Rust Dev Thinks Limiting Steam Releases is "Insane"

[SamTheNewb]

Well. lets see, the Steam front page consists of a Major, curated slider of games, sales, A minor curated list of games by platform, a selection of games with 'updates', and finally, a list of top sellers. I'm fine with that. If you click any tabs that degrade your front page experience, then well, you probably shouldn't click that tab. At least Valve booted the New Releases tab from being default. That is certainly a major improvement.

 

[Rawbeard]

I like quality.

 

[xGrimReaperzZ]

Love Gmod, but of course garry would prefer it if Valve doesn't do quality control, because games like Rust wouldn't have been released if quality control existed in Steam and i have to say that no, a large number of games is not a good thing at all, since it'd make it impossible to find the good indie games that don't have marketing budgets. (You know, unlike Newman's games as it seems)

Need good examples? the appstore and the playstore Xbox live indie store are full of utter crap that it's hard to find the better games made by serious developers, we don't want Valve to limit the number of games they release, we want them to see if you can go past the main menu without crashing and see if the games work.

The fact that i had to install an app that filters the steam-page to be able to see actual new releases proves how awful the situation is, when you enter a gamestop, you don't see Mario Bros in the newly released shelves, again, all retailers curate and quality check their products and if we're to go fully digital, we should do the same if not better, since you know, it's actually much easier.

 

[Therumancer]

for starters they need to stop releasing "Early Access" games and only put up finished works.

If the game is clearly marked as early access then customers should know what they're getting into. There is no problem there.

While it might involve some subjectivity, a big part of the problem is a lot of the stuff is *obvious* in being rapidly produced shovelware

If a game being rapidly produced shovelware is "obvious" then customers have nothing to worry about if they use their brains and do a modest amount of homework before spending their money.

Among other things I personally feel they should also disallow anything produced with say RPG maker

To the moon was made with RPG Maker and it was great. Why don't we also disallow games made using the source engine? Or Unity and freely available art assets? This is just silly.

What Steam needs is exactly what they've said their heading towards: community curation of the markeplace. Valve will never be able to police the large number of Steam games as well as the community can. And saying they shouldn't limit releases but should exercise more quality control is a suggestion that doesn't even make sense. If you want them to go through and approve every single submission and make sure they meet some quality control standards then you will be limiting releases. And if they did suddenly demand people meet those standards, all it would take is for another company to go for digital distribution with no standards and customers will jump ship to the platform with more releases and developers will support the one that doesn't make them spend time and money they may not have jumping through hoops.

Community policing of the market place is the only solution that makes sense and has a chance of working, and it's remarkable to me that no one seems to realize this. Except Valve apparently.

I think there is a problem inherent in the very idea of someone asking money for an incomplete product that might be finished at a later date, whether they label it or not.

Furthermore, part of the problem with the garbage flooding STEAM is that you need to sift through it, even when it's obvious the bottom line is that you need to look at it to find out what it is, and can potentially look at dozens of pieces of shovelware before you find a decent game. Lack of quality control has lead to a lot of clutter choking STEAM.

Also, I'll be blunt in saying that I'm not a big fan of people selling home-brew creations using things like SOURCE either, for similar reasons to why I have issues with RPG Maker. That said, I can see why STEAM supports their own engine this way. To me selling things made with RPG maker or Source for the most part is similar to someone selling things they made with say the toolbox in Elder Scrolls.

That's just my opinion though, your more than welcome to disagree. Personally I am hoping STEAM does a lot of pruning and develops a better vetting and quality control process for what they allow in their marketplace.

 

[Something Amyss]

I think steam's doing a perfectly good job, just so long as they remove and refund blatant false advertising.

But...They don't. Except in high profile cases. Their standard policy is no refunds, even for games that don't work or don't live up to their advertisement. People had to pitch a fit to get refunds on games like DayZ.

 

[iniudan]

Right...because indie developers often have a large marketing budget to "help their works stand apart from the crowd". In fact, the very definition of a "good developer" to me is someone who doesn't use their money for marketing, but instead uses it to better their game. So if anything, the shitty developers would have more marketing dollars to cloud the picture (since they obviously aren't putting as much effort into their games), while the good developers would continue to get lost in the shuffle.

