Jimquisition: Steam Needs Quality Control

[Something Amyss]

and I'm using simple logic to question why else a game would be rejected. Unless you can come up with a reason considering those games have released elsewhere then I'm afraid you've got no counter argument here.

They weren't submitted. They weren't attached to a publisher. Both are viable reasons.

However, you're insisting there is quality control, and you're yet to prove it. Trying to shift the burden of proof to me is just further proof that you cannot back up your claim.

 

[Something Amyss]

Meanwhile: the very things Jim is calling for is allowing youtube to blam all my videos without consent or argument thanks to bullshit.

Fuck you, "quality control" -_- I'd rather have complete anarchy than people saying what we're allowed to think deserves to have us spend money on it.

Quality control doesn't necessarily lead to YouTube's policies. Quite fortunate, indeed.

Unless your videos are being "banned" because they're for example, completely broken. In which case, I don't see a problem.

 

[DjinnFor]

Reviewing games for quality is the responsibility of game journalists. Sorry, Garme Jurnalizms.

So get off your ass and review it instead of telling Steam to do your job. Steam can, and should, sell whatever the customer is willing to pay for at the price they're willing to pay for it. Customers can, and should, make informed purchases. Reviewers can, and should, inform them appropriately.

Steam should not shoulder the responsibility of an industry. It should focus on what it is supposed to do as a retailer: sell games. You've identified that there are misinformed purchases being made, but given no valid reason why the responsibility to make informed purchases should shift from the customer to the retailer.

You cannot solve economic problems through centralization. Even if you could fix the issue, centralization always introduces new problems anyways. You solve problems with diffusion. Let those with the incentive to act, act.

As a customer, I'd rather have maximum control over my purchases and be offered the widest selection possible than let one good game not see the light of day on steam thanks to tighter content policing. Giving customers agency means more responsibility, but it also means more opportunities.

 

[Dollabillyall]

Recycle your PS3? Why would anyone ditch the best console on the market?!

 

[Hemlock]

All I see on Greenlight is someone's project that was coded in a day and looks like a pile of garbage.
There are SOME exceptions (Ikaruga).

 

[Something Amyss]

Except the games were submitted so that kind of stops that one.

If you could demonstrate that, you would have done so by now.

Look, it's clar you're not going to back up your claims with actual evidence, so I'm just going to let this go. I see no point in continuing to ask you for proof and you continuing to use circular reasoning and quotes that don't match the claims you're making.

 

[Dragonbums]

Reviewing games for quality is the responsibility of game journalists. Sorry, Garme Jurnalizms.

I'm sorry but no.

A game reviewers job is to review whether or not a complete game is good or bad. It is not their job to quality control what slop Steam decides to release on their storefront regardless of whether or not the game is even finished. Yet alone playable.

So get off your ass and review it instead of telling Steam to do your job.

It is Steams responsibility to make sure their store is up to quality and they are releasing finished games. We take a shit on EA hundreds of time a day for publishing half baked unpolished games, and yet for some reason Valve gets a free pass?

Steam can, and should, sell whatever the customer is willing to pay for at the price they're willing to pay for it. Customers can, and should, make informed purchases. Reviewers can, and should, inform them appropriately.

And places like McDonalds and Target have the right to put up for sale more unusuable cheap garbage if people unwittingly buy it. However that won't do them any damn good at all when their brand name is near synonymous with daily trash and as such it is Valve's job to make sure the games are at least finished before devs dare to charge a single penny for it.

Steam should not shoulder the responsibility of an industry.

And Jim never advocated for that.

It should focus on what it is supposed to do as a retailer: sell games.

Well as far as anyone is concerned they aren't selling games. They are selling alpha builds.

but given no valid reason why the responsibility to make informed purchases should shift from the customer to the retailer.

It's a matter of principle. Many unfinished games never state the fact that they aren't done. Therefore how the hell is the consumer supposed to make an informed decision? ESPECIALLY since devs have the power to mod their own comments so they can easily delete comments that call them out on their crap and leave only good remarks.

You cannot solve economic problems through centralization.

This isn't an economic problem.

As a customer, I'd rather have maximum control over my purchases and be offered the widest selection possible than let one good game not see the light of day on steam thanks to tighter content policing. Giving customers agency means more responsibility, but it also means more opportunities.

Then by all means gladly get trikced into buying all the unfinished crap products that flood Steam. But don't pretend that Steam should somehow have clean hands over letting this kind of stuff run rampant on their own store.

