Jimquisition: Air Control - A Steam Abuse Story

[Abnaxis]

Again, names are one thing. Marketing descriptions are another. This is the description for Surgeon Simulator on Steam:

"Surgeon Simulator 2013 is a darkly humorous over-the-top operation sim game where players become Nigel Burke, a would-be surgeon taking life into his own shaky hands, performing life-saving surgical maneuvers on passive patients."

See the difference?

That's patently ridiculous. From a marketing standpoint, what you name your product is THE most influential factor in how the public is going to perceive it. If I make a game, and call it "Helicopter Pilot 2014," you can bet your ass I expect people to come in wanting to fly helicopters. It is just as significant, if not more significant, than a little blurb people only see after a customer clicks to the page, having already read the title and formed an impression of what the game is about.

And Surgeon Simulator is as much a simulator as Air Control is a flight simulator. Admitted, Surgeon Simulator does admit that it is a farce somewhere in the marketing materials, but the fact is both titles are deliberately misleading.

Why does it have to lack subjectivity?

I support filtering Steam's content, but I believe it should be done subjectively. I'm not sure why you think objectivity is required. Humans aren't objective beings, we aren't algorithms. Games are a creative field, and should be judged subjectively, not objectively.

It needs to have objectivity because otherwise many products will never be made, to say nothing of whether they are rejected or not. If you are a prospective indy, spending hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars (minimum) to make a game, do you really think you're going to do anything that might remotely run afoul of of the restraints people are advocating?

And if the rules aren't clear--crystal clear--the risk goes up by orders of magnitude. If they are subjective, you can't know if the reviewer you get will put his stamp on your product or toss it out the windows because he's having a bad day. So you'll play it safe. And Steam loses all the sales to niche audiences who never get to see the game they want to play.

It's like lawsuit-phobia--I can tell you from professional experience, that 99% of every CYA maneuver companies engage in to avoid lawsuits are completely unnecessary. However, everybody knows of that one case, where the subjective judge was completely off their rocker and awarded a ridiculous settlement, and the ambiguity pushes all the corporations into paranoia. And from what I've seen, the world has lost out on a lot of great ideas because of it.

Nothing censors creativity worse than doubt.

 

[Abnaxis]

Oops duplicate

 

[Mr. Q]

Jesus Christ, Steam, where the fuck is your brain?! Earth: Year 2066 was one thing, but to allow a shit game like Air Control go unchecked, put it in your online store, and allowing its douche-bag developer to get away with murder is even worse. Get off your lazy asses and do something to save your business from these scummy hacks.

 

[EyeReaper]

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

Katwa Shoujo.

You know, I really hate to butt in on other people's arguments (not that it ever stops me) but I do feel the need to point out that Katawa Shoujo is and never will be on Steam, so this was kinda a poor example.

I would have used Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. A game that, freshly bought on Steam, is more likely than not going to be completely unplayable in it's vanilla state.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

The end result would be Steam telling people what they should be playing and yet another reason not to use steam, which is not what steam wants.

It's not so much a matter of Steam telling people what they "should" be playing, but rather, getting rid of rubbish that is ruining Steam's reputation.

It's this kind of game that is a much bigger reason not to use Steam. And especially Steam allowing these lying assholes control over the comments left by reviewers. That's a major turn-off for anyone who wants to seek any kind of honest opinion about the games on STeam, knowing that these scammers can control what's posted in the forums.

How is Steam being full of crap like Air Control good for Steam?

Because for some people Air Control is fun, and they want to buy it on Steam. And so Valve benefits from selling people something they want to buy.

I highly doubt that enough people would enjoy Air Control that it outweighs the damage done to Steam's reputation. Having a bunch of crap in the store is a major disincentive to people buying stuff on Steam. I know that I don't visit Steam much anymore, because it is so much of an effort wading through all the crap. So, they are losing plenty of my money.

In any case, the masochists that want to "enjoy" crap like this can go and find it themselves elsewhere. It's not the kind of thing you'd expect on a major store like Steam. All this is doing is pissing off regular customers. Do you really think there is any significant paying audience for broken games like Air Control?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Is it? How is a monopoly and lack of competition good for the market?

They get more than enough competition from piracy to motivate them to stay cheap and convenient. More vendrs beyond that is plain redundant.

Piracy isn't "competition" as such - as piracy is not taking marketshare or making money from the selling of games.

So, you're perfectly happy having the fate of game sales in one company's hands? What if they go under, or your account is banned? You'll be left with no other options, and they will be able to screw you completely.