Marketing doesn't mean you have to spend a whole lot, you can give away copy of your game to reviewer, LPer and streamer, maybe even give them a few extra copy as prize for their viewer/reader. You could also organize co-commentary or interview with them.

 

[Cecilo]

Yeah but you ever notice that in most cereals the size of the flakes or what not on the box is someone 'enhanced' not to mention the ration of marshmallow bits and the size of the marshmallow bits. They use misleading tricks all the time. Now to be fair steam will step in where the publisher has blatantly misrepresented their product and they will refund the purchase. If a game shows itself as an FPS in the material but then turns out to be aside scroller that's misleading. That's misrepresentation and that will get youa refund. If the game is patently unplayable when *they* test it on their systems well then. They will give you a refund.

The thing about bugs is that while many consumers maybe affected by glitch (A) there are more than a few who never encounter it so it then boils down to whatever hardware or software on your system which the devs have no control over. SO in short; steam does provide consumer protection as much as it can but remember they are limited in a sense to what is presented to them for all we know the copy that was presented to steam for evaluation and the copy made available for download could be entirely different.

Besides most of the complaints about bad games come from the Early Access set which I really don't understand. Every early access game has a big ass disclaimer top of the page just under the name of the game in a big blue box that says, it's Early Access.
Steam does what they can to fight for the consumer but the consumer has to take the first step and report these things, also be aware enough to recognize when a game is falsely advertised. COnsumer also needs to remember that there isno 'instant money back'. The mediation is not there to fix 'buyer's remorse'.

I agree that the consumer needs to be vocal and conscious about their decisions too.

But I feel like Steam still has a serious ways to go before I'd lean on them to support my rights. Putting plainly that there are no refunds until they decide to offer them for nonfunctional releases is a serious problem imo. In my experience they also try to weasel out of refunds or compensation as much as they can until the public outrage gets too big.

Take the game I mentioned earlier, Sword of the Stars 2. A turn-based 4x game without too much publicity going for it, but it had some good previews out beforehand, together with several promises made by the devs.
When the game launched, the main menu wouldn't even display properly for most people. Aka: the game was literally unplayable for many. After a hotfix for that, the game would invariably crash after turn 30. It took several months before the game became playable.

Personally I did not ask for a refund, as I knew the developers were the kind who would fix their mess. To their credit, they also did so and offered some free bonus content afterward.
However, I fully respected those who asked for a refund. Yet Steam refused to give in to their demands. I'm unsure if they did so later anyway, but in those few first days only the guys who really fought for it got their refunds.

In general, having to rely on the whims of the retailer to respond to outrage or not is not a good situation for consumers. They need a policy that is balanced more towards the users in my opinion. Then the bad releases will also be less likely to pass for long anyhow, or Steam will start screening themselves because they'll actually suffer from letting too many of them go.

It'll be positive for Steam to take good care of their customers, even those who suffer from bugs that no one else suffers from.

To be fair. Since Kerberos has gone it's own way, they were regularly patching the game, and still were willing to patch the game until Paradox told them no more patches for whatever reason, even if Kerberos made them on their own time and with their own money. And no Steam never did give a refund. However Kerberos or Paradox, had a system where if you asked them for a refund, they would do it, had to put in a ticket on the forums I think.

The game now by the way, is much more playable, works with multiplayer, AI is much improved, slow-down is...down.

 

[Hateren47]

The pizza is fine I just don't want it any more. Who reimburses me on the others behalf? Just-Eat or Mohammed "Pepe" Marzouk? from Pepe's Pizza? I'm sure the EU has a rule for this and it is ill thought out.

No, I don't think they've got a rule that reimburses you the other half. Despite the "ridiculous at first sight" nature of many EU rules, there are usually serious reasons behind them.

I paid them both. Pepe got 90% and Just-Eat took 10% for advertising, gathering customers, hosting the service, etc.. So I'm guessing if I want my money back, I can call up Just-Eat and they will have to reimburse me.If they were selling video games made by Pepe, that is... I payed in cash because Pepe's Pizza is just down the road and he could swing by with his USB anyway. So now Just-Eat will have to have Pepe reimburse them so they can reimburse me. It's still ridiculous upon closer inspection.

