Well, it makes sense BUT
If a game appears on Steam there are people who voted their interest in it. You don't like it? So what is the problem. There ARE other people who do
and
Q: I'm sure those games are only here because some trolls voted for them or the developer bribed people
A: Well the number of trolls is a lot smaller than the number of people doing NOTHING. If we would do our job this would be no problem at all. And no there really ARE people interested in those games (atleast most of them).
There are games (I am sure about three of them) that got to steam ONLY because bribes in form of free keys. Seriously, they are games that looks awfull (I'm not a graphic whore, honestly I can't care less about graphics but some games are beyond something you would call ugly), have almost zero to non existant story, and are basically just a mix of poorly recreated ideas thrown together into garbage can that someone called "Game". How do I know that? Back in the days when I added to steam everything I could I was looking for things like that, voting yes. Mechanism was easy - vote for my game, join the group, comment that you voted. After relase I will close the group and send you keys. That way games like Slaughtering Grounds or Forsaken Uprising get their way on steam. Honestly I don't belive that there were people who wanted to play that, and even if there were some, I can bet that group was too small to push the game on the steam. Third case was recent. It was some russian game, looked like it was created in paint, about cat abomination trying to survive in apocalyptic world. Dev was promising keys everywhere where he could (I think he even made a topic on SG) and game was greenlit in no time. Sadly, I can't remember the name, so I can't check if it actually was relased on steam.
But yeah, why I am writing this? I wanted to show you that there was games that managed to jump on steam in not fair way. Would they got relased on steam in normal process? I really don't think so.
Second thing - generally you are right, but valve should have at least some kind of quality control, to prevent devs from relasing broken, unfinished games. Sure, sure, we have refund NOW. But what about the past? Also, why create all the ruckus with hate waves and refunds when it could be simply avoided with someone from Valve actually trying to play that game for, let's say one hour. Something like that might have save us from things like recent case with game that was supposed to have 7 levels, but level 1 was designed in a way too prevent people from beating it. Some guys checked game files, and they found out that game actually have only one level. I mean come on, Steam should care about they own reputation. Imagine you have a big shop, would you let anyone sell their products there or would you at least look at them for 5 minutes to save your customers (that gives you money) from problems?
I think that kinda prooves one thing, that I also say from long time - community is broken (people that vote yes for free games, people that spawn hate on games for no good reason, devs that want to rip you off), and even more - it's toxic. Toxic af if you ask me, but that reaches way beyond steam no matter what platform they are using.
SteamGift site is a peacfull island of some great individuals in the middle of mad sea.
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Sums it up pretty nicely. Not sure, if the solution would be someone from Valve playing the game for an hour though, shady developers, would probably still find ways to make their game look good in such a quick testing. Maybe, a good approach would be to move the whole greenlight thingy to a diffrent market. Just like the community market for trading cards and in-game items is on a diffrent page. Then give users the choice, whether they want to see deals from the greenlight market on the front page of the steam Store, if they want only want to see those deals from there that have sold a certain number copies or if they don't want to get any greenlight deals at all. That way, developers could bribe and/or advertise their game all they want, if it's some generic piece of uselessness, it will most likely never move outside the greenlight market.
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Well it was just a quick idea, the final way of dealing with it would take a lot more thinking.
Your idea is also good but I think about other ways - first: clearer infos about how many votes you need to relase game and how no votes affect that; second: people from valve monitoring greenlight pages, immiadetelly removing games when devs would try to bribe people; third: take some user with good rep as a 'beta testers' to review greenlit games, but not to rate them but to check if they are finished and if they presents at least some kind of quality; fourth: making some kind time period for game to proove that it belongs to steam - for example three months. If after three months game wasn't uptadet / have almost only negative replies / is prooven a cash grab - it is removed.
I know this ideas need polishing and they also could be easily explited but I think there is a way to prevent cashgrabs from reaching steam. The only thing we actually need is a good will of valve but I don't belive we will ever got that.
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Well, let's use this post to answer. There are games that got on Steam in an unfair way but let's look on numbers here. How many games are on Steam? And how many got on there unfair? Just pull some random not really checked numbers: 4000 (should half accurate) and 40 (I think it is less but hard to chekc that one). That means 1 % of the games. Every scientist would be content with an error bar that small.
