Jimquisition: Air Control - A Steam Abuse Story

[Bindal]

Jim, regarding the storepage claiming the game is a simulation - the blue thing, that's USER-CREATED tags, nothing the devs added. That can be anything from "Economy Manager" over "Port" to even things like "Bag Throwing Simulator" (Payday 2 had that - and yes, it was a joke)
But it is part of the games in the "Simulation"-genre. So, you showed wrong evidence for the right accusation.

Just pointing that one out.

 

[Halla Burrica]

I just checked Steam, and yup this goddamn abomination is still there!

 

[Voltano]

Good episode Jim, products like these should be openly criticized.

However... I wonder if this is the whole Feminist-Youtube-Celebrity-that-shall-not-be-named person. The person you talked about in a Jimquisition a few years back (i.e. this one [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6264-Anita-Sarkeesian-The-Monster-Gamers-Created]) that was only a minor speck in the Internet world, but was blown up because some much hatred was directed at the source-that-shall-not-be-named.

I agree with you that "Air Control" is a bad game, but I only heard about this game by visiting your channel and told by you that it is a bad game. This encouraged me to look on the Steam forum to see if anyone else has a similar opinion, and I did found a few of those posts highlighted here. Now I know that a game's quality is ones own personal views -- even a crappy one like this, and that means I would have to purchase and play the game to fully experience how bad it is.

I'm not going to do that. I can see from your Youtube videos, here, and others that it isn't worth $6 bucks. However, who else is going to stop where I am? How much attention is being drawn to this game for being bad, when it only makes other people get curious in how bad this game is?

Where I disagree on this video is that "Air Control", while a bad game, is not very harmful. Yeah it was a scam, but a scam only works when it gets attention. I never saw it on Steam and I would have been blind to this game if it were not the attention in how bad it is. NOW this game has attention, there might be more purchases, more anger, and more vile words thrown around.

I guess I'm worried that all of this attention towards "Air Control" will make other people question on whether this is a bad game. They might see it as the next "Deadly Premonition" that it might be "so bad it is good" game. This encourages more purchases and more victims from this con-artist. Just my two cents.

 

[Tentheria]

Jim, regarding the storepage claiming the game is a simulation - the blue thing, that's USER-CREATED tags, nothing the devs added

See above the blue tag "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!"

 

[Chris Slime]

I am actually considering these days of submitting a game that just takes you to a screen that says "If you can see this steam QA has failed you" and sell it for $9.99, just to see if it goes though.

Also the description of air control is nothing short of amazing. "Air Control is a new gen airplane simulator. It is the first airplane game, where plane compartment is visible." and "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!" That is what it says RIGHT NOW!

 

[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

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

YAY PC MASTER RACE! Yeah, im joking. Seriously, steam needs quality control, or demos and trailers so people can see before they buy. When you cant get a refund, then i want more info when i buy something. There is a difference between someone thinking AC3 rubbish and this game.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

xD I figured you'd at least mention this game as soon as I saw your Squirty Play of it.

Good Lord it was horrible.
How did it even get on the front page on Steam in the first place?
Neat to find out being a shit game isn't the only crappy thing it does.

The devs have not lied about anything that I can see on their page.

You did see the part where Jim showed screen grabs of the Dev giving false information that was later removed from the page, right?

Also, the copyrighted material used, the claim that the reviewers just didn't have a strong enough PC, and using people on his friends list (if they are real people) to give them good reviews.

Honestly, the it would be shorter to make a list of rotten things the Dev HASN'T done with this game.

 

[Bindal]

Jim, regarding the storepage claiming the game is a simulation - the blue thing, that's USER-CREATED tags, nothing the devs added

See above the blue tag "Try the best flight simulation in the history of computer games today!"

If anyone thinks that's serious after looking at the screenshots, that person is a bit bonkers.
Still, being sold under the Simulation Genre is a flat-out lie. If it would be sold as casual (AND NOTHING ELSE!) plus maybe a "This is a parody"-thing somewhere on the page, I would let at least some of it pass, too.
So far, the only thing I deal with is that bit of text claiming it to be the 'best flight sim ever', which it obviously can't be in any way.

 

[Ldude893]

Watching the gameplay footage reminded me of some amateur creation from this lego-ish MMO game called Roblox [http://www.roblox.com/Landing/Animated], except that I've seen some 12 year old's creations from that game even better than this shit.