Unless it's a pizza... But definitely if it's software. I'm quite sure the EU or any high-level politician anywhere, for that matter, can't define software without putting down a committee and spending half a million euros. Not sure why I shouldn't question the law in this case. But that's an entirely different matter.

Any who, I'm heading out so this is the last reply from me in a few hours. Don't want to leave you hanging

You can question the law. But please note that the intention of the law was to bring many of these digital services and goods in line with the existing laws on face-to-face deliveries and goods (for many of which you also have the right to cancel the contract after delivery, something which existed in national law even before the EU).

Yes and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When it's so obvious that potatoes sold by the truckload at the farm have different rules than potatoes that have been cut into sticks and frozen and sold in bags weighing a pound in the supermarket. That again have different rules from the same frozen potatoes sold fried in a carton sleeve out of a window. I don't see why Portal 2 (still potato) that in the actual real world, that we all live in, doesn't even physically exist, can't have rules that are actually well thought out instead solely focusing on consumer rights. And yes there are TV shows dedicated to stupid laws from around the world. Still doesn't make selling software as you sell hardware a good idea.

Digital was in a big empty vacuum before. With the digital retailers being able to hide behind laws (or the lack thereof) in other countries outside the EU. Or simply count on the fact that almost no customers were going to undertake further steps to defend their own rights, because it would cost them more money anyhow.

You can either trust these big firms to self-regulate and hope they defend your rights because it would be bad for them to lose you (which becomes less and less likely as they grow bigger), or you can have legislation which protects you from some bad practices.

I actually prefer the digital Wild West, where the market has to regulate it self. Specially a market like digital games where there are no ones lives at stake and a lot of the content is user generated and the worst that can happen is that a fool and an insignificant amount of his money will travel in opposite directions.

Making those laws does cost money (1% of the member states BNP yearly, not including a few tax incomes and other contributions), but in this case you're also getting something back. In fact, as an individual you can even file direct complaints to the European Commission.

I'm not sure how much 1% of the BNP of the EU member states are in real money. Probably quite a bit. But if one of the things worth mentioning about it is that I have the right to complain about it, I'd rather be with out it.

 

[Rariow]

Ideally, this would be the optimal solution. Let everything through, and the market'll sort everything out. But that's been proven to not work. Hard. It's been mentioned before in this thread, but remember the industry crash in the 80's? The one that didn't permanently kill the industry through a pure miracle? It's precisely this attitude that caused that.

Even if this works, the way Steam is right now is incompatible with this idea. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a game legendary for hitting store shelves in a very obviously incomplete state. In the age of retail, the one game that made it through quality control in that state has become an inside joke for the gaming community. In the age of Steam's open door policy, there's games coming out on the service that are even less finished than Big Rigs. For crying out loud, the developer of Towns publicly announced that he wasn't going to bother finishing the game he was selling for money to people, and already had selling been for upwards of a year, and Valve didn't give the slightest shit about it.

Besides, you have to realize, sure, game stores stock stuff like Barbie Horse Adventures. But you think if I walk into my local game store I'm going to see that on the big shelves right in front of the exit? No, it's going to be at the back, between Garbage Truck Simulator and Prison Tycoon under a sign that says "two for the price of one". These stores DO ensure the best, biggest games are easier to find. If I open Steam right now, I'll find a snooker game, Amputea, a joke game from a couple years ago claiming to have been released yesterday, and a bunch of other assorted crap listed under the "new release" section. Hey, remember that big, quality AAA title that came out a few days ago? Watch_Dogs? That's not even on there anymore. I can bet if I walked into a game store I wouldn't be able to get away from being reminded of its existence.

And, finally, I recently got done playing Revengeance. I'm unlikely to ever want to play that again, as fun as it was, so I traded it back in at my local store, and was able to buy a different game for cheaper. I can't do it with Steam. Similarly, when I first bought Arkham City on Steam, I was unable to play it. In a normal store, no problem, I'd get a refund, if they didn't let me I'd trade it in, and no one would have lost that much. On Steam, I was stuck with the thing until I got a new PC a couple years later. This was alright before, because anything I could buy from Steam was guaranteed to be a worthwhile purchase to someone. Maybe not me in particular, and I wouldn't enjoy the game, but games on Steam pretty much always would provide a huge amount of enjoyment to some demographic. Now that that's no longer the case, Steam has to behave like a normal store. The way it is now, the only real benefit are the deep-discount sales and the ability to be a lazy fuck and get games without leaving home. That's just not good enough when I'm being sold Air Control and Guise of the Wolf. You can have either crappy customer service or crappy products. Once you have both, you're no longer worthwhile.

