Rust Dev Thinks Limiting Steam Releases is "Insane"

[Rariow]

back then they didnt have the volume of games added to their store they have today, and 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

That's exactly the problem though. It's good that Rogue Legacy, Papers, Please and Stanley Parable got on Steam, I don't think anyone will deny that. The thing is, before Steam opened the floodgates, these games might have had more trouble getting through, but could still have done it. Steam was always a bastion for indie games. Awesomenauts, Reccetear and Rock of Ages all made it onto Steam perfectly fine. Sure, people might have missed out on a few games (Space Pirates and Zombies and Paranautical Activity are two that spring to mind as having undeserved trouble getting on the service), but a huge number of great indie titles that no one heard of before got on.

This used to be a big thing for a dev. Indie titles on Steam got a huge sales boost, and it was extremely beneficial for the devs. Now, with anything going on, the good stuff is just getting buried. When you see stuff like Guise of the Wolf on the service, you're discouraged from buying. This may be using anecdotal evidence, but I know since the floodgates have been opened I'm very reluctant to impulse-buy an unknown indie game just to try it out, because the marketplace is just so overwhelmingly full of shit. It's seriously hurting the discoverability of great indie titles that previously may have become hits by virtue of being on Steam.

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

Just because these are games that have gotten a lot of press. I only mention stuff like Guise of the Wolf or Air Control because there's been big controversies around them, and I expect people to know that they're terrible. I seem to have run into the other person on the planet who played FLY'N in the form of you, so it isn't really something you can expect people to know about.

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.

Don't get me wrong, Towns is an infinitely better game than Big Rigs, but the principle still stands. The game was allowed on Steam in an unfinished state, was still not fixed when the developer abandoned it, and Steam didn't care. Can you imagine going to GameStop, and buying a game that's not finished? The sole concept is ridiculous.

So if you like games about horsies (be it ironic of 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.

Prison Tycoon was horribly reviewed, that's why I listed it. The point is, that all of the three games I mention are bad. No, I don't care what your tastes are. There's better horse-related games than Barbie Horse Adventures, and Garbage Truck Simulator is both a bad game and a bad simulation of a garbage truck. If this weren't enough, all of these games are old. Do old games not deserve a chance? Of course they do. But not at the cost of new, up-and-coming releases. Steam floods the front page with old, badly made crap. This means you simply can't find the good stuff. And sure, tastes vary, but when you're putting a game on the front page of the biggest digital distribution platform in the world, you're giving it a certain sales bump, and, with something like Air Control, extremely few people will get any glimpse of enjoyment out of it. If you put that on the front shelves at a physical store, people WOULD buy it, and then they WOULD come back to your store with complaints in droves. Just because you're digital doesn't mean you get to cover your ears to their complaints the way Steam's doing right now with their one-refund per account policy.

 

[Albino Boo]

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.

The itunes store contains 26,000,000+ songs worldwide, 1,000,000+ podcasts (US), 40,000+ music videos (US), 3,000+ TV shows (US), 20,000+ audiobooks (US), 45,000+ movies (US), 1,000,000+ App Store apps. The kindle store contains 513000 books. Steam contains 3600 games. Why is one digital product not like the others?

 

[SadisticFire]

Apparently Mr. Newman is unfamiliar with his history because market over saturation is exactly what caused the great crash of the '83.

I think asking Garry to make any reasonable knowledge is asking quite a bit. But that's me because I'm from Gmod. And he messed so much stuff up :<
And yeah what a lot of people are saying, just don't put the shovelware on the front page, the actual good games, the ones that people were hyped for release on the front page.

 

[Eve Charm]

Well there won't be a crash, but the value of asking for games will go down quite a bit. What was your last 20 dollar impulse purchase that wasn't a game like transistor praised everywhere. Years ago if the game was on steam, there was a good chance it was good, Now it's lucky if you get what is barely considered a game.

XBLA indies if they aren't a dollar or two barely see sales, Moblie needs to be free or a dollar at most unless it has a hype train behind to with, then in app ads or purchases galore. That's going to be steam soon, How many games are we going to start seeing with in app purchases all over or ads, or hell even bitcoin miners.

