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Valve's Steam is a notorious… hmm, what would be the most charitable word… cesspit, now? Over a third of its entire library was added in 2016. Since the introdu

Valve's Steam is a notorious… hmm, what would be the most charitable word… cesspit, now? Over a third of its entire library was added in 2016. Since the introduction of Greenlight, Valve has apparently ceased performing even the most basic quality control. There have been games on Steam that lack an actual game executable, and that's to say nothing of the games which actually do “run”. Maybe consumer protection suits will light enough of a flame under the right part of their corporate anatomy for Valve to start caring again.

donatj 10y ago
I get so irritated at the complaints that steam had the gall to allow you to buy a bad game. I'd much rather have an open market of goods than a closed censored market. If you're risk adverse, wait for the reviews.
- minikites 10y ago
  An open market of goods invites malware. Do you think Valve has an obligation to police their store for malware? If so, where is the line between software that doesn't function as advertised and malware? What if it's poorly written malware that doesn't actually run?
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Steam isn't an open market. You have to be selected by the community to be able to sell your game. Apparently it doesn't need to have any quality, be minimally functional, actually be your own work, be accurately advertised, or even be the game originally approved, though. The last two should surely bother you. How can consumers make an informed decision when a game can have outright misleading advertising? How can consumers make an informed decision when the reviews are for a different game prior to a bait-and-switch?
  - rtpg 10y ago
    Steam prominently displayed reviews. And there are a lot of reviews being written. There's a lot of crap on Amazon too, but reviews help to smooth things out. Not perfect, but definitely a strong signal
    - minikites 10y ago
      Given Amazon's growing problem with counterfeit products slipping into the system, that might not be the best example.
  - exodust 10y ago
    > "How can consumers make an informed decision" Are you serious? You have the entire internet at your fingertips and you can't make an informed decision about a game? The amount of Let's Play and user reviews on Youtube should be enough information, but there's plenty of other opinions all over Steam forums and reviews to help you figure out whether you'll be asking for a refund or not. And that's the thing... you can simply get a refund if you don't like the game. Seems like there's a few babies around here who want to be spoon-fed "high quality games only" or else they throw a tanty.
- Gracana 10y ago
  I'm just annoyed that unfinished products are listed alongside everything else on the front page. I don't browse anymore... If something interesting comes out, I'll find out about it eventually, through other means.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    It's not fair on developers, either. It undermines consumer confidence in any game they see on the platform, and it unnecessarily clogs up the “new realeases” list, giving you less chance at people seeing your game.
    - Mithaldu 10y ago
      > it unnecessarily clogs up the “new realeases” list, giving you less chance at people seeing your game. This complaint, while understandable, is not taking into account all of the reality in play here. Steam was a curated trickle before, representing only a fraction of the flow of game creation, increasing chances at (but not guaranteeing) a certain level of quality, as well as a certain level of income for anyone making it in. It did however also leave out a lot of the total amount of creation. It was not a faithful representation of the entire market. By opening the gates Steam now represents a bigger (though not total) part of the market, and now works more similarly to how the markets for books, audiobooks, music albums or movies work. Creators in these markets have been laboring under much more strenuous conditions, successfully, for many decades. The "clogging" you decry is not useless, as it increases the breadth of content people can access (to give one example, Brigador would probably be dead now, given that it's ignored by media, despite being an excellent game, if it couldn't claw out a solid reputation on Steam month by month) and it's not unfair, as it's just how all other media creators had to live for a long time. You could however blame Valve for not providing more solid search and filtering tools.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        Brigador is a game that is finished and not a hastily cobbled mess of stock assets. It would easily pass basic quality control, and could get even more attention without trash making it hard to find. With a normal book or an album you at least have to put in the effort to make it yourself. Steam does not need the equivalent of a robot's print-on-demand wikipedia article compilation.
- eropple 10y ago