 

[Karadalis]

He is not entitled to anything from me, right? I don't know if you're an expert on EU law, but if I (an EU citizen in an EU member state) order a pizza on just-eat.dk (restaurants sign up and sell food of already questionable quality there and Just-Eat takes a 10% cut), and I am not satisfied with my meal and want a 100% refund, I'm entitled to it? And who should reimburse me. The pizzeria or Just-Eat? The pizza is right here, untouched and in the original packaging.

Okay first... where do you get the idea he wants anything from you? He wants a money back guarantee from steam and not from you. So why do you keep talking about him wanting anything from you?

Also your example is lacking in crucial information that makes it rather useless.

But to give you an idea how things are actually handled in germany atleast:

Is the pizza simply not to your taste or they used a spice you dont like? Tough luck.. youre not getting your money back. (Wich would be buying a game and you say you dont like its gameplay... yeah thats indeed not steams problem... should have looked the game up before)

However: Is the pizza not the one you ordered? Is the pizza made with rotten ingredients? Are there bugs crawling over it? Is there mold on the toppings? Have you gotten a case of food poisening after consuming said pizza? Then you bet youre entitled to getting your money back. (and damages in the last case)

And it should exactly be the same with software bought on/offline. Software doesnt run? Doesnt have the advertised features? False advertisement? Causes your PC to crash?

All these are legitimate reasons for getting your money back in any other industry in the world.. yet for some reason you say that software should not adhere to the same laws and standards as every other industry in the world... because... you say so...

As for who has to reimburse you:

Allways the people who took your money. It is not and should not be the customers problem how the website and the delivery service or steam and the devs deal with each other. Internet service/Steam takes your money, they are the ones that have to give it back after they sold you a faulty buggy product that doesnt work or was falsely advertisedon their service.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Ideally, this would be the optimal solution. Let everything through, and the market'll sort everything out. But that's been proven to not work. Hard. It's been mentioned before in this thread, but remember the industry crash in the 80's? The one that didn't permanently kill the industry through a pure miracle? It's precisely this attitude that caused that.

Even if this works, the way Steam is right now is incompatible with this idea. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a game legendary for hitting store shelves in a very obviously incomplete state. In the age of retail, the one game that made it through quality control in that state has become an inside joke for the gaming community. In the age of Steam's open door policy, there's games coming out on the service that are even less finished than Big Rigs. For crying out loud, the developer of Towns publicly announced that he wasn't going to bother finishing the game he was selling for money to people, and already had selling been for upwards of a year, and Valve didn't give the slightest shit about it.

Besides, you have to realize, sure, game stores stock stuff like Barbie Horse Adventures. But you think if I walk into my local game store I'm going to see that on the big shelves right in front of the exit? No, it's going to be at the back, between Garbage Truck Simulator and Prison Tycoon under a sign that says "two for the price of one". These stores DO ensure the best, biggest games are easier to find. If I open Steam right now, I'll find a snooker game, Amputea, a joke game from a couple years ago claiming to have been released yesterday, and a bunch of other assorted crap listed under the "new release" section. Hey, remember that big, quality AAA title that came out a few days ago? Watch_Dogs? That's not even on there anymore. I can bet if I walked into a game store I wouldn't be able to get away from being reminded of its existence.