 

[Busard]

ALso, QC can be hard to actually nail down.
IF I was doing Quality Control then :
Call of Duty ghosts WILL NOT BE ON STEAM. They lied on requirements and made the game work bad on purpose, that is foul play for me.
WATCH Dogs will probably have problems getting on. It is unoptimized to all hell.

And that is still objective territory. If I was to approve games, then "mistakes in game design" like Bioshock Infinite would also have problems for me.

LOL what the hell.

I know steam needs QC but that is beyond draconian. I know you're kinda joking but jesus christ

 

[Chris Slime]

Steam needs quality control when it comes down to not stealing 3rd party stuff, making sure the screenshots and trailers are true and that developers cant be gods in their own game's forums.

Anything else is subjective. I know people that will like Air Control. Why you may ask? Because they like the challenge of fixing stuff, so they will make a playable game out of it.
Is it how most people here have fun? No, but be damned, do not destroy their fun.

ALso, QC can be hard to actually nail down.
IF I was doing Quality Control then :
Call of Duty ghosts WILL NOT BE ON STEAM. They lied on requirements and made the game work bad on purpose, that is foul play for me.
WATCH Dogs will probably have problems getting on. It is unoptimized to all hell.

And that is still objective territory. If I was to approve games, then "mistakes in game design" like Bioshock Infinite would also have problems for me.

I was going to point out what's wrong with what you said, but no.. I just can't even...

 

[RandV80]

Again I don't understand how this process works. By it's very existence the 'Greenlight' system says that not just anything can get released on Steam, there's gotta be hundreds, or even thousands, of completed games whose developer would love to see their work release on Steam... so how exactly does the system work that this product/developer gets to bypass the system and have their game published? Without even going through Greenlight at that?

This is like letting a known child molester teach Kindergarten class.

 

[andago]

YAY PC MASTER RACE! Yeah, im joking. Seriously, steam needs quality control, or demos and trailers so people can see before they buy. When you cant get a refund, then i want more info when i buy something.

They have videos of trailers and gameplay on the game's store page that shows you what you're buying, and also offers demos when they're made available by the producer / developer I believe.

In all seriousness, is it possible to check every single game released on steam for stolen assets and and to make sure it it works on every pc?

Doesn't steam now offer refunds on products that don't work, so there is no financial loss for buying something you can't play, which in this case would probably include most people that bought air control?

I can see a case for checking unrepresentative footage and screenshots, because all that would take would be booting up the game briefly and taking a look at gameplay, but it sounds quite an extensive job to check the entirety of every single game released on steam for copyright material and for compatability issues. For air control it sounds pretty straight forward, but I can imagine this would not be the same for every single release.

In terms of it just being rubbish gameplay, isn't it caveat emptor?

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

errm jimbo, game tags are set by the users, not by the devs

 

[nevarran]

Curious how they arrested the PirateBay co-author(or something), for creating an environment, where people can share (for FREE) copyright protected data.
And what do we have here, Valve creates an environment, where you can literally be robbed of your money. And the consequences for both parties (Valve and the thieves) are... NONE!

 

[Imp_Emissary]

xD I figured you'd at least mention this game as soon as I saw your Squirty Play of it.

Good Lord it was horrible.
How did it even get on the front page on Steam in the first place?
Neat to find out being a shit game isn't the only crappy thing it does.

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.

The devs have not lied about anything that I can see on their page.

You did see the part where Jim showed screen grabs of the Dev giving false information that was later removed from the page, right?

I see screen caps but when checking.. you know.,. the products page I see none of that now. I can show a picture of someone in poopy diapers from 20 years ago.. that has nothing to do with what they're wearing right now does it?

Also, the copyrighted material used, the claim that the reviewers just didn't have a strong enough PC, and using people on his friends list (if they are real people) to give them good reviews.

I'll withhold copyright infringement allegations until said copyright holders actually file suit to such effect. I suggest you do the same. Seriously. How do you know they did not optain express permission to use the assets they did. I've heard no legal filings, I've seen no cease and desist orders.. So really if the people who legally own the copyright aren't throwing lawyers at them ... well then it may be safe to say the guy has found some nifty fair-use loophole.

Fair enough about the copyright stuff. Now that the game has such attention, the owners will take action if need be.

That said, your argument is that now since the information has been removed that it no longer matters that they tried to do something wrong?

Good to know! I'll give this a try.

Hey! IRS!

I didn't CHEATED ON MY TAXES! I no longer OWE YOU SO MUCH MONEY THAT I DON'T PLAN TO PAY!

Now to later remove/alter this so they can't get me.

Edit: Safe!