Jimquisition: Steam Needs Quality Control
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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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.
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.
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.Zachary Amaranth said:
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.
Just as Jim mentioned how Recoil was prone to crashes my computer BSOD'd. Coincidence?
Probably.
Probably.
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.
...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.
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?Thanatos2k said:
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.
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.
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.
So, when you do your groceries or other shopping, you don't expect the retailer to take any role in quality control at all?lukesparow said:
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.
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.Lightknight said:
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.
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.Dormin111 said:
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.
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?
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?
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.Aardvaarkman said:
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.
I genuinely do not see what Valve can do to fix this. Should they hire their own internal QA department to individually test these games? If not, should they start filtering games based on some kind of merit system with players?
Because all I see is the double edged sword of an open platform. There have ALWAYS been shitty games on the PC being sold as gold, you don't even have to look far back to find them even before the Steam platform existed. There have always been GAMES being sold as gold, that's where our term 'shovelware' comes from.
We also get into the benefits of an open platform that would be severely damaged if we try to apply a filter to games based on arbitrary boundaries. How can one distinguish in this market between a game such as Garry's Incident and Garry's Mod? Garry's Mod is one of the best selling games on steam, but even I, someone who loves the game with all his heart, will admit that the game is extremely flawed and for a niche audience. During the Gmod 10 days (when the game first started being sold), a crash every hour was to be expected, you could not save your work to a universal system that allowed you to save your contraptions, and typically online multiplayer was a crap-shoot at best. The difference is that Garry's Mod became better eventually, rising on its unique gameplay to the top of the store page, while Garry's Incident will likely never get a patch to make it less than a digital abomination.
If we apply even the smallest barriers of entry to games, we suddenly lose the same indie games that Steam is currently thriving on. How can you pitch a sale of a game like "The Stanley Parable" to a supposed gatekeeper of steam? The two-paragraph elevator pitch on the store page doesn't even begin to do the game justice, nor does it actually describe what kind of enjoyment a player would find in the game. At best it can be described as a walking simulator with the humor of Portal thrown in. Something that dozens of other games already strive for and typically fail at. Stanley Parable would never find a home on a console, or a market, or any place where it had to justify itself to people who don't actually understand games or the enjoyment that comes from playing them. Neither would a lot of games we take for granted as being part of steams backbone.
If you want the indie scene and the small business market to continue to exist on steam, we can't just start drawing lines in the sand to get the games we consider 'bad', finding out if a game is bad before people buy it requires too much inspection from the standpoint of Valve the distributor, so I'm going to need further justification as to why Valve should suddenly change policy because crapware is slipping through the cracks of the rather loose guidelines for release. Unless you admit that Valve should be testing every game that gets onto its platform, then there's really nothing anyone can do. If it comes down to Valve having to perform rigorous QA on each game before release, then expect the storepage to become very, very empty.
EDIT: Also I find it to be very alarmist of you, Jim, to say that quality is 'disappearing entirely' while there are still new good games coming out at a reasonable pace on Steam. While there are still games on Steam that are genuinely worth buying on the front page. While there are still new hits being released on Steam that are not trying to fleece customers, then the skies are in fact not falling.
Because all I see is the double edged sword of an open platform. There have ALWAYS been shitty games on the PC being sold as gold, you don't even have to look far back to find them even before the Steam platform existed. There have always been GAMES being sold as gold, that's where our term 'shovelware' comes from.
We also get into the benefits of an open platform that would be severely damaged if we try to apply a filter to games based on arbitrary boundaries. How can one distinguish in this market between a game such as Garry's Incident and Garry's Mod? Garry's Mod is one of the best selling games on steam, but even I, someone who loves the game with all his heart, will admit that the game is extremely flawed and for a niche audience. During the Gmod 10 days (when the game first started being sold), a crash every hour was to be expected, you could not save your work to a universal system that allowed you to save your contraptions, and typically online multiplayer was a crap-shoot at best. The difference is that Garry's Mod became better eventually, rising on its unique gameplay to the top of the store page, while Garry's Incident will likely never get a patch to make it less than a digital abomination.