And, finally, I recently got done playing Revengeance. I'm unlikely to ever want to play that again, as fun as it was, so I traded it back in at my local store, and was able to buy a different game for cheaper. I can't do it with Steam. Similarly, when I first bought Arkham City on Steam, I was unable to play it. In a normal store, no problem, I'd get a refund, if they didn't let me I'd trade it in, and no one would have lost that much. On Steam, I was stuck with the thing until I got a new PC a couple years later. This was alright before, because anything I could buy from Steam was guaranteed to be a worthwhile purchase to someone. Maybe not me in particular, and I wouldn't enjoy the game, but games on Steam pretty much always would provide a huge amount of enjoyment to some demographic. Now that that's no longer the case, Steam has to behave like a normal store. The way it is now, the only real benefit are the deep-discount sales and the ability to be a lazy fuck and get games without leaving home. That's just not good enough when I'm being sold Air Control and Guise of the Wolf. You can have either crappy customer service or crappy products. Once you have both, you're no longer worthwhile.

people should stop comparing steam to the 80s crash, the situation was completely different, for instance the customers didnt have a way to know if a product was good or not, in the age we live in, that isnt the case, theres youtube, metacritic, forums and even steam has now included user reviews

steams sells more games than any store could ever hope to do, they have more games, therefore they hame more gems and of course, more garbage

 

[evilnancyreagan]

Wait, Gary Newman is the maker of Rust and Gary's Mod?

:O

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Sir, it's not a matter of "We need to limit the number of games getting put on steam". It's a matter of "We need to stop the shit-games from getting put on steam."

 

[Rariow]

steams sells more games than any store could ever hope to do, they have more games, therefore they hame more gems and of course, more garbage

But they don't HAVE to have more garbage. For a long time, they outsold every brick-and-mortar store, and they didn't have unfinished crap like Air Control going up on the storefront daily. It was this reliability, where every Steam game had at least some level of competence in it that put them above brick-and-mortar stores, and what gave them their market dominance in the first place. They're basically just throwing away one of the main factors that put them above everyone else. The only thing they really have left is their deep discounts. The games available on other digital distribution platforms don't include the shovelware that Steam now does.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

steams sells more games than any store could ever hope to do, they have more games, therefore they hame more gems and of course, more garbage

But they don't HAVE to have more garbage. For a long time, they outsold every brick-and-mortar store, and they didn't have unfinished crap like Air Control going up on the storefront daily. It was this reliability, where every Steam game had at least some level of competence in it that put them above brick-and-mortar stores, and what gave them their market dominance in the first place. They're basically just throwing away one of the main factors that put them above everyone else. The only thing they really have left is their deep discounts. The games available on other digital distribution platforms don't include the shovelware that Steam now does.

back then they didnt have the volume of games added to their store they have today, 2014 has already seen more steam releases than 2013, and in 2013 PC saw the biggest amount of quality releases, according to metacritic, most of these games were avaliable on steam

http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best-video-games-of-2013

plus great games have come from steam opening its doors, games such as rogue legacy, papers please and the stanley parable were accepted to the store via greenlight

and for that matter, how come people only talk about the obscure bad games? ive seen earth 2066 and air control get mentioned more often than FLY'N, teslagrad, and valdis story

 

[Hateren47]

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is a game legendary for hitting store shelves in a very obviously incomplete state. In the age of retail, the one game that made it through quality control in that state has become an inside joke for the gaming community. In the age of Steam's open door policy, there's games coming out on the service that are even less finished than Big Rigs. For crying out loud, the developer of Towns publicly announced that he wasn't going to bother finishing the game he was selling for money to people, and already had selling been for upwards of a year, and Valve didn't give the slightest shit about it.

How can you compare Towns to Big Rigs? I've spend 78 hours on Towns and no one would be able to do that on Big Rigs. Probably not even just to spite me. I think Towns was a great take on city building, your town being a town in a video game, having to attract and support heroes to clear out the dungeon below the town. Was it a good game? No it was broken. Completely. Was it finished? Yeah probably. I doubt it was worth working any more on considering the problems the (inexperienced) developers had, at least. Is it a shame? Very much so. I'd buy Towns 2 on early access for 20 euros if I could, though. And I would trust them to make it better too.

Besides, you have to realize, sure, game stores stock stuff like Barbie Horse Adventures. But you think if I walk into my local game store I'm going to see that on the big shelves right in front of the exit? No, it's going to be at the back, between Garbage Truck Simulator and Prison Tycoon under a sign that says "two for the price of one". These stores DO ensure the best, biggest games are easier to find. If I open Steam right now, I'll find a snooker game, Amputea, a joke game from a couple years ago claiming to have been released yesterday, and a bunch of other assorted crap listed under the "new release" section. Hey, remember that big, quality AAA title that came out a few days ago? Watch_Dogs? That's not even on there anymore. I can bet if I walked into a game store I wouldn't be able to get away from being reminded of its existence.

