Jimquisition: Air Control - A Steam Abuse Story

[Busard]

I've had a game i'm working on recently greenlit. We're very proud and hard working on it. But even us thought that is somehow of an easy process.

To be precise: we've been greenlit in less than a month. We're still very early in development and have something playable right now although still alpha, and we put up some few screenies and early vids. We didn't think we'd be accepted for months, thinking "Well, until that gets there, we'll have time to flesh out". But in less than a month we were greenlit.

While obviously i'm very happy about that, it makes me wonder what the hell steam is becoming. And how shit like this actually happens. It takes away a bit of the joy of being greenlit because when you see the other shit that's coming along the ride, you start to question, as a dev, if your product is actually good enough or you're just going along for the ride. I would've actually been more relieved actually if our game took a little longer to get accepted, giving us time to prove ourselves, rather than getting on so quickly.

And this last piece doesn't make me less shaky about it

Why did you put it on Greenlight if it was so early in development and whats going to happen if something happens and the game can't be finished?

This highlights an easily fixable issue with Greenlight, games are put on Greenlight that are ether far from finished or otter crap an still get through. The simple solution is: to even be eligible for Greenlight a game should ether be available elsewhere or have a working demo available. It's a simple solution that would prevent a lot of bad games from getting though Greenlight.

We asked beforehand and were suggested to by different people to put it on greenlight as soon as possible.

Ourselves, as a team, thought it would take month for us to be greenlit at all, but we just wanted to be at the ready when we'd be closer to release, like maybe even have a demo or something. Basically we were all thinking "Well in a few months we'll have more gameplay to show, some stuff to send out, etc etc". We wanted to be a bit on the safe side.

Turns out for us the process was just way way quicker than we initially thought. We were happy, although baffled.

Now being greenlit doesn't actually mean anything, except we'll be able to to get our game published on steam when the time comes or have early access if we ever decide to do stuff like that, although unlikely unless we have something VERY stable and fun to show.

But the ease to be greenlit is mostly what I wanted to point out. It only took us a few screenshots (although apparently our art style turned out pretty damn well, which made people vote for us a lot. We ended up in the top 25), a pre alpha vid and a nice text presentation.

Again, we're happy that we're greenlit but other stuff that i'd consider to be way more dubious gets as easy as a time to get up there too

 

[Aardvaarkman]

So because you can't make a system that's 100% effective, don't bother?

That's not how things work in real life.

But your claim that it would harm anything is PURE SPECULATION and not likely true at all. You're worried that a "good game" might "get censored."

As opposed to getting garbage out of Steam that we KNOW exists.

Wow. Just last week you were saying how releasing DLC harms the games games industry. You were also saying how companies shouldn't be allowed to edit their games, and should have to sell 100% of the content developed up to the point of release.

Contradict yourself much?

 

[Alterego-X]

Yeah, cause not talking about issues is a sure way to get them fixed.

Actually in this case, it is. The only issue in this case is that reviewers keep digging up obscure buried games just to rant about them and make them go viral based on their badness.

The PC was an open platform for decades, we had plenty of games like Big Rigs, before a single company tried to become the umbrella publisher for all of them, and giving surface for nontroversies about how someone should Do Something.

 

[Thanatos2k]

But your claim that it would harm anything is PURE SPECULATION and not likely true at all. You're worried that a "good game" might "get censored."

As opposed to getting garbage out of Steam that we KNOW exists.

You can always compare the games released on PC, too the ones released on consoles. r even just the ones released on Steam to the ones released on Green Man Gaming. The recent indie revolution with hundreds of great games, couldn't have happened on a more closed system, as it is evident from the fact that it really DIDN't happen.

Uh......what? First of all, there are not hundreds of "great" indie games out there, unless you've somehow redefined the word great. A mere handful of great games come out every year. Good games? Decent games? Maybe.

Please list one of these "great" games that could not have come out on Steam if it had minimum quality requirements.

And please learn what freedom of speech is, and how it doesn't apply in the slightest bit to the products a company chooses to allow to be sold in its store.

Yeah, neither does freedom of religion. Please don't bring up "real life" if you can't even realize the difference between a gaming discussion and it's analogies in real life counterparts being compared.

What in god's name are you going on about? You're the one who started rambling about freedom of speech, like it had ANYTHING to do with what we're talking about here.

 

[Rad Party God]

Yup, figured you'd put a Jimquisition about this piece of manure passed off as "software", much less as a "videogame".

It's a bit worrying that Steam is becoming yet another Google Play or AppStore, where for every good or decent game, you need to dig through hundreds upon hundreds of bad ones.