If you believe this, then I suppose you also must believe that the Apple App Store is good for gaming, as it's the dominant vendor of mobile games?

Exactly. Any proof of the opposite?

I think it has good and bad aspects. Would you really be happy if Apple was the only vendor to purchase your games from?

Meanwhile, indies are doing quite well on closed platforms like Sony's PSN and Apple's store.

At least the ones that get to be released. Open platforms will always spearhead the most potential for new ideas as well as for failures. Wasn't Minecraft just recently finally ported to the PSN? And still not even to Steam?

But Steam isn't an open platform. They do have their own rules about what is and isn't allowed. The only truly open platform for retailing games is to sell direct to the consumer. There are no other open platforms for game retailing.

If they start kicking indies off of their closed system, Steam will see more Minecrafts and less Rusts, which means much less revenue for them, and the only thing to gain for it is the increased approval of Jimquisition audiences (who are not just going to abandon the whole market anyways).

I never said anything about "kicking indies" off Steam. I'm talking about kicking shitty games off, whether they be by indies or otherwise. Not kicking indie developers as a whole off.

To keep defending that "they are still free to speak", is a really bad way of showing that you are really aware of the difference between the meanings of being censored by a particular platform, and being restricted in one's free speech.

Or that you don't understand what censorship means. If I make a line of homemade jackets, I'm not being censored if The Gap chooses not to sell them for me.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

It needs to have objectivity because otherwise many products will never be made, to say nothing of whether they are rejected or not. If you are a prospective indy, spending hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars (minimum) to make a game, do you really think you're going to do anything that might remotely run afoul of of the restraints people are advocating?

That's only an issue if Steam is the only player in the market. If Steam rejects it, then another company can sell the game. Address the real problem - Steam having too much influence - not the symptoms.

Steam already has subjective reasons for not selling some games, so this "problem" already exists. What would an "objective" criteria for a "good game" look like, anyway?

 

[Darknacht]

The end result would be Steam telling people what they should be playing and yet another reason not to use steam, which is not what steam wants.

It's not so much a matter of Steam telling people what they "should" be playing, but rather, getting rid of rubbish that is ruining Steam's reputation.

It's this kind of game that is a much bigger reason not to use Steam. And especially Steam allowing these lying assholes control over the comments left by reviewers. That's a major turn-off for anyone who wants to seek any kind of honest opinion about the games on STeam, knowing that these scammers can control what's posted in the forums.

How is Steam being full of crap like Air Control good for Steam?

Because for some people Air Control is fun, and they want to buy it on Steam. And so Valve benefits from selling people something they want to buy.

I highly doubt that enough people would enjoy Air Control that it outweighs the damage done to Steam's reputation. Having a bunch of crap in the store is a major disincentive to people buying stuff on Steam. I know that I don't visit Steam much anymore, because it is so much of an effort wading through all the crap. So, they are losing plenty of my money.

In any case, the masochists that want to "enjoy" crap like this can go and find it themselves elsewhere. It's not the kind of thing you'd expect on a major store like Steam. All this is doing is pissing off regular customers. Do you really think there is any significant paying audience for broken games like Air Control?

It only ruins their reputation with dumb asses that think that Steam has ever been a good place to figure what games to buy, Steam has always been a shit place to research games and I would have though people would have realized that by now. Valve really should be mediating their own shit and not letting the devs do it but that is in no way a new problem. Also letting people sell what ever they want in a store with effectively infinite space does not hurt anyone, at least not anyone with a brain, as long as the product does actually sell, and its not presented in a deceptive way. Air Control's description and the dev comments are deceptive and should be fixed by Valve but anyone who takes the over the top claims seriously after watching the trailer or looking at the screen shots is an idiot. When I go to Amazon I don't expect them to have tested every product and made sure that its something that a large number of people will like. I don't demand Amazon remove Sharknado for being a shitty movie, I don't see why Air Control should be removed because a lot of people don't like it, just don't buy it, I personally think its quite funny to play.

 

[Jofe]

I can't say I ever recall seeing this on the steam front page... like ever. I actually had to do a name search just to find this on steam.

I stumbled upon this somehow, can't remember how though. I think I was browsing items under 10 dollars but not sure.