A Market in which consumers stop spending more because it's too flooded of crap will hurt the devs in the long run.

And as far as Gmod and Rust go, How hard would it really be for someone to clone those and stick them up for free in an open market with ads?

 

[Raynor Stott]

Restricting the amount of games released is a very bad idea. When someone buys a game they should at least do a little research (read reviews from reviewers they like, YouTube game-play footage etc).
My feelings are more to do with the early access program that in theory is a great way for people to get their games seen. That is where quality control needs to come in, and I'm not meaning whether a person enjoys the game or not but the minimum technical aspects of the game IE: do the screenshot pictures match or even resemble parts of the game? is the game even playable? For a game to be placed on early access Steam should post up a minimum requirements that game developers have to agree to and submit the game to steam for a check over before its put up. This would stop alot of the 3 hour developers putting out shiny screenshots from google images to advertise their games,

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

back then they didnt have the volume of games added to their store they have today, and 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

That's exactly the problem though. It's good that Rogue Legacy, Papers, Please and Stanley Parable got on Steam, I don't think anyone will deny that. The thing is, before Steam opened the floodgates, these games might have had more trouble getting through, but could still have done it. Steam was always a bastion for indie games. Awesomenauts, Reccetear and Rock of Ages all made it onto Steam perfectly fine. Sure, people might have missed out on a few games (Space Pirates and Zombies and Paranautical Activity are two that spring to mind as having undeserved trouble getting on the service), but a huge number of great indie titles that no one heard of before got on.

This used to be a big thing for a dev. Indie titles on Steam got a huge sales boost, and it was extremely beneficial for the devs. Now, with anything going on, the good stuff is just getting buried. When you see stuff like Guise of the Wolf on the service, you're discouraged from buying. This may be using anecdotal evidence, but I know since the floodgates have been opened I'm very reluctant to impulse-buy an unknown indie game just to try it out, because the marketplace is just so overwhelmingly full of shit. It's seriously hurting the discoverability of great indie titles that previously may have become hits by virtue of being on Steam.

unity of command also had a lot of trouble getting into steam, steam was in fact well known for being a bit problematic to get into, atleast for indie devs, with many of them failing numerous times to get into the store

but impulse buying a game you dont know nothing about was never a good idea, and nowadays you can check the user reviews to see if its actually good or not, go to the air control page or guise of the wolf, full of negative reviews, go to noitu love 2 devolution's page, positive reviews

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

Just because these are games that have gotten a lot of press. I only mention stuff like Guise of the Wolf or Air Control because there's been big controversies around them, and I expect people to know that they're terrible. I seem to have run into the other person on the planet who played FLY'N in the form of you, so it isn't really something you can expect people to know about.

you point out exactly what steam needs, not a smaller volume of games, but a system that allows good hidden gems to be discovered while letting bad games fade into obscurity

if it was up to me, id use tags and user reviews to set up a special "recommended section" on the storefront, maybe alongside the "new releases", "best selling", "comming soon" and "specials", this recommended section would be personalized, with games being selected according to the tags of the games you play regulary and the numbers of positive, helpful reviews users have given to those games

bad games would fall into obscurity and good games would get extra sales

the existing recommended section on steam is not located on the front page and is horribly outdated and inacurate

 

[Vigormortis]

I have a few questions for those who're screaming, "Valve should employ quality control systems! They should hire someone to distinguish the good games from the garbage!"

* Who gets to decide what constitutes a "good" game and what constitutes a "bad" game?
* By what metric(s) are we to gauge the quality of a game?
* Do these metrics include a user's personal enjoyment of a game, regardless of quality?
* Do these metrics include some method of gauging what a game is worth, monetarily?
* Does this gauging of worth factor into a forced pricing model?
* To whom do we grant the power and right to tell all gamers everywhere what games they're supposed to enjoy?
* Will you ***** and moan when that little indie project you're all excited for ends up being denied from Steam because it failed to live up to Steam's "level of quality"?

