Jimquisition: Steam Needs Quality Control

[sXeth]

Considering he is constantly defending Gamestop, it does seem a bit like he's just picking Steam to talk about like this because it's moderately beloved. Jim seems to love going against the popular opinion. Which normally isn't a bad thing, since the popular opinion is usually wrong, but in this case?.... eh.

In a decent 20 year span or so of buying stuff at Gamestop (or Electronics Boutique, as it is up here), I've encountered unplayable games exactly twice (Skyrim on PS3 before a gazillion patches, and Ultima 9). Ride to Hell or A:CM may be terribly visioned, obviously having cut content, and boring crap with terrible AI, but they don't crash out and die constantly and are still functionally playable, if you have any desire to do so. It really is the issue with the indie and PC gaming industry spitting out garbage, and STEAM needs to take the lead on this over GOG/Gamefly/Origin, because they're the industry leader, which entails some level of responsibility alongside taking baths in their giant pile of commission cash.

 

[Lykosia_v1legacy]

Ehhh... I go back and forth on this... Obviously the QC at the PS3 and Xbox 360 camp did so well with Aliens:CM.... BUUUT we seem to expect more from Steam because well it is PC(MAC/Linux). Right now the best thing we have to QC for steam is the player reviews.... But that means some poor SOB bought a turd of a product first, and that kind of sits raw with me.

Edit forgot to tell you thanks for telling me to avoid recoil I was looking that the other day!

Alien: CM is at least playable and a masterpiece compared to some shit that is on Steam right now and some of them were mentioned in the video. Currently situation is that you can't even be sure that the game works when you buy it from Steam. This is especially true with older games.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

*Sigh* Well, you got what you wanted, guys, a free market. Good thing I don't care because I don't need to buy any more games for my library, unless I see something I want in a $5 bundle.

Still, Steam should reconsider it's policy on refunds, since I have a feeling that a lot of devs know they can get away with selling a shitty product since noone can return it. Although, of course, how do you treat Early Access games? It's clear that a lot of people buy them and then act surprised when it turns out (shock and horror) that they've bought and unfinished product, so punishing the devs for the customer's stupidity is a bad idea. Still, if it's true that 'full products' turn out to be buggy, broken messes, then that'll take a lot of ease off the customer's shoulders.

 

[Baresark]

While I own a ridiculous number of games on Steam... he is completely right. Every single day there is a whole new page of releases, and a lot of it is very very bad. All these bad games are literally making an argument against indie developed games and a point for AAA developed games. I mean, they come out shitty, but nothing to the tune that some of these horribly developed indie games do. And don't get me started on Early Access. It's a great concept, but there should be some level of expected progress before a game can be sold... and don't get me started on the ones that are sold for more during early access.

 

[Something Amyss]

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.

I forgot to even look for Steam's weekly sales the last couple of weeks. So I checked. AI Wars or whatever it's called strikes me as somewhat interesting, so maybe I'll download the demo, but I don't hold much hope. Their weekly salkes have really become synonymous with crap for me.

I mean, on a rare occasion, I'll see something I wanted where the sale price drops it into acceptable territory, but usually it's crap. And on games where the forums aren't locked down, there are often a lot of warnings not to buy the game.

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

I don't see any imperative for them to do it, either. They're making money off those terrible games, they have a huge install base, and they have as loyal a following as Nintendo who seem to believe Valve is the good guy.

the reference to the 80's isn't lost on me and dear lord they released some shitty games back then en mass and we have reached that level of over saturated shittiness thanks to the explosion of Indy games and clones in the last few years.

That's where the similarities end, though.

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

That was a long way back, though.

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

Special pleading. It's different because...Ponies. There are a bunch of reasons offered up, but it's a special pleading fallacy.

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?

I think you missed a period where they were treated as the greatest thing since sliced bread and people would refuse to buy a game if it wasn't on the almighty STEEEEEEEEEAM.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Wait and watch and read the forums, just because its released dose not mean you have to buy it.....

 

[Nurb]

Game Developers Don't Wear Ties

 

[bug_of_war]

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

It's time consuming to rate every game, movie and television show, yet every country seems to be able to pull together groups of people in order to rate the video game. Steam is a company yeah, but they're also a service, and seeing as how they just recently boasted an increase in users with their service it should be their responsibility to allocate time to areas that need it. If you're gonna do something, do it right, don't just fuck around and hope it all works out. I'm willing to bet their want to remove Greenlight is due to the amount of shit that is coming from it.

snip

I couldn't have agreed more when you talked about Steam's handling with old games. They sell Vampire The Masquerade for $20 yet at no point on the Steam store page does it say that it is literally unplayable unless you download a mod. Even though it's game publishers and developers responsibility, how the fuck is it fair that Steam doesn't kick them in the ass?