Granted, it's still not bad as those two, but GOG already has quality assurance themselves, if a game doesn't work, they outright give your money back, heck, even fucking Origin has refunds!, Steam however, tough shit if you bought an unplayable mess.

 

[weirdee]

Wow, this is like, Desura levels of bad. Go home Steam yer drunk...

 

[Alterego-X]

Please list one of these "great" games that could not have come out on Steam if it had minimum quality requirements

Katwa Shoujo.

What in god's name are you going on about? You're the one who started rambling about freedom of speech, like it had ANYTHING to do with what we're talking about here.

You said "because you can't make a system that's 100% effective, don't bother? That's not how things work in real life."

I replied by pointing out a real life examples of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, which are two examples of things working exactly like this in real life too when we realize that our specific ideas of "good" might be conflicting and we fall back to freedom instead of imposing one of the possible regulations and hoping that it will be as close to 100% effective as possible.

 

[LoneWolf83]

Snip

Why did you put it on Greenlight if it was so early in development and whats going to happen if something happens and the game can't be finished?

This highlights an easily fixable issue with Greenlight, games are put on Greenlight that are ether far from finished or otter crap an still get through. The simple solution is: to even be eligible for Greenlight a game should ether be available elsewhere or have a working demo available. It's a simple solution that would prevent a lot of bad games from getting though Greenlight.

We asked beforehand and were suggested to by different people to put it on greenlight as soon as possible.

Ourselves, as a team, thought it would take month for us to be greenlit at all, but we just wanted to be at the ready when we'd be closer to release, like maybe even have a demo or something. Basically we were all thinking "Well in a few months we'll have more gameplay to show, some stuff to send out, etc etc". We wanted to be a bit on the safe side.

Turns out for us the process was just way way quicker than we initially thought. We were happy, although baffled.

Now being greenlit doesn't actually mean anything, except we'll be able to to get our game published on steam when the time comes or have early access if we ever decide to do stuff like that, although unlikely unless we have something VERY stable and fun to show.

But the ease to be greenlit is mostly what I wanted to point out. It only took us a few screenshots (although apparently our art style turned out pretty damn well, which made people vote for us a lot. We ended up in the top 25), a pre alpha vid and a nice text presentation.

Again, we're happy that we're greenlit but other stuff that i'd consider to be way more dubious gets as easy as a time to get up there too

That does make sense. Your original post does highlight how Greelight can be abused. I dabbled in game design for a little while and I have a few things that could be considered pre-alpha, I could make some very touched-up screenshots of one of those, go through greenlight, then sell a pre-alpha for ten bucks on early-access so I could say "it's early-access" when people complain, and then never work on it ever again, duping people out of ten bucks. Given my finical situation part of my brain is saying "do it!", I'm not because I have morals and a conscience but others could and are probably in the process of ding it.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Please list one of these "great" games that could not have come out on Steam if it had minimum quality requirements

Katwa Shoujo.

And what about it would fail to meet a minimum quality requirement?

What in god's name are you going on about? You're the one who started rambling about freedom of speech, like it had ANYTHING to do with what we're talking about here.

You said "because you can't make a system that's 100% effective, don't bother? That's not how things work in real life."

I replied by pointing out a real life examples of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion, which are two examples of things working exactly like this in real life too when we realize that our specific ideas of "good" might be conflicting and we fall back to freedom instead of imposing one of the possible regulations and hoping that it will be as close to 100% effective as possible.

Freedom of speech is not a system that works 100% effectively, nor is speech 100% free. So if you were trying to use it as an example to disprove what I was saying you picked a terrible one.

You were the one who suggested that since there's no way to come up with quality requirements that would let every game in, that such an endeavor is worthless. I responded that such a thing is wrong because that's not how such systems work in real life. For example, just because cars occasionally crash and kill people does not mean that cars must be completely safe before we'd let them on the road.

What we have here is a road with no traffic signs. Most cars are playing by the rules, but we have some, like this game, that are playing bumper cars. Some regulation is necessary.

 

[Abnaxis]

So, once again we have the pitchfork and torches out, demanding that the heathen developers leave Steam...

So, for all the people who want Steam to filter content, can you give one consistently enforceable policy, with little to no inherent subjectivity, the would prevent Air Control from being on the store, but still allow Surgeon Simulator 2013? I had great, great fun with that game, because it was terrible.