I detest shovelware as much as the next person. But where do we draw the line in deciding what games are fun to us and what games are fun to others? While you might love playing Bioshock, or Mass Effect, or Watch Dogs, someone else might derive far more enjoyment out of those dime-a-dozen simulator games, or those nostalgia-ridden remakes, or those "artsy" indie games.

You may not like games in the latter genres, but does that really give you, or anyone, the right to deny the developer of those games from releasing those games on Steam - to a dedicated player-base[footnote]Small as it may be.[/footnote]?

While I feel Valve should employ better filtering options and systems in how and where games are listed and displayed, the notion of them actively denying games based on subjective opinions of "quality" is out of the question.

 

[Lunar Templar]

um ... no

Steam should limit what gets on its platform, because most the stuff that gets release en-mass is total, irredeemable shit that only exists to make a quick buck off the ignorant.

 

[Hateren47]

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.

Don't get me wrong, Towns is an infinitely better game than Big Rigs, but the principle still stands. The game was allowed on Steam in an unfinished state, was still not fixed when the developer abandoned it, and Steam didn't care. Can you imagine going to GameStop, and buying a game that's not finished? The sole concept is ridiculous.

No I can't even imagine buying a game from GameStop at all. But I do own quite a few unfinished games on Steam, some that I wanted to play right away like Space Base DF-9 which I have played since Alpha2 and some I just wanted to support and follow like Star Forge because they look like good ideas that I want to play when it gets better.

Another thing, the current top seller on Steam right now appears to be The Forest, an Early Access game. Second on the list is The Stomping Land another Early Access game. Then in third place, completely finished and with half the promised features, Watch Dogs. So I'm not the only one who likes to get in on the Early Access action either.

So if you like games about horsies (be it ironic of 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.

Prison Tycoon was horribly reviewed, that's why I listed it. The point is, that all of the three games I mention are bad. No, I don't care what your tastes are. There's better horse-related games than Barbie Horse Adventures, and Garbage Truck Simulator is both a bad game and a bad simulation of a garbage truck. If this weren't enough, all of these games are old. Do old games not deserve a chance? Of course they do. But not at the cost of new, up-and-coming releases. Steam floods the front page with old, badly made crap. This means you simply can't find the good stuff. And sure, tastes vary, but when you're putting a game on the front page of the biggest digital distribution platform in the world, you're giving it a certain sales bump, and, with something like Air Control, extremely few people will get any glimpse of enjoyment out of it. If you put that on the front shelves at a physical store, people WOULD buy it, and then they WOULD come back to your store with complaints in droves. Just because you're digital doesn't mean you get to cover your ears to their complaints the way Steam's doing right now with their one-refund per account policy.

I don't see any of those games on the front page just now though. And are there any "good" games that are missing from the front page in your opinion?

 

[cypher-raige]

And as far as Gmod and Rust go, How hard would it really be for someone to clone those and stick them up for free in an open market with ads?

They would not have the community that Facepunch/Valve has and their games would be called out for the ripoffs that they are, like with the WarZ.

 

[cypher-raige]

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.

It's not homebrew. People use the Source SDK to make their mod. Then they get a license for the engine to make a full game. (Dear Esther and Stanley Parable being two recent examples.)
This can also apply to other engines like Unreal or Cryengine.
Without mods we wouldn't have CS, Dota, Killing Floor, Team Fortress, DayZ etc.

 

[Sight Unseen]

I don't think releasing more trash is going to help the market. I can barely tell what shit is coming out these days. There is just so much and I can't really get myself to care about it. All of these games coming out and not one of them is a good RTS.

I feel this every day I open Steam, I don't even bother with the front page any more and I only wait for what was tagged on my wishlist as a form of bookmarking for the few games I want to go on sale, apart from that there's nothing new on there that's made me want to buy it full price in an instant, last game I bought was Bioshock Infinite.

So far Planetary Annihilation seems like the only actual RTS game on there and it's still in early access, there's eventually going to be grey Goo but the RTS genre has gotten really small the past couple of years.