 

[ERaptor]

Meh, it depends on the context.

Valve could definetly rework the Review and rating system and make it a tad more convenient. When you hit up a Game on the store, it should be easily visible how many people bought the game, and then how many of those people were satisfied and how many werent. The current "Recommendations" at the bottom are a step forward, and i've dodged a few bullets by reading them. Still, its a bit annoying that this is the only more or less reliable source of feedback. Granted, you can see the Metacritic score on the store page, but it lists only the one from the Reviewers, should list both imho.

Abbout outright broken games. There should be a refund or return policy for games who are proveably broken or dont function. (Talking about crashes, the lack of _promised_ features, you know the deal.)

However, on _QUALITY_. I seriously dont want a third party deciding if something gets released on steam or not, simply based on "rating". Someone mentioned Dwarf Fortress, which is a prime example. I've seen people dismissing it for a broken, bad looking mess, unworthy of being called a Game. This is why user ratings and some research is so important. I dont want the Store to sort out stuff that I could potentially like, or Niche-Games. Its okay to seek out broken games with false advertising or the like, but when it comes to actual quality, rating and enjoyment, I want to read opinions of other players like me. I want to read how other users liked or disliked the title, not some 3rd party Schmuck descending from his throne, telling me what gets released and what doesnt.

Its lazy to blame Valve when you were actually dumb enough to buy Ride to Hell Retribution (Never played it, but from what I could gather it was functional, but jsut offensively bad), when you're literally three clicks and a Google Search away from thousands of people telling you that it sucks.

But, again. I agree that there should be a way to counteract outright broken Games, and that Valve could definetly up the quality of its service by providing one.

 

[Dragonbums]

And as was pointed out with the War Z thing. If a developer release a game and doesn't tell people its not complete then a reviewer is perfectly within their rights to review it just the same, as the devs are selling it as complete.

War Z was not complete, and you are kidding yourself if you think it was a complete game. There are shovel ware games that were more polished then that.
Reviewers are free to review it. HOWEVER Steam was obligated to immediately take down the game off their storefront at the first sign that people were getting scammed into playing a game that wasn't even finished.

That kind of thing is not the job of a reviewer.

Valve aren't the publisher though they're just the store.

Yes they are. The moment Greenlight came into existence they have put themselves into the publisher category.

You just claimed McDonalds sell quality products ................... you crack me up dude.

Does not diminish the relevance of the analogy.

People tend to research or know a little about purchases before making them.

This was already addressed in my last comment. Nice to see you glossed it over.

Aliens Colonial Marines was sold in high street stores.

Yet people are hammering for Valve to tighten quality controls.

Except that you missed the point AGAIN. Steam is being flooded with crap games that they have started to outnumber the amount of quality games on their site. The moment you have to sift through garbage to find the good stuff, then you as a storefront/retailer/publisher/etc. need to tighten up quality control of who gets in and who needs to go back to the development phase.

In Early access yes. There have been maybe 2 alpha builds released.

Except that a lot of these games are NOT released as alpha builds anyway.

War Z - which was forced to change it's store page and removed from steam until it was sorted.

Of course they were. Because people called them out for releasing an unfinished game to the public for money.

Is that principal minimal effort maximum pay off ?

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Also am I missing loads of unfinished games somewhere ?

Yes you are.

If people will buy it store will sell it.

That is irrelevant and you know it. Someone will always buy something. No matter how stupid it is. That doesn't mean Steam should not do anything about it if sleazy products start to overtake their store front.

Look at the microtransaction situation. People are buying them on mobile so more companies are doing it.

We are talking about unfinished, unpolished games on Steam. Not microtransactions. Don't shift the goal posts here.

Ok Noah, can you point to this great flood of games tricking people into buying unfinished releases ?

Considering how I already told you how one can make uninformed buying choice based on dev ommission and comment moderation I'm not going to bother repeating my points again.

If you're claiming they have issues = unfinished then I can give you a nice long list of games that have had issues on release. Some might even shock you.

Yeah go ahead. Games that have issues on release have been a hot topic in videogames for years. They have also been heavily criticized by gaming media and even Jim himself. You aren't going to be shocking anyone with this "mindblowing" list.

On that note it seems you are deliberately not getting the difference between a game with a few bugs, and a game that doesn't even work properly half the time.

 

[JayDeth]

Thank god it wasn't the gay furry porn that got wet.