As for the giving out keys part. A longer time ago Valve made a statement in greenlight that developers giving out their keys for votes will have a harder time to get Greenlit. So if they notice the bribing is actually backfiring. If you know of such a case make somehow sure that Valve did notice that.
More infos is not always a good thing (actually it is). Okay, other way. If the developers have a clear check list of what they need to accomplish they have an even easier time to play the system. As soon as the have done everything they can say: Hey Valve we made it so greenlight us. This way Vale has still some freedom of choice.
The third one may be an interesting idea and counters one point carlica made above. A single employee playing a game for one hour is a bad solution. Maybe he is using a system which is for strange reasons not comptible with the game or he doesn't like it and abuse his position. You need more feedback and the way now is working although unsatisfying for some people. A smaller group may help but would still not give enough feedback probably.
And the fourth the belonging part is rather tricky. There are some niche games which are nicely produced but a lot of people will not like them leading to awful scores. You would need to read all reviews to get an accurate view. And where would you make the cut? 50 %, 30%.
Before I would have agreed with the problems but a lot of the arguments have lost weigth with the introduction of the (even rather uncomplicated) refund system.
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Allright, I completely agree with "first".
"Second" is already problematic, as it would probably just push the bribes further into
undercover, onto inofficial sites. Also what about hurting a competitor's project by spreading news that said competitor is bribing users to get greenlit?
"Third" is even more problematic, because it would give way too much power to some users, as you've said already, the community is toxic. I wouldn't trust some kiddo about telling me, whether the game I want to play is finished or not.
I'd agree with "fourth", if it wasn't for the fact, that even with a 3 months grace period, the main steam storefront would still be flooded with
a lot of useless new releases every day, making it harder for an average user to find the real good stuff. Also, when something gets removed that due to negative reviews and there's even one person who enjoys it nonetheless, there will be whining, cuz they can't buy it for their friends anymore and whatnot. So, I still think it would be a much better idea to move the whole greenlight thing to a dfferent market, where - once greenlit - peole can buy even the most crappy game if they desire, without ever bugging the ordinary steam user who just wats to find a good game on the front page. It should be made very clear that you do take a risk buying from there, but you might also find a hidden gem or two.
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I have a terrible problem with the phrasing in that last paragraph. As it stands now it implies to me that everything coming out from greenlight is not a good game and the "ordinary" user is not interested in those anyway. And what risk do you take by buying a game coming out of Greenlight? Maybe Early Access but that is not reduced to Greenlight. In fact there are more non-Greenlit games in it than the other way around. Also I don't find it harder to find the real good stuff. I find it easier compared to the Valve curated store.
A solution to your problem (as mentioned in the Q&A) might be to search for a curator who shares your interest and ignore the store front completely.
Although I understand your problem "a bit". I think 90 % of the AAA games are boring trash and I could safely browse a store without them in it but then again it doesn't bother me too much. There was once an interesting discussion about it and the most preferable solution for all of us would be a customizable store front. An exluce tag if you will say so. I don't want to ever see AAA/indie games and then like. But it is unlikely that Valve would do us this favor.
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I think the main problem is just the large number of games coming out of Greenlight. I was not implying that everything coming out from greenlight is not a good game, but there's some of those and for an "ordinary" user it's damn hard to tell.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do have the impression that there are a lot more Greenlight releases than there are releases of new AAA titles. So moving Greenlight into a seperate market would help to reduce the flood. Especially when, as I also suggested, the most successful titles get moved over to or shown in the regular store after a while. You're right, a customizable storefront would fuction pretty much in the same way. Exept that, knowing Steam, I fear they'd give us the choice to either turn off greenlit titles altogether or have them all.
I'd prefer seeing the most successful titles along with the other games and then still have the opportunity to browse greenlit titles when I feel like it.
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No need to correct you there. Of course there a lot more indie games in comparison to AAA. On the other hand the AAA games usually get more store presence since they have publisher power behind them.
For the two tiered stored. I don't like the idea too much. It would give elitists a chance to "fairly" discredit games. I think all games should have the same initial chance and not be looked down for their "origin".
And I like the large number. It is overall a better chance to find one game I'm interested it. But there is rarely a perfect solution. The customizable store front is the best idea I have heard in that discussion so far. If you are interested in the greenlit titles you can shortly change your settings and they would be than visible and vice versa.