Anyway I remember seeing the name and thinking that it was some sort of air traffic controller simulator so went to see. And man I saw crap from the get go, even the supposed bullshots are bad (though at the time didn't know they were fake) and the whole description seriously casted doubts on me. Flight simulator X looks a lot better than that and that was what? 8 years ago, maybe more, can't remember when it came out. And the whole screen shots claiming realistic mode made me facepalm.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Nice to see, yet again, people are making no shortage of excuses for the developers. Look, I get that consumer responsibility is very much a thing, but shouldn't the person selling the crap or being dishonest while selling it be held accountable too? And anyway, how does the whole "do your research" argument hold any weight when the developer is actively removing criticism and falsifying praise? Are they STILL blameless when you buy their product based on lies and misinformation?

Honestly, eventually we have to stop putting all of the blame on the customer and say "actually, you know what, this is unacceptable; not only does this pass the boundaries of subjective quality, being undeniably trash, your dishonesty, thievery of copyrighted material and censorship of criticism goes beyond the pail, and should not be sold for actual money".

 

[TheSanityAssassin]

I can see this is one of those "it doesn't say anywhere that the coffee is hot - give me all your money." situations.

 

[InfamousDS]

Unmitigated trash is bad. You can argue that having trash in the park makes the grass look greener, but it still doesn't change the fact that sooner or later the grass WILL die because of that trash.

I'm a programmer and as part of my training I had to take website and user-interface design courses. The one truth that is universal to good design is informative minimalism. Convey as much information in 5 seconds that you can with as little on screen as possible, because users will not devote more time than that in passing. We can all deny that we don't do this, but that's just how the brain works and we have to consciously decide to investigate further past those 5 seconds.

Which brings me back to my first statement. Trash like Air Control on Steam takes away from those 5 seconds by taking the place of another game which may be more deserving of the passing glance. Having a cluttered or overpopulated store inhibits purchasing by creating information overload and/or decision paralysis, which is bad design. Steam is better than that, which is why they need QA and QC to function. With AAA taking up spaces just by existing, real estate is extremely valuable to indies. Sure its good for a laugh to have bad games and makes the other games nearby look much better by comparison, but sooner or later the trash will choke the grass and we will all lose something valuable.

 

[Darknacht]

Nice to see, yet again, people are making no shortage of excuses for the developers. Look, I get that consumer responsibility is very much a thing, but shouldn't the person selling the crap or being dishonest while selling it be held accountable too? And anyway, how does the whole "do your research" argument hold any weight when the developer is actively removing criticism and falsifying praise? Are they STILL blameless when you buy their product based on lies and misinformation?

Honestly, eventually we have to stop putting all of the blame on the customer and say "actually, you know what, this is unacceptable; not only does this pass the boundaries of subjective quality, being undeniably trash, your dishonesty, thievery of copyrighted material and censorship of criticism goes beyond the pail, and should not be sold for actual money".

There are plenty of bad review of the game on steam its not like they are being removed. The argument most people are making is that it should not be removed from the store not they Steam should not fix the problem of deceptive descriptions and dev moderation of the forums.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Nice to see, yet again, people are making no shortage of excuses for the developers. Look, I get that consumer responsibility is very much a thing, but shouldn't the person selling the crap or being dishonest while selling it be held accountable too? And anyway, how does the whole "do your research" argument hold any weight when the developer is actively removing criticism and falsifying praise? Are they STILL blameless when you buy their product based on lies and misinformation?

Honestly, eventually we have to stop putting all of the blame on the customer and say "actually, you know what, this is unacceptable; not only does this pass the boundaries of subjective quality, being undeniably trash, your dishonesty, thievery of copyrighted material and censorship of criticism goes beyond the pail, and should not be sold for actual money".

There are plenty of bad review of the game on steam its not like they are being removed. The argument most people are making is that it should not be removed from the store not they Steam should not fix the problem of deceptive descriptions and dev moderation of the forums.

Just because the developer doesn't spend every hour of the day deleting criticism doesn't mean s/he never has. Who knows, maybe they only just learned what the Streisand effect is.

Also, why shouldn't it be removed from the store if the developers can't handle being honest about their product, and goes against even Valve's lax rules? Or are you talking about in general?

 

[Darknacht]

Unmitigated trash is bad. You can argue that having trash in the park makes the grass look greener, but it still doesn't change the fact that sooner or later the grass WILL die because of that trash.

I'm a programmer and as part of my training I had to take website and user-interface design courses. The one truth that is universal to good design is informative minimalism. Convey as much information in 5 seconds that you can with as little on screen as possible, because users will not devote more time than that in passing. We can all deny that we don't do this, but that's just how the brain works and we have to consciously decide to investigate further past those 5 seconds.

