Jimquisition: The King of Crap Steam Publishers

Jimothy Sterling

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The King of Crap Steam Publishers

Ever heard of Strategy First? You're almost certain to have heard of some of its shameful PC games ... it's had more than most!

Watch Video
 

Fappy

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Why no Zen Fish gameplay? Or was that published by someone equally terrible?
 

Jimothy Sterling

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Fappy said:
Why no Zen Fish gameplay? Or was that published by someone equally terrible?
Those are the Air Control guys. To date, IronGames (formerly Killjoy) have the two worst ever games on Steam. However, they don't have the sheer volume and saturation that StratFirst has.
 

RunicFox

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Good thing the shit sinks to the bottom on store pages...what I'd like to see is a better review system than binary that users can assign and a working tag system so that you filter anything out with the globally accepted tags "shit","Garbage","Waste","Refuse","Time Murderers","Scam",etc.
 

Fappy

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Jimothy Sterling said:
Fappy said:
Why no Zen Fish gameplay? Or was that published by someone equally terrible?
Those are the Air Control guys. To date, IronGames (formerly Killjoy) have the two worst ever games on Steam. However, they don't have the sheer volume and saturation that StratFirst has.
I find it shocking that Steam still hasn't addressed any of these damning complaints. Do you know if they've been feeling the pressure since you and some others have come out and criticized them for their shitty quality control?

I really hope they get the message eventually, but part of me worries they just don't give a shit.
 

KDR_11k

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Strategy First published Perimeter 2. That's how you know that game is shit.
 

dubious_wolf

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I feel like steam is trying to be an app store and less of a video game purveyor.
class it up steam, come on.
 

madigan

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Oh thank JIM!

I've seen StratFirst dumping their nasty leavings onto Steam for a while now and I was wondering when someone was going to come along and start calling them out on their shit. I first heard about them all the way back in 2002 when they picked up the online distribution deal for Jagged Alliance 2. They started off as sort of a poor-man's Steam where people could go to their website and buy games, download the installer package, and go from there, but then Steam dropped and their services were quickly forgotten. Since then it looks like they've been acting as a cheapo "distributor" for bargain bin trash games that were too bad/lazy to get Kickstarter/Early Access/etc working and too shitty for any other "publisher" to pick up. So StratFirst picks these games up for a dime, uses their grandfathered status to dump them onto Steam, and then pockets the couple of hundred bucks they make on each game, sending a cut back to the developer only after their game has sold a requisite number of copies. If their game doesn't sell enough copies to beat whatever was set in their contract, then StratFirst keeps all of the sales money. It wouldn't work if they only did it for a few games, but they release dozens of games each month, flooding the Steam marketplace with all sorts of crap that wouldn't pass muster for any other publisher.

Sigh... Thanks again for bringing this up, Jim!
 

JoJo

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From what I've heard Strategy First has a history of not paying developers either[footnote]http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762857[/footnote], or otherwise screwing around with them [footnote]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_First#Conflicts[/footnote], the onus is on Steam really to take action and keep some semblance of quality in their store. Until then, best to avoid this publisher altogether.
 

Something Amyss

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But the free market. People obviously want shit games, something something.

1nfinite_Cros5 said:
I have a better, alternate name for them: Quality Last.
Howabout quality never, because I don't think "last" is accurate.
 

KaZuYa

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Steam is a cash grab now they have the punching weight to bully publishers to fill their sales,they don't do anything now except fill their store with so much shit hoping people will buy and they get their cut.
 

Renegade-pizza

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1nfinite_Cros5 said:
I have a better, alternate name for them: Quality Last.
From what I've seen, we need to invent a new word that accurately depicts all the sins of hummanity concentrated into a horrendous slush that blurts out racial slurs. That'd be the proper name
 
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All the examples in video looks like "Babby's First Video Game", so it would appear that Strategy First's entire business strategy (heh) is acting as the biggest enabler for first time developers who just put together their very first game prototype in their spare time and, probably under the delusion that they can be the next Jonathan Blow, believes that it's good enough to be sold for actual currency.
 

Fappy

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PunkRex said:
Fappy said:
Why no Zen Fish gameplay? Or was that published by someone equally terrible?
What the funking waggles is Zen Fish, dare I ask?
This masterpiece:
It's... so... beautiful....
 

webkilla

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gods I remember the squirty plays of those games...

For the love of gods Gaben: Do something about this!
 

IamLEAM1983

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What's really sad is Strategy First used to be a fairly decent publisher, something Montreal natives like me could be proud of. Over the last thirteen years or so, I've seen them go from trying to push decent strategy or turn-based titles to grabbing literally ANYTHING and sticking it up for sale on Steam. I'll admit that they've turned into high-class shit peddlers, but I suspect they're doing what they do just to keep existing as a publisher.

At this point, they're really better off closing their doors.