I'd also agree on the too much trash isn't a good idea, the guy is only singing this tune because his barebones game got lapped up by people that thought it was fresh but with lower standards of quality, the guy ignores this and thinks more crap is better, I didn't have to wade through steam 3-4 years ago for games I'd want.

Umm... There's way more RTS's than just Planetary Annihilation.

http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/RTS/

 

[whycantijustdeletemyaccount]

*sigh*

This again? Look, Steam needs less games, not more. What it needs, and what people have been asking for, is quality over quantity at this stage. Steam has more games than any other platform but that's meaningless if the extra stuff is shit - which a huge proportion is.

I think it's quite arrogant to say that the burden is on the devs to simply make quality games that stand out from the crowd as that's not really possible with the marketplace in its current state. Personally I'm not really inclined to take the chance on indie games anymore unless in special circumstances as probability states that no matter how good it looks or sounds, it's probably going to be shit.

* Who gets to decide what constitutes a "good" game and what constitutes a "bad" game?
* By what metric(s) are we to gauge the quality of a game?
* Do these metrics include a user's personal enjoyment of a game, regardless of quality?
* Do these metrics include some method of gauging what a game is worth, monetarily?
* Does this gauging of worth factor into a forced pricing model?
* To whom do we grant the power and right to tell all gamers everywhere what games they're supposed to enjoy?
* Will you ***** and moan when that little indie project you're all excited for ends up being denied from Steam because it failed to live up to Steam's "level of quality"?

I'll take a stab at a couple here.

Many of the games people are complaining about are objectively bad. I'm not saying a game that'll review poorly or I may think is bad, but one that bad because of bugs, glitches, broken controls etc. This might have some impact on bigger budget ports as well but fuck em. The metric can be exactly the same as the one GOG uses - an objectively broken and bad game should not be up for sale - it's practically law ffs.

I'm not touching the pricing thing, that's especially subjective with short indie games so I think the market can decide that. Steam sales tend to right those things anyway.

This isn't about what some arbitrary committee is deciding is good, it's about ensuring a healthy marketplace where consumer rights are protected and where developers get a fair chance because there isn't an assumption that the stuff out there is crap.

It's in the interest of the consumer, Valve and every decent indie developer out there that there are some limitations placed on Steam for the sake of a basic quality assurance. GoG is doing it, the console manufacturers do it, heck even Origin is ahead of Steam on this one. At least you can ask for your money back there.

 

[Albino Boo]

*sigh*

This again? Look, Steam needs less games, not more. What it needs, and what people have been asking for, is quality over quantity at this stage. Steam has more games than any other platform but that's meaningless if the extra stuff is shit - which a huge proportion is.

I think it's quite arrogant to say that the burden is on the devs to simply make quality games that stand out from the crowd as that's not really possible with the marketplace in its current state. Personally I'm not really inclined to take the chance on indie games anymore unless in special circumstances as probability states that no matter how good it looks or sounds, it's probably going to be shit.

It's in the interest of the consumer, Valve and every decent indie developer out there that there are some limitations placed on Steam for the sake of a basic quality assurance.

The itunes store contains 26,000,000+ songs worldwide, 1,000,000+ podcasts (US), 40,000+ music videos (US), 3,000+ TV shows (US), 20,000+ audiobooks (US), 45,000+ movies (US), 1,000,000+ App Store apps. The kindle store contains 513000 books. Why is one digital storefront not like another? Why do you think games are special and different to music, books, films and TV?

 

[camazotz]

Steam can add anything it wants. All I want is for Steam to include a button I can click which hides all the "early access" titles so I don't see them until they are actually done.

 

[whycantijustdeletemyaccount]

.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Umm... There's way more RTS's than just Planetary Annihilation.

http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/RTS/

Ho?, did I imply in my previous post there there were no other RTS games?, I am well aware that there are some from the past, I am also well aware of the sub-genre known as RTT, most of those games on that page alone are mostly RTT based games with only one or two new ones being RTS and even then they are more akin to company of heroes and not what PA,AOE and C&C are about.