  A market with standards isn't "censored". Your abuse of the term demeans it. The trash flood has made Steam as nigh-unusable as any other app store. It used to not be the case.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    Nigh-unusable? You can: - search by tags - get recommendations based on your interests - get recommendations about popular new games - get recommendations based on what your friends like to play or want to play - get recommendations based on what curators you choose reviewed The "new stuff" list is useless, but the store is okay, and improving constantly.
    - eropple 10y ago
      In turn: - Tag searching isn't applicable to how I look for games because genre doesn't matter to me most of the time. I'm searching for something new (and because of this I have to use the "new stuff" list, which is a tire fire) and interesting and potentially worth talking about. That's not really expressed in tags. - I have enough varied types of games in my library that the recommendations based on what Steam thinks my interests are is really, really bad. I don't like all or, probably, most of the games in my library; tons are bundle trash. - Don't care about Valve telling me about popular new games. I'll find those through other sources if I care about them. - Don't really care about what my friends are playing. They're my friends because occasionally we play multiplayer games, not because I follow their lead on the vast majority of games I play. - Curators are, in my experience, functionally dead. Most are a joke, the few that aren't are rarely updated because they have no benefit to the people who could curate them--like, my interests tend to track Giant Bomb's, but they gave up on curation forever ago (not even sure it's run by GB staff, and barely has any new games that they've covered on it) because it was worth nothing to them. Maybe there are rando curators with taste, but kicking the problem down to "surfacing creators worth following" is not really any better, yeah? And any automated recommendations fail a very important test: does this actually play? Because a whole lot of the trashflood currently all over Steam is barely functional. I'm not setting the bar high here--I can find something interesting in a game that's incomplete or even a game that's bad. But basic quality standards have fallen off a cliff in the House of Valve, and refunds don't give me back the time that nonworking stuff costs me. Steam used to have a pretty decent guarantee: it might be a bad game, but it's gonna work. That's gone now.
- ericflo 10y ago
  I completely agree with you. I think they should be lauded for allowing more on their platform! Some of the more experimental stuff turns out to be the best over time, and it's stuff that would've never been built had their store not been more open. e.g. SoundStage for the Vive.
- shakna 10y ago
  GOG lists mostly indie artists, and allow developers to reach out to them without a community review process, but they require the goods to be of a certain standard. This seems to be working well for them.
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    I stopped buying from Gog after that pulled that stunt and "closed down" their site for like 3 days, saying nothing, and making all their customers believe that the products they'd purchased wouldn't be downloadable ever again. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103810-Good-Old-Games-Faked-Shutdown-to-Avoid-Being-Boring http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103810-Good-Old-Ga... Fuck Gog. I don't care about their listing quality. Not that Steam is significantly better, but at least they never pulled a moronic stunt like that.
- vertex-four 10y ago
  Steam is one shop in the market, not a market in itself, unlike e.g. mobile app stores.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  But some minimum quality control is a good thing. Having things that work isn't some sort of oppressive censorship. If you want to sell something that is in the development phase, I fully demand folks be upfront about it. If It isn't obvious from the description, you no longer have a honest, open market - you have something built to defraud me. Especially if you have a return and support policy tha seems complicated on purpose to deter refunds. This really isn't about a "bad" game. I'm fine with a game that I simply don't like. I'm fully irritated when the controls make things nearly impossible. I'm irritated when the story doesn't make sense and seems like clips from other games (hello, Alone in the Dark for the Wii, you have all this). At least that last game is, technically, finishable, but the truth is it also hits the line between passable and not. And some of the games? They don't even score that highly. This is what folks complain about. Not because steam let them buy a bad game, but because some of these aren't games. They aren't well-labeled enough, and so on and so forth. Then on top of that they have this horrible customer service that disallows refunds.
  - exodust 10y ago
    You seem to be complaining for the sake of complaining? Steam allows refunds now. They have for quite some time. They also clearly label early access games. They have for some time. They also offer many different ways to unleash your dislike on a game for all to see, via their forums or reviews. You can even comment on reviews, or rate reviews. You can watch videos of games you're not sure about. You have the tools and information at hand to make an informed decision about the games you download on Steam. Be honest, you don't really have anything to complain about do you?
rasz_pl 10y ago
Most of that garbage is there solely to enable Skin gambling.

