Jimquisition: The King of Crap Steam Publishers

[Necris Omega]

How many of these are you going to make? Steam has some shit titles. Get over it already. Did you buy "War operations"? Because it seems like you did. Congratulations. You just supported the problem. Most of these games you've been bitching about, I never heard of till you brought them up. I guess that shows how much of an impact these games have. Don't like it? Don't buy it. Its that simple. If morons want to buy a game without seeing a demo or reading a review, then that's their problem. I so rarely get screwed by buying a shitty game, its a non problem. Do you whine when you buy a new food product and don't like it? No, you don't buy it again and move on.

So move on already. Without greenlight we wouldn't have the opportunity to find the gems amongst the crap.

typical steam apologists, if ea pulled the shit valve does everybody would scream bloody murder

"If EA Pulled the shit..."

I don't think anyone would notice. Pulling shit for EA is par for the course - they're like some sort of hybrid shit-taffy machine. I'd call them the Golden Goose of content for the likes of Mr. Sterling, but in their case it's more like a golden goose of such fertility that it's crashed the gold market itself.

 

[GeneralFungi]

There used to be a time where I could look at an online store and say "That looks neat!" and buy a game up front, relatively certain that while the game I bought might not be great, it would work. I can't do that anymore, much to the detriment of Steam and small indie developers who are actually trying. Nowadays if I'm buying off of Steam it's because I've heard dozens of people recommend it and/or my friends are already playing it. Browsing through Steam is becoming a chore and a waste of time.

I'm going to go check out GOG now.

 

[rgrekejin]

Looking through my steam account, it seems I have a game from these guys. Timelines: Assault on America, an alternate history RTS set in World War II. According to Wikipedia, it's a relatively recent game (2013 release). I'm a huge fan of alternate histories, so I got it in a sale a while ago. It's not very good (the AI is particularly lousy), but it's far from the worst game I've ever seen. To be honest, I was more disappointed in how lazy and unconvincing their alternate timeline was than anything gameplay related.

 

[Freyar]

I used to look at games Strategy First put out and thought "Oh, I might want to try that." After about four years I've put them aside in my mind as shovelware peddlers and unfortunately they KEEP doing it which makes it harder still to find games I'd actually like.

 

[Comrade_Beric]

This is super disappointing to see. I remember absolutely adoring their older games like Space Empires IV and V, but now their name is just another way to say "shit" in so many syllables.

 

[deathmothon]

So I'm seeing something called the Steam Discovery update when I just started Steam. It's apparently a way to customize what shows up on your storefront. I'm assuming this is new?

"Discover your next favorite game. The Steam Discovery Update makes it easier to find exactly what you want when shopping for a new game experience.

In the past nine months, over 1,300 new titles have been added to Steam. We know you can?t play them all, so we?ve updated Steam with new features and functionality to help you discover the best new releases, the classics, and the unique indie gems you might be interested in.

Below you will find more detailed information on all the new ways to explore what?s on Steam and the changes we?ve made. Give it a try, tweak your settings, and ? as always ? send us your feedback so we can continue to make the experience even better."

 

[Therumancer]

The only point that I'd make is that "hidden object" games are popular with women, and they represent a sort of prolific genera that is oftentimes overlooked. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that "Strategy First" is putting bad ones out there, but it does surprise me to see someone who makes a big deal about equality in gaming seems to be dismissing this entire genera (it's not my cup of tea either) automatically as crap. Of course that would also explain why Jim tends to think that women are not well represented in video games, as a lot of these titles are aimed at women, and tend to have female protagonists.

It's sort of like how it's easy to overlook the whole "Nancy Drew" series until you consider there are a truckload of these games, and it maintains a dedicated adventure/puzzle/hidden object game fan base which is why it managed to see so many chapters developed... People tend to buy this stuff from the truckload and even dying computer game sections in stores tend to still keep the jewel case sections stocked with games like these because they sell. Of course to guys a lot of these titles might as well be invisible, or we just skip over them as "garbage" not realizing that they are always there for a reason, and probably contribute to the whole "women now outnumber men as gamers" statistics, albeit through casual games like these.

