort through the unfiltered dumps of unproven games to "find greatness", would have to start looking beyond steam, and treat it as one small park that isn't for them.

 

[Strazdas]

But we dont want our parks to become cities. In fact, parks are specifically places there so people could get away from the city life and relax in there. Steam is a single park in side the city. the city is called PC gaming. you want steam to open its gates and let everyone set up shop till there is no grass left to sit at. Youk now what happens when a new person enters a city? confusion. you dont want your paying costumers confused.

But all the park-like, safe areas of the industry are still there on Steam. If you just want famous big games that you have already heard about elsewhere, they are all there, you can just use your map (search function) to find he parks without interacting with the rest. You can find whatever you want, even if it is not literally the only thing sold there and being pushed to your face.

And if you just want to buy random things to "find greatness", Steam is still the only place to go, because it's the only place that sells random things in the first place.

You can't really watch "random movies" in a theatre that has pre-filtered it's lineup for you, that will just be proven and tested movies.

If Steam would do the intuitive thing and lock out any games, they would have nothing to win. Anyone who just wants to visit a safe nice park can already do so inside Steam, by looking for famously praised best-selling games, so their numbers wouldn't increase because Steam has kicked out some other games, yet anyone who is willing to sort through the unfiltered dumps of unproven games to "find greatness", would have to start looking beyond steam, and treat it as one small park that isn't for them.

yes they are, they are just filled with so much nuclear waste that its hard to find a bench that doesnt glow in the dark. by the time you navigate to one you feel like the DVD DRM was came to games (you know, that unskippable FBI warnings shit that only legitiamte costumers see to being with and last so long you no longer want to watch the movie by the end).

When i go to a park i want to see a park, not having to need to navigate around a nuclear waste facility to find a bench that isnt ruined yet.

and you can find random things elsewhere than steam. there is a thing we call "internet".

Valve has a lot to win from steam locking out bad games. for one, getting back the confidence of "if i buy it off steam ill know it at least works". im not saying they should lock it to only AAA titles. merely to have quality control, you know, like demand a playable demo before they are allowed to ask for money. just like we demand the certificate that the nuclear waste is stored properly.

 

[Alterego-X]

yes they are, they are just filled with so much nuclear waste that its hard to find a bench that doesnt glow in the dark. by the time you navigate to one you feel like the DVD DRM was came to games

If you want clean proven games, just use the most basic search heuristics that C14N described above. Or just ask yourself:

Have I heard anything remotely positive about this game before?

Is this game on the best-sellers' list?

Is this being sold as a finished game?

Is this from a developer that I trust based on it's record with earlier games?

If the answer to all four is "no", then you are already ignoring so much common sense guidance, that you are basically the guy wandering around the city without a map, wearing blindfolds, and getting angry at why you found a dump instead of a park.

And that's fine. Like you just said, maybe you wanted to find new places in entire randomness. But if you want to do that, accept that you might in fact find garbage, instead of demanding the whole city be turned into a park to protect your comfort.

and you can find random things elsewhere than steam. there is a thing we call "internet". Valve has a lot to win from steam locking out bad games. for one, getting back the confidence of "if i buy it off steam ill know it at least works".

If your definition of "works" would be "it runs", then I would agree, but if you use it for anything more than that, that's just walled garden mentality selectiveness over games that are working "good enough for our brand", and it WILL eventually involve locking out some games that don't "work" by Steam's standards but work perfectly according to someone else's, and gather a content userbase.

Steam has nothing to win by winning back the people who only want games that "work" by such higher standards, because these people would never randomly browse the "latest released" batch in the first place, they always had their quality standards before buying.

Steam has a lot to win by gathering all the people who only expect games to "run", but willing to risk that they don't "work" as hoped, as long as they can also find some greatness among it. These people could be forced out to the rest of the Internet, but that would mean a lost audience.

 

[Strazdas]

If the answer to all four is "no", then you are already ignoring so much common sense guidance, that you are basically the guy wandering around the city without a map, wearing blindfolds, and getting angry at why you found a dump instead of a park.

and then i would have never found minecraft.

see, you may be listening to people about games, you may know what is on best seller list and you may knowdevelopers. the average buyer does not. the only thing average buyer can check easily is the third question as steam clearly states that.

If your definition of "works" would be "it runs", then I would agree, but if you use it for anything more than that, that's just walled garden mentality selectiveness over games that are working "good enough for our brand", and it WILL eventually involve locking out some games that don't "work" by Steam's standards but work perfectly according to someone else's, and gather a content userbase.

Steam has nothing to win by winning back the people who only want games that "work" by such higher standards, because these people would never randomly browse the "latest released" batch in the first place, they always had their quality standards before buying.

Steam has a lot to win by gathering all the people who only expect games to "run", but willing to risk that they don't "work" as hoped, as long as they can also find some greatness among it. These people could be forced out to the rest of the Internet, but that would mean a lost audience.

It running would be one of the needs, yes. another would be that things in description would actually be in the game and the game would be fully playable (already been defined in this thread). For example big truck racing "runs" but you could ahrdly call it "running".

And locking out some games is fine. you dont serve water-prepared pasta in a restaurant. Especially if that means ensuring that the restaurant does not serve poisoned meat half the time.

the audience that matters here is the users of steam. and far more are being forced out of steam thanks to having to navigate through all the trash than people actually liking games like this.

