5 ms·

Who Gets to Be on the Steam Store?

38 points by mxfh 8y ago

growlist 8y ago
Please just make Half Life 3 :(
- bytematic 8y ago
  They released the script for it. Last I heard it is pretty dead.
nimish 8y ago
Ah, great, another company that wishes to profit off content while attempting to wash its hands of the implications of that content. Offering something for sale on a platform, or store, or "aggregator" as we're now calling it, is endorsement. If you take their money, you take the rest.
- jstarfish 8y ago
  I'm not understanding your objection with this. They distribute explicitly legal video games for a small take. They draw the line at supporting anything illegal. What are the implications that are so damning to you?
  - nimish 8y ago
    Legality and morality and not the same. There are lots of things that are legal that are morally dubious or unethical: payday loans, for one. Just because the law allows it, doesn't make it a moral thing to do.
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago
  Obviously you aren't one of those, "I disagree with what you say but would fight to the death to protect your right to say it", people. Personally I applaud Steam for their willingness to let adults make their own decisions about what content they want to purchase and consume, rather than outsourcing that decisions to the loudest mobs. Given the nature of modern society I've no doubt that Steam will face attacks from many, like yourself, who would prefer that Valve act as the Thought Police. I'm hopeful that they have the backbone to stick with this policy and weather the storm.
  - nimish 8y ago
    I am totally one of those people. My issue is with Valve attempting to wash their hands of any consequence of selling some of these games. If you take someone's money, you are endorsing their content. This is the exact opposite of thought policing: Valve wishes that you decouple endorsement from sales, which is a hugely radical thing. Free speech does not apply to private platforms. The game developers whose titles were banned could easily sell them elsewhere. But Valve has chosen to endorse them, so they have to take on any consequences.
mixedCase 8y ago
Does this mean adult content is now allowed on Steam?
kiki_jiki 8y ago
Great news, how can you not agree with that. I think Mark sums it up well: https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004484678047240192 https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004484678047240192 https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004510968234139648 https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004510968234139648
flukus 8y ago
I hope they still have some quality control to prevent things like malicious software, I like gated communities as long as I can get around the gates. Perhaps they can have some approval status that we can filter by.
ponzored 8y ago
This marks the death of any hope that Valve will ever manually curate the store. If they can't be bothered removing school shooter or hentai games, they will definitely never be bothered to remove games that are just plan bad. The best hope of cleaning up the store is to increase the Steam Direct fee to $500. This will remove the low-end junk that is clogging it up and allow more breathing space for legitimate commercial games. I don't see how having thousands of games which sell single digits worth of copies is beneficial for anyone - Valve, Game Devs, or Gamers. Valve should also have an annual clear out of games which have sold fewer than 50 copies.
- s_m_t 8y ago
  I'd pay for a good school shooter game. Pico's School was the game that practically put newgrounds on the map. One of the most popular Starcraft UMS RPG's was Highschool RPG, the school shooter was a popular character.
lifeformed 8y ago
> It means that the Steam Store is going to contain something that you hate, and don't think should exist. Unless you don't have any opinions, that's guaranteed to happen. But you're also going to see something on the Store that you believe should be there, and some other people will hate it and want it not to exist. I don't like the "both sides are the same" tone in this response. Imagine someone who makes an explicitly-racist-game-for-the-sake-of-being-racist. What kind of game would they "hate and not want to exist"? Probably like a game with feminist messaging or something. The implication is that somehow these two games are equal in speech value and counterbalance each other? It's basically saying: "There's awful shit here, but now YOU are allowed to say awful shit too!" I don't want to say awful shit. There's a difference between allowing a full range of opinions, and allowing garbage. This is a storefront. Nobody would bat an eye if Valve set a moderation policy with clear guidelines. It's normal for a store. Instead they just say, "screw it, literally anything not illegal is allowed." To be clear, I'm fine with a fairly loose policy and with controversial games, but please have SOME policy to weed out the useless bits. Now when a developer makes an honest game, they can watch it briefly blip by the "new releases" page as "Kill the Jews Simulator DLC #13934" floods the rest of the page. It's just another burden for honest developers who have to deal with their games getting diluted by shovelware; now it's diluted by horrifying shovelware.
- vmednis 8y ago
  The steam store is basically a monopoly by now. And that removes their right to be overly picky, in my opinion. They have full power to act as a censor and limit the right to free speech. If they weren't as big I'd agree with you, but now I feel like they should just follow the established norms of soceity and let anything that doesn't violate law in.
  - bodi 8y ago
    > the established norms of soceity and let anything that doesn't violate law in. I'm trying to think of any other app store or digital distribution platform that has taken this stand with the same voice Valve has. Frankly I perceive this reinforcement of policy as a credit to Valve's staunch independence more then any societal influence.
mxfh 8y ago
My main problem is with what they label as "controversial", by this defintion anything some fringe group see as not in line with their ideology is controversial. Just waiting for the first Westboro Baptist Church endorsed content.