donatj 10y ago

I get so irritated at the complaints that steam had the gall to allow you to buy a bad game. I'd much rather have an open market of goods than a closed censored market. If you're risk adverse, wait for the reviews.

minikites 10y ago
An open market of goods invites malware. Do you think Valve has an obligation to police their store for malware? If so, where is the line between software that doesn't function as advertised and malware? What if it's poorly written malware that doesn't actually run?
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
Steam isn't an open market. You have to be selected by the community to be able to sell your game. Apparently it doesn't need to have any quality, be minimally functional, actually be your own work, be accurately advertised, or even be the game originally approved, though. The last two should surely bother you. How can consumers make an informed decision when a game can have outright misleading advertising? How can consumers make an informed decision when the reviews are for a different game prior to a bait-and-switch?
- rtpg 10y ago
  Steam prominently displayed reviews. And there are a lot of reviews being written. There's a lot of crap on Amazon too, but reviews help to smooth things out. Not perfect, but definitely a strong signal
  - minikites 10y ago
    Given Amazon's growing problem with counterfeit products slipping into the system, that might not be the best example.
- exodust 10y ago
  > "How can consumers make an informed decision" Are you serious? You have the entire internet at your fingertips and you can't make an informed decision about a game? The amount of Let's Play and user reviews on Youtube should be enough information, but there's plenty of other opinions all over Steam forums and reviews to help you figure out whether you'll be asking for a refund or not. And that's the thing... you can simply get a refund if you don't like the game. Seems like there's a few babies around here who want to be spoon-fed "high quality games only" or else they throw a tanty.
Gracana 10y ago
I'm just annoyed that unfinished products are listed alongside everything else on the front page. I don't browse anymore... If something interesting comes out, I'll find out about it eventually, through other means.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  It's not fair on developers, either. It undermines consumer confidence in any game they see on the platform, and it unnecessarily clogs up the “new realeases” list, giving you less chance at people seeing your game.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    > it unnecessarily clogs up the “new realeases” list, giving you less chance at people seeing your game. This complaint, while understandable, is not taking into account all of the reality in play here. Steam was a curated trickle before, representing only a fraction of the flow of game creation, increasing chances at (but not guaranteeing) a certain level of quality, as well as a certain level of income for anyone making it in. It did however also leave out a lot of the total amount of creation. It was not a faithful representation of the entire market. By opening the gates Steam now represents a bigger (though not total) part of the market, and now works more similarly to how the markets for books, audiobooks, music albums or movies work. Creators in these markets have been laboring under much more strenuous conditions, successfully, for many decades. The "clogging" you decry is not useless, as it increases the breadth of content people can access (to give one example, Brigador would probably be dead now, given that it's ignored by media, despite being an excellent game, if it couldn't claw out a solid reputation on Steam month by month) and it's not unfair, as it's just how all other media creators had to live for a long time. You could however blame Valve for not providing more solid search and filtering tools.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      Brigador is a game that is finished and not a hastily cobbled mess of stock assets. It would easily pass basic quality control, and could get even more attention without trash making it hard to find. With a normal book or an album you at least have to put in the effort to make it yourself. Steam does not need the equivalent of a robot's print-on-demand wikipedia article compilation.
eropple 10y ago
A market with standards isn't "censored". Your abuse of the term demeans it. The trash flood has made Steam as nigh-unusable as any other app store. It used to not be the case.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Nigh-unusable? You can: - search by tags - get recommendations based on your interests - get recommendations about popular new games - get recommendations based on what your friends like to play or want to play - get recommendations based on what curators you choose reviewed The "new stuff" list is useless, but the store is okay, and improving constantly.
  - eropple 10y ago