So if you like games about horsies (be it ironic or creepy), is german or like base building games like prison simulator you and your taste is second rate and should be banished from stores or at least culled and sent to the bin behind the huge card board cutout from the next big game with guns and lens flares.

And, finally, I recently got done playing Revengeance. I'm unlikely to ever want to play that again, as fun as it was, so I traded it back in at my local store, and was able to buy a different game for cheaper. I can't do it with Steam. Similarly, when I first bought Arkham City on Steam, I was unable to play it. In a normal store, no problem, I'd get a refund, if they didn't let me I'd trade it in, and no one would have lost that much. On Steam, I was stuck with the thing until I got a new PC a couple years later. This was alright before, because anything I could buy from Steam was guaranteed to be a worthwhile purchase to someone. Maybe not me in particular, and I wouldn't enjoy the game, but games on Steam pretty much always would provide a huge amount of enjoyment to some demographic. Now that that's no longer the case, Steam has to behave like a normal store. The way it is now, the only real benefit are the deep-discount sales and the ability to be a lazy fuck and get games without leaving home. That's just not good enough when I'm being sold Air Control and Guise of the Wolf. You can have either crappy customer service or crappy products. Once you have both, you're no longer worthwhile.

Now that you keep talking about Air Control and I have looked it up I'm more interested in that game than I am in Watch Dogs. I doubt I could get 6 hours out of either game but Air Control would be a lot better on the "1 hour of entertainment per euro"-scoring system I like to use.

He is not entitled to anything from me, right? I don't know if you're an expert on EU law, but if I (an EU citizen in an EU member state) order a pizza on just-eat.dk (restaurants sign up and sell food of already questionable quality there and Just-Eat takes a 10% cut), and I am not satisfied with my meal and want a 100% refund, I'm entitled to it? And who should reimburse me. The pizzeria or Just-Eat? The pizza is right here, untouched and in the original packaging.

Okay first... where do you get the idea he wants anything from you? He wants a money back guarantee from steam and not from you. So why do you keep talking about him wanting anything from you?

He did direct his demands at me. You can read the rest of the thread if you want to get up to speed.

Also your example is lacking in crucial information that makes it rather useless.

So is your response so far. what more info do you need?

But to give you an idea how things are actually handled in germany atleast:

Is the pizza simply not to your taste or they used a spice you dont like? Tough luck.. youre not getting your money back. (Wich would be buying a game and you say you dont like its gameplay... yeah thats indeed not steams problem... should have looked the game up before)

So Towns was not Steams problem? Cos people didn't like the gameplay, and all. And yet they're the bad guys?

However: Is the pizza not the one you ordered? Is the pizza made with rotten ingredients? Are there bugs crawling over it? Is there mold on the toppings? Have you gotten a case of food poisening after consuming said pizza? Then you bet youre entitled to getting your money back. (and damages in the last case)

The pizza is as i ordered it. It has pepperoni, green peppers, onion and chili. The ingredients are not rotten. The only insects on the pizza is the red in the pepperoni and I didn't get a food poisoning. I'm sure most people would eat the pizza without problems but it doesn't quite work for me just now. But some chicken would so I can just take the pizza to any grill bar i want and trade it in for half a fried chicken, fries and cucumber salad because I'm a consumer and I have rights, damn it!

And it should exactly be the same with software bought on/offline. Software doesnt run? Doesnt have the advertised features? False advertisement? Causes your PC to crash?

Software doesn't run on your computer but runs on mine? Your problem. Doesn't have the advertised features? False advertisement? The games industry bids you welcome to 2014. Latest example: Watch Dogs.

All these are legitimate reasons for getting your money back in any other industry in the world.. yet for some reason you say that software should not adhere to the same laws and standards as every other industry in the world... because... you say so...

