Jimquisition: Steam Needs Quality Control

[Kuth]

Jim, why must you simplify a such a problem? This is not just Bad games getting through Greenlight, it's good games staying on Greenlight.

Does anyone recall how Greenlight works for it's games to get green-lighted? We get bits and pieces, but it's simply put just based on how popular something is, the hype, the media reception and so on. There is no review of the game, or quality check, as Jim pointed out. Yet here is the elephant in the room, why are most of the horrible games we talk about First person shooters?

There are tons of genres out there that are bursting with different and unique ideas that most gamers will never play. Instead we see a huge clot of FPS or TPS games with little sign of them going away. Popularity isn't dying over the meta-genre of shooters, so why are we shocked to see some bad egg games in the bunch? Well we aren't, we are just shocked Valve isn't doing a decent job of it. Yet can you blame them for content control when their audience whine when a game of medium hype doesn't get to be put on steam?

We asked for a Werewolf game, and we got one, just not the one we needed. We demanded for more minecraft-like games, you damn well got it. Zombie games? You bloody asked for it, and Valve delivered. This is not just a Valve problem, this is a community problem.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

We don't need Quality Control, we need a refund policy. In old days, gaming developers could get away with not offering one by citing a copyright law. "You could copy the disc at home then return it so we can't give refunds on software" they store would say. There is NO reason why Steam, with it's built in DRM, could not offer refunds for consumers. The refund could be cut off after a few hours of gameplay since "Hours Played" is a tracked statistic on Steam. Or it could be a short time frame so people couldn't buy then beat then return their games.

That takes care of all that problems. If devs can't hide behind the "We broke it, you buy it" model we have now, less pure crap would get shoveled out to consumers. They have an impenetrable shield that needs to be broken.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

What really saddens me is how you can see a few Greenlight contenders with actual work put into them. For each of them, like Project Zomboid, there's a dozen or so shameless cash-grabbing attempts. I mean, you can really get a sense for Greenlight's worth when the deadpool contains stuff that was submitted with bad MS Paint covers or hilariously broken English.

It's a system with potential, but Valve was being naive if it thought user-curated control would suffice. There needs to be someone on Valve's side who, with or without massive community approvals, can drop the hammer and basically shake everyone back to their senses. We need someone who's going to say "Seriously? You guys are backing this shit? No. Honestly, no. I can't let that pass, not in good conscience."

Greenlighters should have to give accounts to Valve, to prove that they're working on something and that what they do meets a certain threshold of quality control. The same could be said of Kickstarter - as I really don't want to penalize the Double Fines and the Cyan Worlds of this, well, world.

*These* guys know what they're doing. The kid promising hundreds of hours of epic content with stolen sprites and a basic course on RPG Maker, however, doesn't.

 

[cschraer]

I don't believe there is an issue with Steam. Let's consider the alternative: Steam has quality control and can now prevent a game from being sold simply by saying "It's not good enough". I agree, it would be nice to have more quality games, but that line of "Good enough" is extremely subjective and arbitrary. At what point would we cross into the realm of developers having to "Lobby" Valve just to get their game sold?

True, there is a lot of junk out there, but the quality control should be forced on the developers and publishers, not the stores that sell them. I don't blame my hardware store for shoddy tools, I blame the company who made that tool.

If the issue was Valve's games being bad and them pushing the game on us through Steam, then sure blame Valve. Otherwise I think we're upset at the wrong people. The publishers and developers of those games are the problem.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

I feel like a year ago the complaint was that Valve was too closed off and since it controlled most of the PC market that meant smaller publishers were getting squeezed out and they need to open up the marketplace more. Which they did, and this is what happened.

Valve used to be picky with who and what got on Steam, and everybody bitched, so they open the door and now everybody is bitching again.

A few stinkers did slip by anyway but you are right about the complaints about Valve being picky in the past and people whining about it.

They just can't win sometimes can't they?

 

[Lt. Rocky]

If Steam had, say, a 1-month return policy, I feel there wouldn't be a need to enforce Quality Control. I doubt you'd be able to get the money back to your bank account, but that's why Steam Wallet exists, right? You'd get the money back to spend on a different Steam game.