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Well, they would have all the same chance: among other Greenlight titles. If they do well among the other Greenlight titles they eventually get shown in the regular store. There'd be nothing elitst or unfair about that process. Nobody selects or deceides which title gets shown in the regular store, it would automatic for those games that do well in on the greenlight market, and everyone would still have the full range of games available if they just take a look at both markets. On the other hand, turning off and on greenlight titles, as you suggested, still won't show me a selection of the "best" Greenlight games. And yes, I am aware, that the most successful - determined either by sales or reviews - titles may not always be the best titles, but let's just say that chances are good that the most successful ones are also the ones that most people will find interesting. In any case I find that solution much better than removing non succesful titles or letting curators or some select users deceide (as suggested by Kartyl).
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Doesn't Greenlight work on a simple basis of if enough people vote up, regardless of "not interested" votes, it will get lit? So even if 100 million users downvote it, if the dev bribes enough stupid little sods, it will still get to the store, no?
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It is actually a very interesting question. I did a little research and found this article: http://blog.gambrinous.com/2014/06/11/getting-your-game-greenlit-in-2014/
So how many Yes Votes do I need, anyway?
Valve uses more than just the number of yes votes you've accrued to select who they Greenlight, though exactly what criteria they use is a slight mystery, but getting into the Top 100 games on Greenlight certainly helps and should be your main goal. They even show you your 'percentage of the way to the Top 100' on your stats page. When I was running my campaign in April/May the line to make it into the top 100 was about 6,000 yes votes. Interestingly in January just before Valve started accepting so many more games it was about double that, so I expect that number will continue falling.
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So Valve uses a system only they know how it works and it apparently starts to favour simpler and simpler vote manipulation.
Seriously, is there something on Steam Valve is not slowly fucking up? I hate to be jumping on the "everything was better back then" ship, but Steam indeed seemed to function in a more usable way when it was a store + forum/screenshot showcase site, not this hodge-podge of gaming/social/movie/music/streaming/indie mess…
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I think you are right. It was better in past. Sadly, it's all powered by money. Release game, refund 90% of purchases still get some money, or waste time and work force on checking it, don't release it on steam and make no money? In this case, math is very simple ;/
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Noting your "4 years of service" badge, I'm going to cut you some slack on your rose tints. But truly, everything was not better way back then, far from it.
_02.gif "~")
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I have no idea what you mean. Steam is a Free 1.5 MB download
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Oh, that? Lets say I remember that Steam used to be nothing more but the single worst DRM ever devised by man for a new, very hyped, and utterly lacklusting game called Half-Life 2, where your disk version was only activated if you logged in online and Steam decrypted the files.
The problem was, internet coverage was still relatively low, and there was no way to unlock the game in any other way.
The amount of refunds issued were hilarious around here, and also the rate of people pirating the game with copied crack files because that was the only legal way them to play.
So yeah… I remember when Steam was the biggest pile of shit ever dumped on PC gamers. That's why it took me so many many years to finally register under my then-common internet alias and start actually using it. Apparently I managed to do so when Steam was in its prime, the least shitty in its history. And also one of the cheapest stores. I guess it all faded by now…
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it's quite obvious it was weak thought out process, that doesnt even punish developers for bribing
Now add people that barely have enough brain power to know how to use the platform and will upvote anything as long as it's a joke or a meme
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Actually the system does punish bribring as long as it is noticed. There has been an official statement by Valve about it.
And the problem like said before are not (only) the joke voters but the non-voters. If everyone would vote seriously they wouldn't have any weight at all.
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Never heard that from them.
I remember a post where they encouraged developers not to give their games for reasons of bribing and proceed to explain why, but even then they were just nicely asking instead of enforcing it has a rule.
If you havent yet, take a look at developers like Digital Homicide, they have never accomplished getting their games Greenlit without dirty tactics, seriously they have tried everything, Steam doesn't care, users dont care, not even sites like Steamgifts care.
So yes i would agree with you and i do like Greenlight, but as is, its too barebones to actually serve a purpose.
As Long as there are people voting for a 10 second joke or the chance of free keys there will be enough votes to pass, since you dont actually need much, on the other hand there are some games with interesting ideas that dont go anywhere.
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Didn't they put something in the FAQ about if you're caught giving away game copies in exchange for YES votes, it will only hinder your chances of being greenlit? Did I just dream that? It's possible. I'm very tired.