Copyright doesn't count--if we've learned anything from YouTube by now, it's that content delivery systems should not be proactively engaged in filing copyrights. It's not Valve's job to enforce the DMCA, nor should they try to.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

Actually the point was. Misleading or incorrect information was there. The information has now since been changed to no longer be misleading or incorrect. The old information is the equivalent of an error. When a news paper prints an error...and then prints a retraction. That's pretty much it. The devs have more or less done the equivalent of a retraction. Which is vaguely responsible. They saw their information was misleading or inappropriate and they altered it to be less.

This statement is much better than the poopy diaper.
[sub][sub]Side note about the old comment.
I'd say it depends on how old the person in question is. If they are 21 and 20 years ago they were in a poopy diaper, that makes sense.
<.< If they're 41......They may need to explain....[/sub][/sub]

That said, the dev was willing to lie about their product and continued to silence those who brought up criticism about the game.

The very least we can ask is that the information on the games page should be trustworthy.
I don't see how devs being able to say whatever they want about their game and being able to delete comments they don't like helps the consumers.

As for your statement. words are cheap.. easily said and easily taken back. IRS usually don't give two licks about what you say so long as they get their money. If not... much like the mafia or pimp... there will be a 'visitation'.

xD Don't worry. They have nothing on me.

They have enough to worry about since they apparently owe money to themselves.
Only 1% of them, true, but that's like saying 1% of vegans eat veal with milk.

 

[weirdee]

So, once again we have the pitchfork and torches out, demanding that the heathen developers leave Steam...

So, for all the people who want Steam to filter content, can you give one consistently enforceable policy, with little to no inherent subjectivity, the would prevent Air Control from being on the store, but still allow Surgeon Simulator 2013? I had great, great fun with that game, because it was terrible.

Copyright doesn't count--if we've learned anything from YouTube by now, it's that content delivery systems should not be proactively engaged in filing copyrights. It's not Valve's job to enforce the DMCA, nor should they try to.

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

 

[Abnaxis]

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

Naming the game "Surgeon Simulator" is about as fraudulent as it gets, depending on how you look at it. Every single negative review for the game came from someone who bought it expecting an actual simulation of performing surgery, and they would have killed the game based on "fraud".

I know Air Control is a crappy game, and not going for the same irony Surgeon Simulator is, but the line between them is a thin, fuzzy, gray one.

 

[Thanatos2k]

So, once again we have the pitchfork and torches out, demanding that the heathen developers leave Steam...

So, for all the people who want Steam to filter content, can you give one consistently enforceable policy, with little to no inherent subjectivity, the would prevent Air Control from being on the store, but still allow Surgeon Simulator 2013? I had great, great fun with that game, because it was terrible.

Copyright doesn't count--if we've learned anything from YouTube by now, it's that content delivery systems should not be proactively engaged in filing copyrights. It's not Valve's job to enforce the DMCA, nor should they try to.

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

That would also have kept Aliens Colonial Marines off Steam, and I think we can all agree that would have been a good thing.

Naming the game "Surgeon Simulator" is about as fraudulent as it gets, depending on how you look at it. Every single negative review from came from someone who bought it expecting a simulator.

Names are not and never will be descriptive. "I went to see Man of Steel and he wasn't actually made of steel! I want a refund!" Sounds stupid? Same thing here.

 

[LeQuack_Is_Back]

Stuff like this doesn't happen because Steam lacks quality control, but because Steam lacks a return policy. If Valve weren't so fucking determined to never let go of a single cent they got their grubby hands on, people would just return games like this 10 minutes after purchase and the scammers would stop making them because they'd get no money out of it.

Aye, depending on Valve's policy, either the makers would get nothing, or the makers would get some money before the reviews roll in, and Valve would eat the lost revenue from people demanding refunds, which would push them to implement some quality control. Either way, the problem solves itself.

 

[weirdee]

what about advertising fraud? that's probably the primary issue here.

Naming the game "Surgeon Simulator" is about as fraudulent as it gets, depending on how you look at it. Every single negative review from came from someone who bought it expecting a simulator.

I know Air Control is a crappy game, and not going for the same irony Surgeon Simulator is, but the line between them is a thin, fuzzy, gray one.

I believe that issue is with surgeon simulator's advertising, which would, if there was a standard, have to put in something about it being satire on the page. It wouldn't be much to give up for not having utter garbage scams around.

 

[Abnaxis]

Names are not and never will be descriptive. "I went to see Man of Steel and he wasn't actually made of steel! I want a refund!" Sounds stupid? Same thing here.

There's a difference between being non-descriptive and being deliberately counter-factual. The name "Surgeon Simulator" is deliberately misleading for the purposes of irony--the game is quite obviously far, far from even approximating a simulation. That's the joke.

But from another perspective the game is "advertizing" itself as a simulation when it quite clearly isn't one. That is the definition of false advertizing.