 

[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.

well the thing is, thats not exactly reasonable, theres a reason why wasteland and planetary annihilation are worth that much

And as a customer it is not my job to care at all for those reasons. From my end all it is, is 2 games which are incomplete which had the audacity to charge far more then their retail price for their incomplete state. There could be 50 legitimate reasons for it and it wouldn't change the fact that, as a customer, I don't and shouldn't care.

 

[Saltychipmunk]

Infernal Lawyer: I'm fully aware that Steam has sold a few of those, that's what I pointed out for contrast in the opening post.

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.

"Making up a condition"?

I'm explaining my choice of words.

I don't care whether or not that explanation satisfies you, nor should it matter to you whether or not my definition is the same as yours.

Once again then. At the moment you can do whatever little the developers intended for you to be able to do at this stage in the game. Regardless of whether that lives up to your own degrees of playability, according to me, when compared to Steam games where the gameplay-part is not accessible, that game is fully playable.

Sounds to me like you are deliberately trying to play the devils advocate. And you cant compare games that have lost their network infrastructure to this game.

Those games had their heyday and were full experiences during that time. People who played during the time that those games were released got a full packaged release. Most of the time it is not until LONG after the popularity of a game has died that it loses it's play-ability through the loss of infrastructure. Even then if the game in question was worth something then a community of modders would step in.

But they don't, specifically because those games are no longer relevant. And it is still true here , your comparison is irrelevant.

You are seriously comparing games that are well past their prime to a newly released game. the heck? That is completely bonkers .

It is beyond obvious that the developer deliberately made this game to make a few cheap dollars and then let it die. forget a professional developer , forget a video game student . I could make that pile of rubbish game in under a week in my free time at minimal cost to myself.

You dont make fully 3d video games in a week or less for anything other than a cashin. you just dont.

 

[Alterego-X]

see, you may be listening to people about games, you may know what is on best seller list and you may knowdevelopers. the average buyer does not. the only thing average buyer can check easily is the third question as steam clearly states that.

First of all, Steam does have a best seller list on the front page. Currently, it's top 10 includes Dark Souls II, Portal II, DayZ, Portal Bundle, Watch Dogs, CS:GO, Rust, Trials Fusion, Space Engineers, and Skullgirls.

If your new claim about average gamers not checking any metrics such as popularity were true, then it's pretty srange that the bestsellers are still consistently games with particularly good press, rather than an entirely random sample of shoverware.

The very fact that games are able to get hugely popular, proves that the average gamer pays attention to popularity, and thus a positive feedback loop can form.

How else do you explain that Earth 2066 only has a maximum of 3 people playing it at the same time, as charted for it a a record?

It is not "the average gamer" buying Earth 2066, the average gamer is buying Dark Souls and Portal. It is a small fringe of contrarians and hipsters and reviewers and self-appointed greatness-seakers, who are willing to dig into unknown, unproven Early Access games for the sake of sampling random games.

It running would be one of the needs, yes. another would be that things in description would actually be in the game and the game would be fully playable (already been defined in this thread).

With definitions that would also filter out early Minecraft. I'm not doubting that you can produce wider definitions of "playable", I'm just saying that such definitions would end up filtering out games that are playable according to one person and unplayable according to another.

locking out some games is fine.

It's fine, but in Steam's case, it would be a bad business choice.

They are on their way to encompass the essence of PC gaming. Not just a specific high quality brand, but an universal super-brand inside of which you can find many solid groupings such as AAA games, viral games, or the soon to come user stores, that can serve as the inner quality "brands". The next Minecraft is going to happen inside of it, not outside.

When Rust makes a million sales and Earth 2066 makes hundreds, that right there is the difference between average gamers and people who blindly buy games just because they are on Steam.

Worst case scenario for openness: Steam risks losing those few hundred who were naively blind-buying inexperienced users.

Best case scenario for openness: Those blind-buyers were actually core gamers intentionlly looking for unexpected "greatness", and even if they feel cross about stepping into a stinker, Steam is still the only place that collects a wide plethora of unproven obscure games to test, which they prefer over walled gardens. Steam covers the whole PC market.

Worst case scenario for walled Gardens: Steam risks losing the next million buyers with the next Rust, by overtly high definitions of "playable". Some other store does sell it, and out-competes Steam.

Best case scenario for Walled Gardens: Steam becomes one among many trusted online game recommendation lists.

 

[C14N]

people who find items at Steam front page and trust steam enough to believe that the decription on store page is not a blatant lie. People who like the idea of the game like this and expect the game to deliver at least the basic of what is in the description.

and yes, people do buy random things, thats how they find greatness. i often watch random movies from as little as ap oster and two line summary. ive found some gems amonth the massive amount of trash. the thing is, most of them were actually watchable. this game is not playable.

Was this actually featured on the front page? I don't check it every day but I've never seen anything like this shown on the front page. Some things haven't been great but even the alphas are usually only the most ambitious ones (stuff like Prison Architect, Day Z and Rust), not something like this which could scarcely be called a game.

You can "find greatness" but still at least take a look at the trailer before putting money down on something. This game looks like an early PS2 tech demo.