    In turn: - Tag searching isn't applicable to how I look for games because genre doesn't matter to me most of the time. I'm searching for something new (and because of this I have to use the "new stuff" list, which is a tire fire) and interesting and potentially worth talking about. That's not really expressed in tags. - I have enough varied types of games in my library that the recommendations based on what Steam thinks my interests are is really, really bad. I don't like all or, probably, most of the games in my library; tons are bundle trash. - Don't care about Valve telling me about popular new games. I'll find those through other sources if I care about them. - Don't really care about what my friends are playing. They're my friends because occasionally we play multiplayer games, not because I follow their lead on the vast majority of games I play. - Curators are, in my experience, functionally dead. Most are a joke, the few that aren't are rarely updated because they have no benefit to the people who could curate them--like, my interests tend to track Giant Bomb's, but they gave up on curation forever ago (not even sure it's run by GB staff, and barely has any new games that they've covered on it) because it was worth nothing to them. Maybe there are rando curators with taste, but kicking the problem down to "surfacing creators worth following" is not really any better, yeah? And any automated recommendations fail a very important test: does this actually play? Because a whole lot of the trashflood currently all over Steam is barely functional. I'm not setting the bar high here--I can find something interesting in a game that's incomplete or even a game that's bad. But basic quality standards have fallen off a cliff in the House of Valve, and refunds don't give me back the time that nonworking stuff costs me. Steam used to have a pretty decent guarantee: it might be a bad game, but it's gonna work. That's gone now.
ericflo 10y ago
I completely agree with you. I think they should be lauded for allowing more on their platform! Some of the more experimental stuff turns out to be the best over time, and it's stuff that would've never been built had their store not been more open. e.g. SoundStage for the Vive.
shakna 10y ago
GOG lists mostly indie artists, and allow developers to reach out to them without a community review process, but they require the goods to be of a certain standard. This seems to be working well for them.
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  I stopped buying from Gog after that pulled that stunt and "closed down" their site for like 3 days, saying nothing, and making all their customers believe that the products they'd purchased wouldn't be downloadable ever again. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103810-Good-Old-Games-Faked-Shutdown-to-Avoid-Being-Boring http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103810-Good-Old-Ga... Fuck Gog. I don't care about their listing quality. Not that Steam is significantly better, but at least they never pulled a moronic stunt like that.
vertex-four 10y ago
Steam is one shop in the market, not a market in itself, unlike e.g. mobile app stores.
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
But some minimum quality control is a good thing. Having things that work isn't some sort of oppressive censorship. If you want to sell something that is in the development phase, I fully demand folks be upfront about it. If It isn't obvious from the description, you no longer have a honest, open market - you have something built to defraud me. Especially if you have a return and support policy tha seems complicated on purpose to deter refunds. This really isn't about a "bad" game. I'm fine with a game that I simply don't like. I'm fully irritated when the controls make things nearly impossible. I'm irritated when the story doesn't make sense and seems like clips from other games (hello, Alone in the Dark for the Wii, you have all this). At least that last game is, technically, finishable, but the truth is it also hits the line between passable and not. And some of the games? They don't even score that highly. This is what folks complain about. Not because steam let them buy a bad game, but because some of these aren't games. They aren't well-labeled enough, and so on and so forth. Then on top of that they have this horrible customer service that disallows refunds.
- exodust 10y ago
  You seem to be complaining for the sake of complaining? Steam allows refunds now. They have for quite some time. They also clearly label early access games. They have for some time. They also offer many different ways to unleash your dislike on a game for all to see, via their forums or reviews. You can even comment on reviews, or rate reviews. You can watch videos of games you're not sure about. You have the tools and information at hand to make an informed decision about the games you download on Steam. Be honest, you don't really have anything to complain about do you?

rasz_pl 10y ago

Most of that garbage is there solely to enable Skin gambling.