 

[zylgp]

I agree with a lot of people here; the way in which steam should address these problems is to give the customers more power via refunds. As things are going I would be satisfied if Valve remove games that received an overwhelming level of criticism from the community; e.g. 65% of all reviews are dislikes then the game gets pulled from the shelves. The contract that Valve should end up implementing in these cases would be that the producer/ developer of the game would be liable for providing a full refund to all of the customers that purchased the faulty product.

 

[Lightknight]

While Steam already has a lot of review information, if they simply showed the average review score, or even just majority of thumbs up/down, on the highest level store tiles it would help people filter out the crap. When creating a truly open market, more power must be given not only to the sellers, but to the buyers as well. Valve has some really tough decisions to make, because whether they let more games on or let users send the bad ones to downvote-hell, they're inevitably going to be faced with the same problem the console marketplaces have had: good or small games getting drowned out.

Does steam ever display the thumbs down anywhere?

I agree there's a very blurry line between catering and censorship even with the best of intentions.

Exactly.

Hell some people actually like the war Z as insane as that sounds.

I was under the impression that it launched in shambles but has since gotten to a playable state. I recently played Rust. Glitchy and frustrating to play but there was just something about the game that was fun and worth the price of admission. I probably won't play it again for a year but a game doesn't have to be perfectly polished or even glitch free (Bethesda, I'm looking at you) to be fun.

I like the idea of more consumer control too. I think also what would be helpful is better search options and customization. So you can program your starting page to only show games in the genre's styles you like. If you don't want early access just tell it not to show early access games. The same with the search engine it needs to be far more robust then it is now. Hell it'd be really cool if you could put your computer's specs in and games that won't run won't even be shown. All as optional filters of course but it'd be nice if there were far more of them.

They do allow searching by genres but I don't see any advanced search function that would allow filtering out some results. I'd certainly like to drop some early access games in some of my searches. That'd be nice.

 

[Piorn]

Rather weak point this week to be honest.

I'd rather live in a world where I can chose what to play, instead of being bullied into playing only a few "good" games. It's the same with censorship here in germany. Many games I like have a metascore of ~70, and I wouldn't want to lose them or be inconvenienced from playing them.

That being said, there IS a review system in place on steam, and the entire internet judges too, so if anyone bought gary's incident, it's his own fault. Valve could make an extra effort to bury the horrible titles somewhere, though.

And people should really stop making terrible indie games. I mean really, people can't be that delusional about their work, right?

 

[mike1921]

Considering this video WAS about Steam specifically, I don't see what the issue is. Mentioning whether or not other business' are doing it better or worse is irrelevant. His argument is that Steam is doing something wrong and that they should fix it.

The problem is blaming Valve for the quality issues is the same as blaming GameStop for used games. All it is is giving a scapegoat out there so everyone else can be happily ignored. The problem is with the industry itself, not a single store and Valve suddenly accepting responsibility when no one else does is not a magical bullet that going to fix the industry. All that's going to happen is the makers of this drek is going to another outlet who will happily put it out and nothing is fixed.

Sorry, but a "Not in my Backyard" answer is not going to fix things.

Absolutely no one thinks steam not allowing games on their store will make them without an outlet. The problem isn't that they have an outlet, the problem is they have space and basically marketing through the front page of a platform bordering synonymous with digital distribution. The problem isn't with the industry: all the garbage is coming from indie devs and there's no way to keep greedy motherfuckers out of any industry. There is no way you can stop a dev from making Guise of the Wolf 2: the Shittening and putting it on their site.

The problem is there is shit in my backyard, the problem isn't that there is shit in the sewers or the dumps or the toilets.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Dang. I've heard a whole lot about all this Greenlight business in the last couple of months, but I had no idea it was getting THAT bad.

Jim, you do have a point. The whole having so much crap and knock offs, and only a few good games is what really killed the industry in the U.S. in 1982.
If Steam wants to keep this service, they need to make some more demands of people putting up their games, or else the whole thing will be made useless.

Thank God for you, Jim.

Bloody hell, how much stuff has he got on that podium now?

Not enough. There is one member missing on that desk, and that object is the Belladonna ***** Fist.