Which brings me back to my first statement. Trash like Air Control on Steam takes away from those 5 seconds by taking the place of another game which may be more deserving of the passing glance. Having a cluttered or overpopulated store inhibits purchasing by creating information overload and/or decision paralysis, which is bad design. Steam is better than that, which is why they need QA and QC to function. With AAA taking up spaces just by existing, real estate is extremely valuable to indies. Sure its good for a laugh to have bad games and makes the other games nearby look much better by comparison, but sooner or later the trash will choke the grass and we will all lose something valuable.

Thats why steam needs to redesign their main page and build a decent recommendations system for it. If you look at most good digital store fronts they are filled with things they think you may like based on your browsing history/stuff you've rated, the exception seems to be video game distributor, such as steam, that seem to be a little slow and have not yet realized that people are more likely to make a perchance of an item, that they had not already decided to by before they loaded the sight, if you show them an item they are more likely to want rather than a selection of new, popular, and featured items that they care nothing about.

Just because the developer doesn't spend every hour of the day deleting criticism doesn't mean s/he never has. Who knows, maybe they only just learned what the Streisand effect is.

Also, why shouldn't it be removed from the store if the developers can't handle being honest about their product, and goes against even Valve's lax rules? Or are you talking about in general?

There are a continuous stream of bad reviews going back to May 9th and the vast majority of the reviews are bad so if the dev is removing negative reviews they are doing a terrible job of it. Valve just needs to stop letting the devs have full rain of the Steam community hub for their games, this is incredibly unprofessional and would fix many of the problems of deception. And Steam should pay more attention to flagged deceptive descriptions, videos, and screen shots.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Same shit, different week.
I'm expecting this to become more frequent, at least until the dumbfuck consumer base learns to stop buying games blindly, or until big daddy Steam gets up and holds their hand for them.

 

[Spearmaster]

Well buyer beware I guess. Honestly I think steam should remain the way it is. If you start policing games where does it end? If someone buys a game these days without watching a third party game play video they get what they deserve. I honestly don't know a single person that will drop money on a game in steam based on the developer's description and screenshots alone, unless they are familiar with them already. I am in favor of requiring more votes for green light though.

The freedom of steam is a double edged sword.

 

[Therumancer]

I have to admit I'm a bit shocked. For a second I was considering playing Devil's advocate, thinking this was some game with a really quirky concept or something, looking at the plane flying through what seems to be a cave full of spikes, and the bones and vicera (badly rendered) filling the plane. I'm a fan of horror games and though "well, maybe this is about a plane going through a portal to hell or something, and it was a high concept work by developers that didn't have skill to pull it off and were performing a labor of love"... but no, it's nothing like that in presentation, so I can't even argue an amateur game maker learning and releasing a cheap product... especially since this is apparently not the first problem with "Killjoy".

I am shocked it wasn't pulled yet, I do have to wonder what STEAM is thinking, they can't be oblivious to the issues because they get constant criticisms, and the garbage and shovelware is constant. I mean cripes, these guys didn't even have a cool, offbeat, idea of the "WTF" school. It's pretty much being presented as a "full plane" simulator.

At any rate, I think we might have a candidate to invoke for "worst game ever made". Or at least "worst flight simulator".

If this is a joke, the devs should understand totally screwing people isn't funny. Things like "Goat Simulator" kind of show how to do it right.

 

[Darknacht]

If this is a joke, the devs should understand totally screwing people isn't funny. Things like "Goat Simulator" kind of show how to do it right.

Go look at the games steam page before you judge how much you think its screwing people, its very obvious that its a joke even if its a bad one and its actually funny to play and laugh at. The dev really should not be lying and censoring people though I suspect that he is doing it for kicks and attention more than anything else, after all if people like Jim did not freak out about the game than no one would know about it. I suspect steam has not pulled it yet because its clearly a joke and some people do enjoy playing the absurd game. The bigger problem isn't that Steam is not pulling the game or that he is trolling his customers but that steam gives devs the ability to censor people and that they ignore reports of deceptive game descriptions(although this game putting "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!" as its description really isn't any more deceptive what many big budget games do).

Looking back at what was left uncensored by dev, there is plenty of negative stuff posted about the game being shit and needing to be taken down that did not get removed like Jims videos and what not did. Its quite possible that the dev specifically censored things that he thought would piss people off enough to get videos made about.