38 points by mxfh 8y ago

growlist 8y ago

Please just make Half Life 3 :(

bytematic 8y ago
They released the script for it. Last I heard it is pretty dead.

nimish 8y ago

Ah, great, another company that wishes to profit off content while attempting to wash its hands of the implications of that content. Offering something for sale on a platform, or store, or "aggregator" as we're now calling it, is endorsement. If you take their money, you take the rest.

jstarfish 8y ago
I'm not understanding your objection with this. They distribute explicitly legal video games for a small take. They draw the line at supporting anything illegal. What are the implications that are so damning to you?
- nimish 8y ago
  Legality and morality and not the same. There are lots of things that are legal that are morally dubious or unethical: payday loans, for one. Just because the law allows it, doesn't make it a moral thing to do.
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
Obviously you aren't one of those, "I disagree with what you say but would fight to the death to protect your right to say it", people. Personally I applaud Steam for their willingness to let adults make their own decisions about what content they want to purchase and consume, rather than outsourcing that decisions to the loudest mobs. Given the nature of modern society I've no doubt that Steam will face attacks from many, like yourself, who would prefer that Valve act as the Thought Police. I'm hopeful that they have the backbone to stick with this policy and weather the storm.
- nimish 8y ago
  I am totally one of those people. My issue is with Valve attempting to wash their hands of any consequence of selling some of these games. If you take someone's money, you are endorsing their content. This is the exact opposite of thought policing: Valve wishes that you decouple endorsement from sales, which is a hugely radical thing. Free speech does not apply to private platforms. The game developers whose titles were banned could easily sell them elsewhere. But Valve has chosen to endorse them, so they have to take on any consequences.

mixedCase 8y ago

Does this mean adult content is now allowed on Steam?

kiki_jiki 8y ago

Great news, how can you not agree with that. I think Mark sums it up well: https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004484678047240192 https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004484678047240192 https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004510968234139648 https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1004510968234139648

flukus 8y ago

I hope they still have some quality control to prevent things like malicious software, I like gated communities as long as I can get around the gates. Perhaps they can have some approval status that we can filter by.

ponzored 8y ago

This marks the death of any hope that Valve will ever manually curate the store. If they can't be bothered removing school shooter or hentai games, they will definitely never be bothered to remove games that are just plan bad. The best hope of cleaning up the store is to increase the Steam Direct fee to $500. This will remove the low-end junk that is clogging it up and allow more breathing space for legitimate commercial games. I don't see how having thousands of games which sell single digits worth of copies is beneficial for anyone - Valve, Game Devs, or Gamers. Valve should also have an annual clear out of games which have sold fewer than 50 copies.

s_m_t 8y ago
I'd pay for a good school shooter game. Pico's School was the game that practically put newgrounds on the map. One of the most popular Starcraft UMS RPG's was Highschool RPG, the school shooter was a popular character.

lifeformed 8y ago

> It means that the Steam Store is going to contain something that you hate, and don't think should exist. Unless you don't have any opinions, that's guaranteed to happen. But you're also going to see something on the Store that you believe should be there, and some other people will hate it and want it not to exist. I don't like the "both sides are the same" tone in this response. Imagine someone who makes an explicitly-racist-game-for-the-sake-of-being-racist. What kind of game would they "hate and not want to exist"? Probably like a game with feminist messaging or something. The implication is that somehow these two games are equal in speech value and counterbalance each other? It's basically saying: "There's awful shit here, but now YOU are allowed to say awful shit too!" I don't want to say awful shit. There's a difference between allowing a full range of opinions, and allowing garbage. This is a storefront. Nobody would bat an eye if Valve set a moderation policy with clear guidelines. It's normal for a store. Instead they just say, "screw it, literally anything not illegal is allowed." To be clear, I'm fine with a fairly loose policy and with controversial games, but please have SOME policy to weed out the useless bits. Now when a developer makes an honest game, they can watch it briefly blip by the "new releases" page as "Kill the Jews Simulator DLC #13934" floods the rest of the page. It's just another burden for honest developers who have to deal with their games getting diluted by shovelware; now it's diluted by horrifying shovelware.

vmednis 8y ago
The steam store is basically a monopoly by now. And that removes their right to be overly picky, in my opinion. They have full power to act as a censor and limit the right to free speech. If they weren't as big I'd agree with you, but now I feel like they should just follow the established norms of soceity and let anything that doesn't violate law in.
- bodi 8y ago
  > the established norms of soceity and let anything that doesn't violate law in. I'm trying to think of any other app store or digital distribution platform that has taken this stand with the same voice Valve has. Frankly I perceive this reinforcement of policy as a credit to Valve's staunch independence more then any societal influence.

mxfh 8y ago

My main problem is with what they label as "controversial", by this defintion anything some fringe group see as not in line with their ideology is controversial. Just waiting for the first Westboro Baptist Church endorsed content.