If we apply even the smallest barriers of entry to games, we suddenly lose the same indie games that Steam is currently thriving on. How can you pitch a sale of a game like "The Stanley Parable" to a supposed gatekeeper of steam? The two-paragraph elevator pitch on the store page doesn't even begin to do the game justice, nor does it actually describe what kind of enjoyment a player would find in the game. At best it can be described as a walking simulator with the humor of Portal thrown in. Something that dozens of other games already strive for and typically fail at. Stanley Parable would never find a home on a console, or a market, or any place where it had to justify itself to people who don't actually understand games or the enjoyment that comes from playing them. Neither would a lot of games we take for granted as being part of steams backbone.
If you want the indie scene and the small business market to continue to exist on steam, we can't just start drawing lines in the sand to get the games we consider 'bad', finding out if a game is bad before people buy it requires too much inspection from the standpoint of Valve the distributor, so I'm going to need further justification as to why Valve should suddenly change policy because crapware is slipping through the cracks of the rather loose guidelines for release. Unless you admit that Valve should be testing every game that gets onto its platform, then there's really nothing anyone can do. If it comes down to Valve having to perform rigorous QA on each game before release, then expect the storepage to become very, very empty.
EDIT: Also I find it to be very alarmist of you, Jim, to say that quality is 'disappearing entirely' while there are still new good games coming out at a reasonable pace on Steam. While there are still games on Steam that are genuinely worth buying on the front page. While there are still new hits being released on Steam that are not trying to fleece customers, then the skies are in fact not falling.
Add to that, Steam has metacritic scores posted with its games. It is online. I can go to gamerankings or gamefaqs or watch a video review and trailer at youtube.Dormin111 said:
But if I go to gamestop, it is not as easy to check to see if a game I'm thinking of buying is any good. (Though, 4g cell phones help fix that.)
Wasnt steam greenlight made to decide what games to get onto steam... not.. concepts of games? As in.. you needed a finished product thats reviewable before you can even apply?
Would make alot more sense... right now its some weird form of system that allows you to pitch an awesome sounding idea wich people will vote for.. and then deliver some cobbled together piece of trash on early access with the promise of it getting better and laugh all the way to the bank.
So in short Steam greenlight has mutated from a good idea to an easaly exploted scam machine...
Oh and if steam continues this they will pay the same price nintendo currently does for shamelessly whoring out their system to shovel ware upon shovel ware.
Would make alot more sense... right now its some weird form of system that allows you to pitch an awesome sounding idea wich people will vote for.. and then deliver some cobbled together piece of trash on early access with the promise of it getting better and laugh all the way to the bank.
So in short Steam greenlight has mutated from a good idea to an easaly exploted scam machine...
Oh and if steam continues this they will pay the same price nintendo currently does for shamelessly whoring out their system to shovel ware upon shovel ware.
Right, allegations of unfair labor agreements equals murder. Glad we had an intellectual discussion on the matter.Thanatos2k said:
Apple literally bullied them into this. The same link you sent has direct quotes of Steve Jobs himself threatening war against them if they so much as looked at Apple employees with desire. The bigger question is how you aren't seeing their actions as coerced? This is 2005 when this happened.
Huh? Evil is murderer. Evil is not an ambiguous labor agreement that didn't even result in lower wages for employees at Google. Sorry, but this "google is evil" bit is just shenanigans and pulling at straws. Maybe if you find something that actually results in public harm then we can begin to say that they did something that was wrong. But that's a far stretch from getting to the they're evil master criminals bent on world corruption and puppy murder. Huge leap there. Few companies succeed in doing nothing illegal just like few people do. There's so many laws.
Sure, why not? Shouldn't be that hard to set up since they already have it in place.Loki_The_Good said:
Welcome to PC Gaming. The only quality control here, is the word of mouth and reviews. Trust em as you would trust the weather report. This is how it has always been, It's the fundamental tradeoff of an open platform. Either learn to live with it or go back to consoles, I really dont care wich.