Jimquisition: Steam Needs Quality Control

[loc978]

The problem I see here isn't so much Steam's lack of quality control (Valve would need a lot more people on the project to actually make that happen), it's the trained stupidity of consumers. As I grow older, advertising seems far more transparent. As a child of the 80s and teenager of the 90s, that disturbs me greatly.

Looking back before I was born, I think we've again reached the level of bullshit in advertising that existed in the early 60s. I'm not entirely sure why, but for some reason, bullshit sells... again. My reaction to those games about which you exclaim "they charge money for this! What is wrong with these publishers?" is, "People actually bought that?! What is wrong with those people?". The mere existence of google searches, wikipedia and the plethora of video reviews makes that level of ignorance entirely willful in my book.

...I still choose to blame Edward Bernays... manipulative son of a *****, that guy.

 

[Thanatos2k]

I usually agree with Jim, but on this i've got to say fuck no. Steam is shaping up to become a near-monopoly like Amazon, and the absolutely last thing we as customers need is for them to grant third parties permissions to sell to us. That's a position of power that is absolutely going to be abused.

What? Jim just wants Steam to hold its content providers accountable. To curate their stuff. Where are you getting "grant third parties permission to sell to us"? What does that even mean in relation to this topic?

(Remember when people actually believed google about their "don't be evil" shtick? Yeah, funny that)

Yeah, haha, like that time they started google fiber to scare the huge ogliopoly of ISPs into not taking advantage of consumers. That worked so well some of them actually started providing a better service for a reasonable price and others try to pass legislation to stop it because competition hurts them...

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/31/kansas-cable-lobbyist-writes-b.html

You know, that time they made a company that boasts 1Gb down/up for $70 which is cheaper than many Americans are paying for over 15Mb Down/ 5Mb up.

Google isn't evil. They do a shit ton of stuff that greatly benefits mankind. From putting up huge cash prizes to reward scientific developments that benefit mankind to providing legitiamte competition across multiple markest. It's correct to say that they're in the position to do evil, it's incorrect to say that they are currently doing so.

Yeah, about that....

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

Google has always been evil. But like Apple, they're real good at tricking people into thinking they're not.

Valve isn't there yet. They still have a chance to do something about it.

 

[Thanatos2k]

I have to completely disagree this time Jim, they are a store it's not their job to decide what goes out and what doesn't, especially with a store as powerful as Steam where not being on the Steam shelf can mean no one sees your game. It is the job of developers to make a good game not the stores and it's not the stores job nor is it the stores job to decide if a title is good enough to be bought by you that's your job as a consumer. This is a great example of giving up freedom for convenience let Steam control the market and decide what I should buy because I'm too lazy to look up gameplay footage and reviews.

Of course it's a store's job to decide what they sell.

Think of this: What is the difference between Whole Foods and Aldi? Both are grocery stores that sell food. The only difference is what products they allow to be sold there.

If you want your store to be known as selling cheap crap games that barely work, keep doing what you're doing, Valve.

 

[Visteri]

I have that Dark Crystal book!

Steam, quality control, important stuff...but I saw something in this video that I also have!

I am sorry that it got wet. That is sad.

 

[mindfaQ]

Lol some guys have problems. Don't like it - don't buy it. Are you really still unable to inform yourself on one of the countless platforms on the internet? Or if you wanna make sure you get a good game - why not buy games that get good reviews of sites you trust and that fit your preferences.
It's like selling art. Everyone can do it and that's the way it should be. Do we need need a quality controlled selling plattform where you only get high quality products? Well I certainly don't. BUT: I can see a branch of steam (a custom steam shop) being useful to people that blindly want to buy games. But then other problems arise, like where to draw the line. It will be arbitrary.
Didn't Gabe tell us maybe 1-2 years ago they wanted Steam to become an API and enable people to open their own shops/sortiments for sale using that API. This way you could have something like "Jim Sterling's Quality Ensured Games" or "Yahtzee's Favourites" shop.

 

[shrekfan246]

Long as I've been on Steam, there have been broken pieces of crap, unplayable games, and worse: Steam putting them on sale.

There isn't even a point in paying attention to the weekly deals Steam does, because they're always filled with mostly terrible games and one or two mediocre games. Hell, this week is probably the third time Jack Keane has been in a weekly sale in the last three months.

