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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,

by 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.
    - Mithaldu 10y ago
      Without Greenlight being what it is, Brigador would never have gotten in. They can't even get anything but the tiniest youtube/web reviewers to look at it because it's not the "right aesthetic". > With a normal book [...] you at least have to put in the effort to make it yourself. Not so, Amazon has plenty of algorithmically generated books in its store, and even in bookstores, which are curated by default, you can find plenty of outright shit. Also keep in mind i was responding to the complaint about the "what's new" list, which is something that was, is and remains useless in any store giving access to a huge market. (Steam's Discover Queue is really useful though and replaces it with an appropiately personalized What's New list.)
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        > Without Greenlight being what it is, Brigador would never have gotten in. Valve could pay a couple people to check games to make sure they're not 10-developer-hours trash. It's not a choice between "allow everything" or "super-popular games only". > Not so, Amazon has plenty of algorithmically generated books in its store That's why I said normal book, and explicitly gave an example of how Amazon can be worse. > even in bookstores, which are curated by default, you can find plenty of outright shit. That's okay. I don't want steam to protect me from merely 'bad' games. I want it to reject games that don't even try, or aren't even half done.
kmonsen 10y ago
This is my main problem as well, the featured front page content should be high quality but often is not.
- exodust 10y ago
  You can exclude specific content, filter out tags, or select specific types of content to include/exclude such as early access or pre-purchase. You can even choose to exclude violent content. It's under "store content preferences".
pkd 10y ago
This is a hard problem to solve because a lot of early access games are better than finished games like Rimworld, for example. To their credit Valve does show a pretty prominent "Early Access" message at the top so I dunno what the fuss is about.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  Afaik you can also tell the store to hide EA games.
blakeyrat 10y ago
Believe it or not, there's a setting to turn off stuff like Early Access, VR, etc. categories in the Store listings so you never have to see them. The problem is: Valve's UX is so terrible that I accidentally came across that setting once, and I've never been able to find it again. But it does exist. ... and of course 3 seconds after posting I can't find it, I managed to find it. See if this URL works for you: https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences/ https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences/ Apparently you can also filter-out certain tags, so I can shove RPGMaker in that field and never have my time wasted by those ass pieces of JRPG shit ever again. Nice.

by Gracana 10y ago

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.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    Without Greenlight being what it is, Brigador would never have gotten in. They can't even get anything but the tiniest youtube/web reviewers to look at it because it's not the "right aesthetic". > With a normal book [...] you at least have to put in the effort to make it yourself. Not so, Amazon has plenty of algorithmically generated books in its store, and even in bookstores, which are curated by default, you can find plenty of outright shit. Also keep in mind i was responding to the complaint about the "what's new" list, which is something that was, is and remains useless in any store giving access to a huge market. (Steam's Discover Queue is really useful though and replaces it with an appropiately personalized What's New list.)
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      > Without Greenlight being what it is, Brigador would never have gotten in. Valve could pay a couple people to check games to make sure they're not 10-developer-hours trash. It's not a choice between "allow everything" or "super-popular games only". > Not so, Amazon has plenty of algorithmically generated books in its store That's why I said normal book, and explicitly gave an example of how Amazon can be worse. > even in bookstores, which are curated by default, you can find plenty of outright shit. That's okay. I don't want steam to protect me from merely 'bad' games. I want it to reject games that don't even try, or aren't even half done.

kmonsen 10y ago

This is my main problem as well, the featured front page content should be high quality but often is not.

exodust 10y ago
You can exclude specific content, filter out tags, or select specific types of content to include/exclude such as early access or pre-purchase. You can even choose to exclude violent content. It's under "store content preferences".

pkd 10y ago

This is a hard problem to solve because a lot of early access games are better than finished games like Rimworld, for example. To their credit Valve does show a pretty prominent "Early Access" message at the top so I dunno what the fuss is about.

Mithaldu 10y ago
Afaik you can also tell the store to hide EA games.

blakeyrat 10y ago

Believe it or not, there's a setting to turn off stuff like Early Access, VR, etc. categories in the Store listings so you never have to see them. The problem is: Valve's UX is so terrible that I accidentally came across that setting once, and I've never been able to find it again. But it does exist. ... and of course 3 seconds after posting I can't find it, I managed to find it. See if this URL works for you: https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences/ https://store.steampowered.com/account/preferences/ Apparently you can also filter-out certain tags, so I can shove RPGMaker in that field and never have my time wasted by those ass pieces of JRPG shit ever again. Nice.