That doesn't mean the ones SF put up aren't garbage, worthy of being dismissed by the genera's own standards, it just seemed to me that Jim more or less skipped past them. It might be interesting if he was to get a genera fan's opinion on SF's library of Hidden Object games. That might explain why they get away with shoveling the crap onto STEAM that they do, if these other titles are carrying them and giving STEAM enough of a cut to ignore the rest of the garbage even if none of them sell well enough individually to make "top seller" lists.

 

[Something Amyss]

Who are you to say what is and isnt worth it?

Someone who doesn't like to be deceived, for one.

 

[NoeL]

Reminds me of what happened with Atari back in the 80's. Valve needs to set up some kind of publisher restrictions like Nintendo did with the NES.

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Nobody cares, nobody gives a shit.

I more concerned about this Dynasty Warriors crossover trend that is borning right now.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Nobody cares, nobody gives a shit.

I care.

 

[Caostotale]

Reminds me of what happened with Atari back in the 80's. Valve needs to set up some kind of publisher restrictions like Nintendo did with the NES.

I hear about those a lot, but am curious as to how useful were those restrictions when they were around? It didn't stop companies like LJN from releasing barely-playable garbage based on every licensed property in sight. It didn't stop Konami from setting up the shell corporation Ultra Games so that they could publish twice as many games. Having seen things like Cheetah Men, I suppose the market could have been much sloppier, but I feel like the market was plenty sloppy during the last few generations (I feel like I've seen Bible games for the DS and ridiculous amounts of junk like 50-Games-In-ONE!, all being sold at Gamestop, Walmart, etc...) and nothing went awry for the first-party releases on the GBA, DS, etc...

 

[Redmoonwatcher]

I've heard of Strategy First, they published a game I liked called The I of the Dragon, it was an OK game, lots of promising ideas that just didn't fulfill their potential in the actual game... I say 'liked' because I can no long play the game because I have 'exceeded the install limit' because even a terrible publisher can use terrible policies like the big companies, right?

EDIT: I almost forgot! I actually talked to customer service about it because I was naive back then and thought I could talk a company into letting me play a game I payed for already and they claimed the game 'Does not contain any kind of serial code that prohibits gameplay' or something along those lines.

 

[Saulkar]

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.

I always associated their logo with Earth 2150-2160 (I cannot remember if they published the latter) and now, like you I am very sad. Such a source of nostalgia and decent quality, crippled by their own doing.

 

[girzwald]

How many of these are you going to make? Steam has some shit titles. Get over it already. Did you buy "War operations"? Because it seems like you did. Congratulations. You just supported the problem. Most of these games you've been bitching about, I never heard of till you brought them up. I guess that shows how much of an impact these games have. Don't like it? Don't buy it. Its that simple. If morons want to buy a game without seeing a demo or reading a review, then that's their problem. I so rarely get screwed by buying a shitty game, its a non problem. Do you whine when you buy a new food product and don't like it? No, you don't buy it again and move on.

So move on already. Without greenlight we wouldn't have the opportunity to find the gems amongst the crap.

typical steam apologists, if ea pulled the shit valve does everybody would scream bloody murder

Steam apologist? That's new. And pretty dumb. So what do you suggest? Valve introduce some sort of "quality control"? Aside from being completely unoriginal...its the exact opposite of what greenlight was supposed to be. A way for small developers to get their games distributed and not have to pass through the industry gate keepers or blow money on advertisement. If they do what you say and valve sets up some sort of "quality control". So valve has to hire people to test games. Which means indie developers, who are already strapped for cash, have to now pay valve (either through straight up paying them or a larger cut of sales) to test their game and use some sort of arbitrary criteria to say whether its "good enough".

Guess how much greenlight being full of shitty games bothers me. Zero. Same as how much I've spent on said shitty games on greenlight. If people, possibly like you, would stop throwing your money at unfinished and crappy games...developers would stop making them because it would just be a waste of time.