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And you know what I wish?
I wish you happy cake day Stuartalex! :D
Pick your cake ;)
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But Kerbals..I can't pick, I'll have to nom them all.
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Steam is still a curated store: By "Curators" and the community itself. If there are unsatisfying results we should first blame the community, us self. I for one, welcome the larger gates as there are coming a lot more interesting games to the store than two years before.
And a happy cake day if I am answering you anyway. Did you take a closer look to the image in the OP?
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There's at least 20 million people on Steam (for sure it's not "130 million accounts", because there are alt-accounts and people making account for single game to sell it after winning, real number of people on steam is much smaller, SteamSpy says there's barely 30 million people who has more than 4 games on Steam...).
That's not curating. That's anarchy.
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Anarchy is the absence of rules for the reason a community does not need them. They can behave themselves without them. So Anarchy on Steam would not function and there are rules (the need of interest and votes for instance). So it is more like a democracy. If people decide to not take part in it and they have (in my opinion) no right to complain about it.
I admit it is not a majority lead democrady but a lot of rather small minorities. And those people with less than 5 games aren't using the Store Front anyways. They come to Steam knowing already that one or two game the want to buy.
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Ok, fine, it's "controlled anarchy" :P
My point is, when you have 20 million people who decide about stuff, then you can't talk about curating - like you said, "lot of small minorities".
(that bit about 4 games was just in case someone say "it's not 20 million, it's 130 million people" - accounts with less than 4 games for sure don't care about that kind of stuff :P )
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I shall rephrase then. I wish Steam would curate their store so the more obvious scam artists would not get on there. Yeah I looked thanks I just don't have the time (or spare brain power) currently.
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Without proving my facts I would assume the number of scam artists makes far less than 1 % of all games. That is a superior quote and it will not get better with other methods. Also this argument has lost weight with the refund function. You still loose time though.
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who cares if those in store or not, noone will buy them anyway. Those gets voted on greenlight only by DEV multiaccounts/collectors (even they dont buy those, they just wait until its in bundle) / and peps whose got promised for a key on groupees/groups/sgift which never delivered by DEVs because "this is a special steam edition, not the same game which was advertised there". Problem with greenlight that from time to time they release like the TOP X amount from there, even if those got only 10 votes, and then the QQ starts that they dont sell their game for 100k+ copy lol but who the hell would buy another rpgmaker nonsense. There are a few exceptions tho, but 99% of the greenlighted games full of trash and noone buys them so i dont even understand when a DEV think about his/her retro pixel game awesome and deserves better sales than skyrim!
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Here is an interesting 2013 interview with GabeN describing why Steam changed from a curated store to a mostly open one.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/186168/Gabe_Newells_vision_for_Steam_More_choice_more_democracy_less_Greenlight.php
I agree with you completely, Adelion, in preferring that Steam be open and let consumers decide. I remember when Steam used to have to approve games before they would sell them, and there were some rejections that I was not happy about. Mostly adventure games, eg. a couple Daedalic titles that now ironically seem to be quite popular. Other smaller/niche genres also saw good games rejected, yet there was no shortage of crappy FPS's, lol.
But I can also understand why some people are not happy with the change. It's a mindset that's hard to change. I mean, if you want to buy a nice piece of jewelry, you know there are stores you can go to to pick from a curated selection of quality items, without having to wade through tons of strings of plastic beads. You come to expect a certain kind of buying experience that's different from, say, shopping for groceries. I think a lot of gamers see buying games as deserving of that kind of exclusive buying experience, and who's to say they're wrong? I can understand their frustration. They will eventually have to get used to it (or start getting their games elsewhere) and adjust to shopping on Steam as if it were a department store rather than a specialty shop.
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GabeN's direction was opening Steam and letting people create curated sub-stores. Adding curators was a step towards that. I hope to see this process continue.