What I was implying is that there is a huge lack of RTS games based on the latter I mentioned at the end above, PA comes to mind because it basically is a lot like it's predecessors but with a slight new innovative twist, that twist alone is what makes that game an instant sell for me, I'm not seeing other RTS games out there today that are doing the same, the more recent few on that page as of this year or last were again more like Company of heroes or being RTT and not RTS, why is it hard to make RTS games like C&C, AOE,SC and UAW?, PA has managed to accomplish that and add something new yet everyone else has gone chasing Company of Heroes so much that it's caused a divide and lack of RTS games like C&C, this is why I bought into PA at the time, in the past I looked into previous RTS's dating back at least 7 years, most of them again like company of heroes besides the much older games from 2004 to the prior decade.

If you look at today's Strategy games there's more RTT and turn based than there are real time with base building and resource based management (resource base al la Supreme commander/C&C/AOE etc, not COH), I'm only seeing Grey Goo and PA along with possibly a third RTS to peak my interest but even then that's such a small number compared to all the ones I played in the past which is why I see there being a severe shortage of actual RTS games with involved base building, resource management while adding something new to the table.

I love the RTS games of the past but I don't count them towards what we should be expecting of the current present, other genres are doing fine and blooming as usual, the RTS one doesn't seem a big massive smash hit like it once was at least a decade or two ago.

 

[Albino Boo]

The itunes store contains 26,000,000+ songs worldwide, 1,000,000+ podcasts (US), 40,000+ music videos (US), 3,000+ TV shows (US), 20,000+ audiobooks (US), 45,000+ movies (US), 1,000,000+ App Store apps. The kindle store contains 513000 books. Why is one digital storefront not like another? Why do you think games are special and different to music, books, films and TV?

App store is a good example. Songs, podcasts, videos and so on aren't usually broken.

One of the strengths of the app store is that it's regulated to an extent. Consumer rights are actually a thing (I don't think Steam knows what they even are) and you can't just put up any old shit that doesn't work, is violating a copyright or whatever. I wouldn't say it's perfect but it seems better monitored than the steam storefront. By the way, as a consequence of the smallest amount of regulation, I'm far more willing to take a risk in Apple's store than in Google's.

Also, if I buy an ebook it's not going to crash a chapter in and claim "it's early access, I've not finished the story yet".

There is difference between something being broken and you not liking it. Other people have different opinions to you as what they think is good and bad and there opinion is no less valid than yours. Your contention that steam carries more bad quality items in its 3600 games than itunes 29 million or the kindles 513000 just doesn't stand up to basic maths. Valve
have heard of consumer rights and their very expensive lawyers that draft the ToS know more than random guy on the internet about consumer law. Dont pay attention to internet forum lawyers, they are usually found of sound and fury signifying nothing and just rant away about laws that valves $1000 an hour lawyers have taken into account. For instance your position about early access

What is the game like to play right now?
When you buy an Early Access game, you should consider what the game is like to play right now. Look at the screenshots and videos to see what the game looks like in its current state. There are a lot of ways a game can go as it develops over time, so if you aren't excited to play the game in its current state, then hold off and wait until the next update--it shouldn't be far off.

and

Is this the same as pre-purchasing a game?
No. Early Access is a full purchase of a playable game. By purchasing, you gain immediate access to download and play the game in its current form and as it evolves. You keep access to the game, even if the game later moves from Early Access into fully released.

from
http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq/?snr=1_200_200_Early+Access

Valve have written clearly warning that early access is buying as is and legally that covers them.

 

[1337mokro]

No it's not. Steam needs some SERIOUS quality control.

I can buy broken barely functional game because these have literally never been play tested. Developers can just lie about features on their page and sell their game.

We need steam to have a vetting program that EVERYONE can enter in, where the game is made sure to be playable and complies with the sales description.

Greenlight is a useless system because of the quantity. It would be a full time job if I actually took it serious instead of just voting on the games I already knew about and wanted on steam like for example Project Zomboid or Sang Frost.