Ninjamedic said:
Ipsen said:
I wouldn't be so quick to blame Steam, the company for issues like this case. Steam only has its pervasiveness because of its users, and what is Greenlight, but a voting platform for the users? We decide what goes up on Steam.
The voting platform is controlled by Steam though, the onus is on them to fix it if there is a problem.[footnote]This point rests on the assumption of Steam's main defenders claim that it's the best DD platform.[/footnote] The developers can't do anything about it (though as we've seen with many recent debacles, the makers of the shovelware and unfinished games that plague Steam are given Carte Blanche to control the image of their game on Steam). If the devs don't like it, then they'll have to find another way of getting their game out there, which isn't that easy.
Of course a 'simple' voting system can be abused. It shouldn't be so simple then should it?
But 'voting' sounds nice! Being simple is a plus!
No, really, would you WANT to deal with a more complex selection process,
given the rate games are being submitted to Steam now?
And let's be clear here; Greenlight is getting used. Steam had the control to make the platform, take down the platform, or fix a
recognized problem with the platform. Pretty much everything in between, the outcome/output of the platform, is by power of the vote of users; at least, that's the intent of the platform.
But Steam has to first recognize an issue, or at least an issue in which its resolution won't fuck everything else up. The current cries for blatant 'curate your games, Steam!' (looking at you, Jim) only hearken back to how Steam used to market games. Not integrally problematic, but all things considered, it puts more work on Steam (again, considering the bursting volume of game submissions), plus less control for users, which I surmise can be a stifiling, if not outright negative position in the long run.
On the other hand, Greenlight remains mostly as it is (until its purported end); users have the agency they always have, but they have to deal with the deluge of games. This is the more likely outcome, since again, the platform Steam made gets used by simply putting things in the hands of users. Problems
Do you see where I'm coming from? I think this is less about Steam solving some contrived issue, but one of an excess of games of
wildly variable quality reaching the market place. Whether Steam or the users let bad games through, that outcome would always be problematic in the end.
I'd be more for facilitating better
selection filtering of games now, by the power of the interested user than even the demands of developers who, while a great portion practice honesty in approach in marketing, are intent for my money, and some fall to more unscrupulous methods with that intent. Developers do need good tools for marketing (there's a noticable number of people who haven't even heard of the game in this article), but I think some of that marketing for awareness has to be facilitated outside of Steam, personally.