<.< Perhaps Jim "lost" the ***** Fist....

Yes! Jim, bring back the ***** Fist, and while you're at it lets get Jonathan Holmes' Penis on the show!

I'm worried to ask, but how is he going to get, that?

 

[CBanana]

The problem with the old system was that high quality games were often being barred from Steam and worse yet Valve wouldn't give a reason for why it got barred. It was even more perplexing in that a lot of very bad games still got onto Steam without anything like Greenlight. The new system is better in that sense that quality games (particularly niche ones) aren't barred off from Steam anywhere near the same extent.

Honestly though, it wouldn't hurt to have some intern test the game before it's Steam release. Playing Guise of the Wolf for 5 minutes should have clued them in that the game is bug ridden, ugly, and had highly flawed gameplay. I doubt Valve is interested in real quality control since they've allowed bad games to skip Greenlight and they even brought back War Z/Infestation: Survivor Stories despite the developers blatantly lying on their Steam page.

 

[Another]

I do think this is something Valve needs to fix, but there was one point I don't think was made in the video: the new releases front page is now useless, and that effects for gamers and developers.

It's the first thing that most people see when they get on steam, and where a lot of games pick up exposure. This deluge of crap, early access, and old ports is drowning out the actual gems that pop up onto the front page. Good luck on staying on that page for more than a day right now. Not only does Valve need to QA this shit, they need to implement a refund policy and front page store filters similar to the "show dlc" check box.

Edit: I just thought of what steam is starting to remind me of. Shareware sites from the 90's with half finished project game crap tossed up on there. Startlingly similar.

 

[Stewart Marshall]

The main thrust of this argument (or certainly the first half of it) seems to come from "Arguments why YouTube won't last 2005" google search.

 

[Oskuro]

Simple improvement, that Jim himself mentioned in the video: Do not give game publishers absolute control over the user feedback forums on Steam. That way negative reviews cannot be silenced, as is happening now.

Of course that can mean more work for Valve, as someone has to mod those forums, and I guess that particular decision was a simple cost-cutting measure.


I'm all for the open-ness of Greenlight, and I think digital markets, once the audience learns and adapts, will naturally weed out the shady crap in favour of good products, as word of mouth has always done.... But only if the audience is given the tools to communicate with each other effectively.


As for people complaining that it'd be dangerous to have Valve decide what goes on Steam or what doesn't.... I agree, but thing is, they already have that control. Until Greenlight was around, you needed publisher backing to have your game on Steam, and, even then, Valve is perfectly capable of removing a game if they don't think fits with their Store (something, if I remember correctly, happened to a Greenlit pseudo-porn game).


In the end, what matters, in any market, is accountability. Same issue being discussed to death with all the "bribing" going around regarding game publishers. When someone releases a major fuckup, there should be consequences, and any and all systems that try to silence such consequences should be questioned heavily.

 

[gargantual]

I love the variety Steam has but there has to be some streamlining. This is the one problem the indie scene might have to wrestle with to really get its market footing. From here to IOs folks are flooding the scene with games trying to be relevant in our social-media-saturated, economic-recovering age, they've just got to iron out the best time to get a finished game on the market.... a game....the ONE game....TO RULE THEM ALL.

The scene might need it's own 'Nintendo - Seal of Quality' era where standard checks and balances for functionality have to be met, and the focus would narrow to a few good titles, than mounds of brokenness. Its not good for our wallets, and not good for those developers business models in the long run. They're supposed to be the future ground breakers.

and look at Valve's Job listings. There's Steam - Business Manager. From the way Jim's putting it, they might need the QA/marketing equivalent of 'Swayze in Roadhouse' at this point. Somebody who can really tell these new companies

'that was then fellas, this is now'

or at least in a nicer way encourage people to put more stern warnings on early access titles, like DAYZ did, and move the price down a bit.