Not because I say so but because you're running with your eyes closed down a road that leads to software patents (computer implemented solutions) on a large scale, lack of choice and general suck. You're not buying a chair or a car or a pizza you're buying bits and bytes and developer time. All things quite immaterial. Or do you think companies like reimbursing their costumers? It's a lot of work just because some dumb ass doesn't know the difference between DirectX 11 and Core i5. It would be easier and just as profitable to give your software away for donations. If you want to ruin some ones hobby why not knitting or crosswords puzzlers. Why mine? Why gaming?

Imagine if PC wasn't as strong as it was last generation and both Sony and MS could do as as they intended with this gens consoles. Remember how Xbox one was revealed? That is what you are advocating for when you want to sells software as hardware. In the end it's all going to be patents and locked hardware. Because if software and hardware is the same you have to respect the inevitable software patents and legal bullshit that's gonna come along with that. Software and hardware is not the same. Do you think this is okay? http://www.google.co.in/patents/EP0807891A1?cl=en . That Sun Microsystems owns(!) a patent on a "computer implemented solution" in this case online shopping baskets? And who is stopping the big companies from patenting their competition out if business if they could? And they can if software is to be sold as hardware. All warning lights should be flashing but every body is worried about their consumer rights.

As for who has to reimburse you:

Allways the people who took your money.

The people who took my money already sent most of it to the people who earned my money or vice versa. Either way it's split 90/10 between them. I placed the order online and paid with my card. I had to pay extra for the chili so i payed the rest cash.

It is not and should not be the customers problem how the website and the delivery service or steam and the devs deal with each other. Internet service/Steam takes your money, they are the ones that have to give it back after they sold you a faulty buggy product that doesnt work or was falsely advertisedon their service.

It's not the consumers or your problem. You don't have to use Steam. It's not taxes or a TV license. You don't have to spend an single cent on Steam. And I still think that if you want your money back it's between you and the developer. And their rights should be protected as well from the consumers. Steam is still just a platform to sell games as Just-Eat is a platform to sell take out and any problems with the product there is between you and the restaurant.

 

[Avaholic03]

Right...because indie developers often have a large marketing budget to "help their works stand apart from the crowd". In fact, the very definition of a "good developer" to me is someone who doesn't use their money for marketing, but instead uses it to better their game. So if anything, the shitty developers would have more marketing dollars to cloud the picture (since they obviously aren't putting as much effort into their games), while the good developers would continue to get lost in the shuffle.

Why are games different from anything else that is sold in shops? Marketing is part of business regardless of sector you are in for the simple reason, the more people that have heard of you product the more people that buy it. It doesn't matter how good your game is if no one knows it it exists.

Because in shops, people can still evaluate the completeness and quality of the product BEFORE buying it (regardless of how much it's marketed). A game, especially with digital delivery, can't really be evaluated until it's purchased and played (especially with the decline in free demos). So it relies so much more on marketing...and mostly that just involves what they put on the store page (since the average consumer isn't reading a ton of reviews or watching Let's Plays before buying a game). At the very least, Steam needs to crack down on games with dishonest marketing practices. I'm not saying they need to eliminate all mediocre or potentially disappointing games, but at least make all developers adhere to rules for honesty. That would significantly cut down on the number of shitty games published on Steam that bury the good games on the all-important "new releases" list.

 

[dochmbi]

You walk into a hardware store, get a new tool, it is completely broken and useless and you go back and they laugh in your face and say "sorry, no refunds, oh, and there is no warranty service either, so you are just fucked". That is the situation right now on steam. This is what it means to combine a policy of no quality control with no refunds. It should be illegal!

 

[Cecilo]

You walk into a hardware store, get a new tool, it is completely broken and useless and you go back and they laugh in your face and say "sorry, no refunds, oh, and there is no warranty service either, so you are just fucked". That is the situation right now on steam. This is what it means to combine a policy of no quality control with no refunds. It should be illegal!

...I am fairly sure for most tools I could tell if it is broken or not at the store. If you still bought that product, it is on YOU. Not the company that sold it to you. And it is the same thing I have a problem with when it comes to games. If you are pre-ordering games before they are out, if you are buying them on trust, if you are buying them just because you have spare money. It is on you if you get a bad game.

There is more than enough resources out there to give you an idea if you will like the game, if it will work for you, if it will x, y or z.