OT: Browsing Steam has been becoming more and more disheartening over the past few months. I see a "new" game pop up on the front page and think "Well that could be interesting" and then click on it to discover it's yet another Early Access game, or some ancient game you'd be better suited getting off of GOG, or it's just something horrible like Garry's Incident or Guise of the Wolf.

Ugh.

I don't see them trying to curate it any time soon, though. Dem dolla dolla bills, y'all.

 

[AvangionQ]

Nothing good lasts forever, but the turning point seems to be right about the time maximizing profits becomes a greater concern than anything else.

 

[Johnson McGee]

Just as Jim mentioned how Recoil was prone to crashes my computer BSOD'd. Coincidence?


Probably.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

And then there are AWESOME games that get no recognition and get buried under piles upon piles of crap.

...Yes, I'm still angry that GoD Factory didn't get kickstarted and will most likely have to throw their hat in the ring as an Early Access game.

 

[Lightknight]

Yeah, about that....

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

Ok? Does that somehow undo all the good they also do? Does some typical corporate shenanigans outweigh any possible good and dip them into the evil category magically?

Look, you've really got to read your links. The article you posted may make it look like two giant companies shaking hands but it wasn't like that in 2005. This was Apple bulldogging multiple companies, including Google. Steve Jobs literally told Google that if they recruit a single Apple employee then "that means war". They were afraid and weren't laughing hysterically while wages went unpaid. Despite that, in 2005 google's wages were some of the highest in the industry. It was just an agreement not to recruit from Apple. It doesn't even say that google somehow changed their wage practices, it only explained how their compensation system worked.

So I'm really not seeing any evil party here except LucasArts and Apple. I don't even see Google making demands of other companies, just getting a lot of demands from others. These companies are large but not large enough to control the tech industry's wages. I work in the tech industry but not any of those companies. My salary doesn't reflect theirs and google's is still quite high for the industry. So is the secret that google is trying to coerce other tech companies to pay their employees more money? Oooh, so evil. It's only one step away from making socks out of kitten fur.

Anyways, I believe we should get back on topic.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

First off- Game devs that not only hawk a defective product, but try to shut down legitimate criticism of said product, need to be punched in the testicles until infertility happens.

Second, I think it's nearly too late already. I don't touch Steam anymore, because I don't have the time to look into every possible game that looks interesting, but might be garbage. I know I argued otherwise before, but we've reached critical mass here.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

However, I don't think Steam should necesarrily have a big emphasis on quality control. It's a free market out there. If the game's shit you simply shouldn't buy it.

It's up to the consumer to see what's good and what isn't and then make choices accordingly. That's my view on this matter anyway.

So, when you do your groceries or other shopping, you don't expect the retailer to take any role in quality control at all?

So, the supermarket can just sell you food that has a high chance of poisoning you, and that's OK, because you should have known that? Or, an electronics retailer can just sell products with a known high rate of failure, and then you can't return it because you should have known better?

In the case of Steam, it's arguably even worse than that, as Steam allowed its sellers to make false claims about the said products. So, not just selling a terrible product, but allowing them to sell it while also claiming it isn't terrible.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Yeah, about that....

http://pando.com/2014/01/23/the-techtopus-how-silicon-valleys-most-celebrated-ceos-conspired-to-drive-down-100000-tech-engineers-wages/

Ok? Does that somehow undo all the good they also do? Does some typical corporate shenanigans outweigh any possible good and dip them into the evil category magically?

Look, you've really got to read your links. The article you posted may make it look like two giant companies shaking hands but it wasn't like that in 2005. This was Apple bulldogging multiple companies, including Google. Steve Jobs literally told Google that if they recruit a single Apple employee then "that means war". They were afraid and weren't laughing hysterically while wages went unpaid. Despite that, in 2005 google's wages were some of the highest in the industry. It was just an agreement not to recruit from Apple. It doesn't even say that google somehow changed their wage practices, it only explained how their compensation system worked.

So I'm really not seeing any evil party here except LucasArts and Apple. I don't even see Google making demands of other companies, just getting a lot of demands from others. These companies are large but not large enough to control the tech industry's wages. I work in the tech industry but not any of those companies. My salary doesn't reflect theirs and google's is still quite high for the industry. So is the secret that google is trying to coerce other tech companies to pay their employees more money? Oooh, so evil. It's only one step away from making socks out of kitten fur.

Anyways, I believe we should get back on topic.