 

[KDR_11k]

Dunno, seems kinda weird to expect quality control from Steam when we don't question why retailers stocked Ride to Hell. Stores aren't really the people we normally expect to do quality control for us, they're neutral carriers who allow us to decide what we buy and what not. And if someone really wants to buy Time & Eternity it'd be wrong for Media Markt to say "we don't like that game so you can't have it". Steam's layout makes it hard to see somewhat older titles at a glance (which makes flooding with new stuff a problem) and of course Early Access needs to be segregated like it is on Desura but I don't expect them to vet games for quality. And I bought Gettysburg Armored Warfare.

 

[mike1921]

Rather weak point this week to be honest.

I'd rather live in a world where I can chose what to play, instead of being bullied into playing only a few "good" games. It's the same with censorship here in germany. Many games I like have a metascore of ~70, and I wouldn't want to lose them or be inconvenienced from playing them.

That being said, there IS a review system in place on steam, and the entire internet judges too, so if anyone bought gary's incident, it's his own fault. Valve could make an extra effort to bury the horrible titles somewhere, though.

And people should really stop making terrible indie games. I mean really, people can't be that delusional about their work, right?

There is absolutely nothing stopping a dev from putting a game on their own website and you buying it. You can choose what to play: Why would you choose Garry's incident? Why would you choose a broken game? And I take exception that there'd be a "few" good games. Steam is absolutely full of playable content. No one wants steam to just add games that get into prominent peoples' top 10 lists at the end of the year. No one wants steam to stop adding indie games, and certainly no one wants steam to stop removing any game that doesn't get at leas an 80 on metacritic.

70 isn't a bad score, 70 definitely isn't a bad enough score to bury.

Yes they can be that delusional, or they can just hope it sells enough to make a profit. You're not going to stop people from making terrible indie games.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

While Steam already has a lot of review information, if they simply showed the average review score, or even just majority of thumbs up/down, on the highest level store tiles it would help people filter out the crap. When creating a truly open market, more power must be given not only to the sellers, but to the buyers as well. Valve has some really tough decisions to make, because whether they let more games on or let users send the bad ones to downvote-hell, they're inevitably going to be faced with the same problem the console marketplaces have had: good or small games getting drowned out.

Does steam ever display the thumbs down anywhere?

Yes/kind of. Once you've selected a game, you can scroll down to the reviews. People give it a numerical X/10, but each review also has either a green thumbs up or red thumbs down. Having never actually left a review I don't know how the thumb is generated, be it directly selected or generated based on the numerical score, but they do exist. It's also highly likely that people don't even know these reviews exists though, since you have to scroll past the game pictures, ratings, credits, alternative store choices... reviews are several pages down, much further than lazy people that just want to play a game will go (i.e. most people on earth).

The fact that the question had to be asked indicates exactly how useless it is right now.

 

[Catrixa]

Er, given the popularity of places where anyone can sell a thing (even a used thing), regardless of the thing's actual quality (eBay, Craig's List, Amazon, just about any app store, etc.), I can't honestly agree that Steam has an unsustainable business model. I'm not saying it's a very customer-centric business model, but it's not going to drive them out of business any time soon. It might even appeal to people who fear some censor board saying "This game is bad, because it has things in it our censor board disagrees with (but is not functionally broken in any way)." Besides, to have an all-inclusive library of games that are good, you'd need a board of reviewers larger than all of Valve, and I'd bet that's not financially feasible. Some games would have to be censored on time constraints alone, and that could hurt Valve significantly if those games were amazing and offered on other platforms (not to say we shouldn't have other platforms...).

If I got to offer a fix, it wouldn't be: Valve should hire hundreds of reviewers to decide what goes on Steam. I'd say: What if customers got to flag games as markedly busted, and get a refund for them? If a game gets enough "This game is unplayable/broken, DO NOT BUY" flags, maybe a smaller board of reviewers could take a look, then pull it from Steam. In the mean time, people who sunk money into a pile of crap could get their money back (or maybe after the game was pulled, everyone who wanted a refund could get their money back), and anyone who might be looking at the game could see how many "Game broke, don't buy" flags there were, and make decisions from there. Valve wouldn't have to hire a ton of people, gamers wouldn't have to necessarily risk spending jillions on crap just to find out it's crap, and Valve still wouldn't need a numerical rating system for their reviews section ("This game does not function as advertised" is much different than "This game functions, I just hate it").