 

[Hitchmeister]

I think the mistake is thinking that being available on Steam has ever been, or implied to have been, an indication of quality. We're talking about a retailer with unlimited warehouse and shelf space. There's no reason for them to not sell anything and everything anyone wants to offer. Yet for some reason they make indie developers without a publisher jump through the malfunctioning hoops of Greenlight, which, I guess, opens them up for criticism of this sort. People need to keep in mind, and Valve would probably do themselves a favor by posting a disclaimer to the effect, that simply being on Steam says absolutely nothing about the quality of the product and anything you see on the publisher/developer moderated Steam forums is censored and biased. You need to look to outside sources to determine if anything you see there is remotely worth your money.

 

[CBanana]

Hmmm... Thinking about it more, lots of people are picking on Greenlight but other than Day One: Garry's Incident and Guise of the Wolf, what Greenlight game is so bad that it can't even find non-ironic niche appeal?

If those two games are the problem, then there's a simple solution rather than going back a more closed system. Just say that Greenlight submissions require a working demo/prototype or released game (including if the game was released on a different platform). This way games for the most part, won't be approved simply due to concept.

As for early access games, those games don't show up on new releases although they do show up on top sellers list. I'd like the ability to hide early access and pre-order games from the top seller list much like you can hide DLC from the new releases section.

 

[JCAll]

Hey, who would have thought we'd look back fondly on Nintendo's totalitarian Seal of Approval days, huh?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

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.

Whether it's Valve's responsibility or the buyer's, Valve rejecting broken games would fix there being broken games on Steam. A lot of the time Steam is the main marketing point; without it, I doubt most of those games would even release at that level.

Broader problems like customers giving money for promises, not researching what they buy and buying unfinished products are certainly long term issues that need to be addressed on the customer end. However, Valve being stricter would definitely alleviate the symptoms.

 

[SonofSpermcube]

Question: at what point are you going to make the same demands of brick and mortar stores and other online stores like Gamefly?

Because everything you are accusing Steam of happens in every store, physical or digital. To say that Steam needs to filter when no one else does is disingenuous at best.

Point to the bit in the video where I said "and no one else does," please.

You don't need to mention it; having a publisher willing to produce and distribute physical copies of a game filters out more crap than having one willing to distribute digital copies (or in the case of Steam just attach their name to it). Having enough popularity or marketing to get out of the online-only long tail and into a significant number of physical locations filters out even more. The fact that many of the brick and mortar stores mainly sell used games kind of has the opposite effect of removing the best games, since people are less likely to sell those. And unless an indie game has built a following online first it's never going to make it into those stores. But otherwise the selection is biased toward keeping the worst crap out.

Anyone who thinks that the amount of shit they see in a game store is a sign that it's the worst place ever just isn't aware of how much stuff is around that's worse.

Now if you really want to do more on the subject of shovelware platforms, try Google Play. Holy shit.

 

[BrownGaijin]

Maybe this is just an Urban Myth (like leprechauns or Obama Care), but I remember watching a show called "Icons" where they explained that the reason why they are called "Valve" is to have control over the quality of what they are releasing. Looks like they need to squeeze the guy down a bit.

 

[Sarge034]

Wasn't the whole point of the "indi scene" that low budget games would be made available to the public? You have to take the piles of shit with the gems because no publisher means no outside QC.

The only fault I can find with Valve on this topic is allowing devs to disappear unflattering reviews on their page.

 

[Strazdas]

This is very much how Xbox live arcade worked. a enormous amount of totally dreadful games there. Valve is not first nor the worst offender here. Not to mention the mobile app stores. steam is the most controlling one after nintendo anyway.

What steam should do is have a SEPERATE sectino for greenlight and early acess items, so those that want to could browse it and those that dont wnat to - dont need to. app steam suggestions to me is early acess titles now and i dont want that, yet there is no option.

 

[Metalrocks]

im skeptical about games these days anyway. if its early access, i dont bother even looking at it. why the hell should i pay for something that is not even finished.
the same can be said now about EA and BF4. the latest patch dint do much good but well, at least they get prosecuted for the crap they have released. but still, QA should have said what is wrong.