And what shit does valve pull that ea doesn't? Ya, cause EA has never sold a shitty, broken game before. And its not valve, you tool, its indie developers. Your ability at making analogies is as good as your insults.

 

[girzwald]

Reminds me of what happened with Atari back in the 80's. Valve needs to set up some kind of publisher restrictions like Nintendo did with the NES.

I hear about those a lot, but am curious as to how useful were those restrictions when they were around? It didn't stop companies like LJN from releasing barely-playable garbage based on every licensed property in sight. It didn't stop Konami from setting up the shell corporation Ultra Games so that they could publish twice as many games. Having seen things like Cheetah Men, I suppose the market could have been much sloppier, but I feel like the market was plenty sloppy during the last few generations (I feel like I've seen Bible games for the DS and ridiculous amounts of junk like 50-Games-In-ONE!, all being sold at Gamestop, Walmart, etc...) and nothing went awry for the first-party releases on the GBA, DS, etc...

QFT

"Quality Control" means nothing but "harder to make and publish games". Greenlight has crappy games. If anything is worthy of #FirstWorldProblems.........its this.

 

[Stryc9]

Every single one of the games shown in this video remind me of the kind of crappy mocked up games you see used in TV shows when they need a videoed game for something.

 

[small]

So basically, this week's episode is dedicated to "Steam's LJN".

Wow, that's actually a pretty good comparison. However, I have heard rumors from the deep that LJN did produce a lone good game. Can the same be said of StratFirst?

Disciples II: Dark Prophecy
Hearts of Iron
Europa Universalis
Earth 2150: Lost Souls
Etherlords II
Galactic Civilizations
FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction
Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood
Sudden Strike
Jagged Alliance series
O.R.B: Off-World Resource Base
Space Empires V

All incredible games, especially Disciples 2.

Sadly they seem to have fallen far since.

Europa and heart of iron are published by paradox interactive.

one of their recently published games on steam is graviteam tactics: operation star one of the most realistic rts games full stop and covers everything from the eastern front through to the 70's with dlc. do not pick it up thinking its a star craft or company of heroes. its engine is a tank simulator and it keeps all the details from that like armour penetration.
you also have the following id recommend as good:
688i
sub command
dangerous waters
fleet command
iron warriors
ironclads series
steel fury - awesome ww2 tank sim (even if the manual is in badly translated russian)
Jutland - the best ww1 naval sim

but yes they do release some crap recently, but they do still have some gems in there worth picking up

 

[josemlopes]

Who are you to say what is and isnt worth it?

Someone who doesn't like to be deceived, for one.

Dude, there is a thing called the internet, use it. How hard is it to make some basic research about a game before buying? This doesnt even apply just to games but basicly everything like cars, TVs, consoles, movies, eletronics, etc...

 

[Demonchaser27]

Reminds me of what happened with Atari back in the 80's. Valve needs to set up some kind of publisher restrictions like Nintendo did with the NES.

I hear about those a lot, but am curious as to how useful were those restrictions when they were around? It didn't stop companies like LJN from releasing barely-playable garbage based on every licensed property in sight. It didn't stop Konami from setting up the shell corporation Ultra Games so that they could publish twice as many games. Having seen things like Cheetah Men, I suppose the market could have been much sloppier, but I feel like the market was plenty sloppy during the last few generations (I feel like I've seen Bible games for the DS and ridiculous amounts of junk like 50-Games-In-ONE!, all being sold at Gamestop, Walmart, etc...) and nothing went awry for the first-party releases on the GBA, DS, etc...

Usually the point isn't to stop it entirely. That's practically impossible without EXTREME measures taken to prosecute every single shit head, which would seem barbaric. The point is to reduce the amount of garbage that a particular outlet is getting/putting out so that the storefront isn't looked upon as garbage 90% of the time. Did NES and SNES have garbage titles? Absolutely. Did it have as many (percentage-wise) as the Atari/Commodore/etc. consoles of the 80's? Not even close.