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I think it really depends on how you use Steam. I never just randomly browse the store or visit the front page. I always search for a specific game because I heard about it somewhere. I hear about the really bad games only if Jim Sterling or TotalBiscuit makes a video about it. So I couldn't care less if bad games come to Steam but I can understand that people who like to visit the "All New Releases" or "Upcoming" page could get annoyed by that. For me it just means that I can get more small indie games on steam that maybe wouldn't be there without Greenlight. Even if just 1 out of 100 Greenlight games is good it's fine with me, under the assumption it wouldn't come to Steam without Greenlight, just because I will never see the 99 bad ones anyway. Even a lot of Kickstartes go through Greenlight just because they don't have a publisher and some old really bad shooter gets on Steam because they have a publisher (I sadly don't remember the name of that specific game I just remember that TB made a video about it).
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Hm, I think they way some YouTubers are reviewing may also be a problem. It is so much easier to get views by bashing some bad games instead of reviewing the okay and good ones. It gives people a wrong impression making them believe that this minority is a problem.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the early days of Greenlight curated like a whole mess of people aches for right now? I read somewhere that back then it wasn't enough for it just to be in the top 50 or something but there was a Valve employee that had final say? If that was true then that employee had a taste for crocks of crap. You had Afterfall Insanity (which got retsupurae'd), Towns (which was one of the cause celibre of the Early Access program), and Iron Soul (which got mocked by brutalmoose).
I completely agree with TC. I couldn't care less about Hatred, but if that means being able to have Croixleur and Freedom Planet as well then so be it.
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The optimal solution would be for Steam to automatically delist games designated as "Overwhelmingly Negative" in user reviews after a certain number of votes. At least the worst crud would vanish forever, and it would be based upon user consensus. This would still allow indie devs to get their games out without too much hassle.
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In theory those ideas sound good. But stuff like this is exploitable. There are people out there hating games for pretty stupid reason. This was they could gather and concentrate negative reviews in order to exclude games from Steam. As long as it is working and not harmful there should be little reason to not allow it. It the game is bad just refund it.
With an ever growing store it is necessary for the user to get accustomed to other ways of searching anyway.
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What about this game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/386870/ ?
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the goal of Steam is to make money, the goal of a game is to make money, if enough people buy crap, then crap will be there
nuff said
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Letting "bad" video games flood the market never hurt anything
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Still experimenting with different topics and looking where I get the most comments. Today's attempt: Unpopular stances. Woooo, text-wall
Now and then some a game appears on Steam "people" have the impression it shouldn't be there. In this moment they are taking out the pitchforks, attacking the developers, posting somewhere else to show just how corrupted everything is and also blaming Steam, especially the Greenlight process. They demand for Valve to get their act together and stop these games from getting on Steam and stopping the Greenlight process altogether. And I wonder why. In my (unpopular) opinion I think Valve should be as far from the selection process as possible and not moderate it all. The "moderation" should be done by the community in expressing our interests and NOT our disinterests.
You know you have everything in your hand yourself? If a game appears on Steam there are people who voted their interest in it. You don't like it? So what is the problem. There ARE other people who do. Do the math and check: the ratio of games you find interesting and you do not find interesting is the same as ever (it may have shifted slightly if you are a AAA "graphic whore", forgive the term). Since the Refund-function there are actually few reasons for Valve to moderate too much (one being the problem of a person adding harmful software on Steam).
Q&A section:
Q: I don't have the time to wade through all those awful games. Why do they have to be here?
A: Because someone has shown interest in them. If you want to spare time search a curator sharing your interests.
Q: But I'm not interested in them and did not vote for them. In fact I didn't vote for anything. Why are those games here?
A: It would be strange for you to be interested in anything. Just to pull a random number I think most people find less than 10 % of the game catalogue interesting. Luckily enough those 10 % are spread pretty far. And for the second part: You realize the problem?
Q: I'm sure those games are only here because some trolls voted for them or the developer bribed people
A: Well the number of trolls is a lot smaller than the number of people doing NOTHING. If we would do our job this would be no problem at all. And no there really ARE people interested in those games (atleast most of them).
Q: The game is broken and the dev will only scam my money. I know it
A: Then refund it. If you wish try to speak to the developer or make a forum post. Do it in a BEHAVED manner. Nobody takes people shouting "crap" and "scam" seriously. It will only hurt people and detoriate from the actual problems
Enough text. I think there are still some things left to say. Any opinions? I too think there are games with bad quality on Steam but since the start of Greenlight so much more interesting games have appeared so I'm glad for the system. Also I believe the curator and refund system are enough reason to also let minorty games on the platform.
TL,DR: The systems are in place and fine. The community may be broken.
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