Does it matter if a murderer does community service on the weekends? This is not "typical corporate shenanigans" this is criminal and screwed their employees out of perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars. I hear Bernie Madoff was a great father, by the way.

I'm not sure this is off topic, given many seem to be trying to cover for a company like Valve's failings with "But they do such great things elsewhere!" Look at how you even defend Google like they were the victim here! Unbelievable.

If you actually read the article you'd know that George Lucas' version of these policies weren't evil at all because he didn't get or force any agreements with others, he just put those policies in place at his own company because he felt it was a waste of time and money. That's not illegal or immoral. Companies like Apple and Google (and more) took it to the next level where it became evil.

 

[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.

A month? you do realize most modern games can be completed in a weekend, right?

You get what I mean, though. A return policy could probably help.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I'm not really seeing the issue here. It's isn't difficult to use reviews both on Steam and elsewhere to judge the quality of a game. For instance, Guise of the Wolf has almost all negative reviews on Steam. The claims that Steam resembles the video game market in the 1980s is ridiculous hyperbole. Steam still sells nearly all of the big mainstream PC games, and is the number one source of surprise indie games. This whole episode is a non-issue.

Also, presumably it would be monumentally time consuming for Steam to play through every game offered to their library.

Yeah I also wasn't a fan of Jim's ridiculous hyperbole today. Some impose a specific graphics requirement to buy any steam game (and if it doesn't look good they won't buy it) so that can avoid a lot of trouble, but then some of the most fun games on steam don't have particularly great graphics.

If you want to avoid the sludge, don't get cheap looking shooters. Pretty simple eh?

Make use of your steam friends and get their opinions on purchases, read their reviews, don't just buy recklessly and hope for the best. Especially don't buy the awful looking bland games of yesterday. If "Bland of the blandest: the Bullet Hopping Adventures" comes to steam, don't buy it.

I like steam in its present form, and I enjoy a range of greenlight titles, so the hyperbole seemed excessive.

 

[SnowWookie]

So when Steam only had a handful of games, people complained that Valve were restricting their choice. Now they have oodles of games and Jim is complaining that some of them are shit?

Sorry, but it's not steams job to curate my gaming choices. They are a shop, and if you don't like a game, don't buy it. If only there was some kind of system where other people could be paid to play games and then "review" them. Oh no, wait, that's JIMS FUCKING JOB.

Not only are Valve not responsible for reviewing games, it's not even desirable. I do not WANT Valve as the arbiter of taste. Plenty of people savaged Dmc on release... should Valve not have sold it? Even with god awful shit like Garrys Incident some twisted soul out there might enjoy it, and even if there wasn't a single person on the planet who liked it, well it wasn't too hard to find a review, was it?

 

[Kyrinn]

However, I don't think Steam should necesarrily have a big emphasis on quality control. It's a free market out there. If the game's shit you simply shouldn't buy it.

It's up to the consumer to see what's good and what isn't and then make choices accordingly. That's my view on this matter anyway.

So, when you do your groceries or other shopping, you don't expect the retailer to take any role in quality control at all?

So, the supermarket can just sell you food that has a high chance of poisoning you, and that's OK, because you should have known that? Or, an electronics retailer can just sell products with a known high rate of failure, and then you can't return it because you should have known better?

In the case of Steam, it's arguably even worse than that, as Steam allowed its sellers to make false claims about the said products. So, not just selling a terrible product, but allowing them to sell it while also claiming it isn't terrible.

That's not really the best example because a supermarket isn't analogous to a free market. What's happening on steam is more like having flea market or bazaar where a large amount of the goods sold are unfinished, rotten, or just generally bad quality. You can complain to the owner(s) of the market to get them to enforce some control over the quality of goods being sold. This might work, as they would want to do their best to maintain the reputation of the market.
However, you as a consumer are responsible for your buying habits. If you buy something without checking it out first you really have no one but yourself to blame if it turns out to be shit.

Steam is a bit different since they can pretty much put up as many games as they want to. They are not limited by space like a flea market would be. In an ideal world, the garbage put on Steam would be called out as such and no one would ever buy it. While the good games would be recognized and float to the top.
On the other hand, if the Steam store gets flooded with bad games people might stop using it because it's just full of junk. There is also the problem of making those good games and hidden gems extremely difficult to find. Developers who deserve attention might not get any because they are like a needle in a haystack.