The problem isn't Steam, it's everyone else.

[Chessrook44]

Now hold on, let me explain.

Steam Greenlight was released quite some time ago. It was done with an intent similar to Kickstarter, allowing people with good ideas who wanted to see if they would come to fruition test the waters and see if people were interested, before they put loads of money into a game that would never garner interest. A good idea that would help out smaller groups.

Then it was perverted by people who realized they could make grand promises and build hype, only to release a minimal-content, minimal-cost game and rake in the money.

Then there's Early Access. It was released with the intent of being like Minecraft, allowing players to essentially fund a game while it was being made, AND get to play it as it's being worked on, providing feedback to improve the game while actually getting something for their money. Again, a good idea that would help out smaller studios who wanted to get their games made.

Then again, it was perverted by people who realized they could make the bare minimum of a game and provide grand promises, only to quit halfway through and run off with the money.

And finally there's the recent Mod debacle. A good idea, as it would allow modders who really know what they're doing and in some cases make content better than the base game actually get something for their work. Once again, a good idea.

And then, just before it was tossed, people were starting to pervert it with minimal-work mods that cost money to even use.

The problem isn't Steam. Steam has good ideas that would help others. The problem is con-men and jerks who decide to exploit the system for their own use.

There's a reason "This is why we can't have nice things" is a phrase.

 

[Mutant1988]

The problem is Steam and it's non-committal attitude towards quality control and customer support alongside their inane decision to take 75% (With Bethesda) of all profits made on content they had no hand in making, while enforcing policies that prohibit creators from asking for donations outside of Steam.

Unfair distribution of profits - Check.
Monopolizing measures - Check.
Complete disregard for support or quality control - Check.

It is most certainly Steam's fault.

Then there's the whole slippery slope of them having to enforce measures to prevent illicit use of "mods" - I.e, DRM. How else are they to ensure that you don't pirate the mods? The paid mods would need to have copy protection to prevent that.

Steam fucked up. The incompetence and greed of specific mod makers notwithstanding - They fucked up.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I agree with Mutant. User generated content sites and services have existed since the dawn of the internet. You get some really good stuff, and lots of boring/absolutely horrible stuff, especially if the content type the site caters to is easy to make. (YTMND rings a bell for me on the easy to make content.) Now, put in the incentive for cash, and the legitimate creators will try to put in more effort, while the shady guys will try to trick the users into giving them money for garbage.

Valve, a company that should know how internet communities work, should have seen both Greenlight and the paid mods getting clogged up with crap. They should have known Greenlight would be a target, just from watching the mobile games sector do the same, and they completely missed the freight train about to hit them that was paid mods, because they still haven't fixed the damned Greenlight issue. They even ran straight into that train by only giving the modders 25% (with a shitty payment system) and saying "hey, if the mod doesn't work or breaks your game, you gotta talk to the modder."

Valve needs to work on their quality control issues (and some customer support problems) before they try to branch into any new revenue streams. They did fuck up, and any fanboys who say "praise Gaben" and believe the words coming out of their own mouths need to learn that businesses are out for their money, not for be their saviors. Valve, the con artists, and anyone who gives them money for half-assed content is the problem.

 

[ffronw]

The problem is Steam and it's non-committal attitude towards quality control and customer support

*snip*

This is the crux of the problem. It's almost like Valve still doesn't really grasp the power and authority that Steam imparts to them. It is the de facto distribution platform for games on PC. You almost can't buy them in the store, and I have talked to numerous developers who say that not being on Steam hurts sales. That means that everyone wants to be on Steam.

That's not the problem. The problem is that there is absolutely no incentive for Valve to curate Steam in any way. Anything that goes on Steam makes them money, so they don't really have to care what's on there. The same thing applies to Early Access. They don't curate or police it because they get their money and they're out of the equation. When something goes wrong, they reiterate that you should not expect any more than the semi-playable build you get when you buy instead of actually trying to address the situation.

The monetization of mods is not a bad idea in theory, but it actually creates a lot of problems in practice. What about mods that steal content from free mods? What about mods that use copyrighted material? Why were Bethesda and Valve keeping lion's share of the money? All of these questions should have been obvious to anyone planning a system like this.

It seems like Valve is quick to bring ideas like these to market, and when the inevitable (and quite frankly obvious) problems occur, they rely on the large amount of goodwill they have banked with gamers to let them handwave the problems away. Meanwhile, they still don't have a viable refund policy, they've super slow to react to problems, and they still don't seem to appreciate the need for them to do more than just passively provide a storefront.

Valve has become the anti-Spider Man. They've got the great power, and couldn't care less about the great responsibility.

 

[sanquin]

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it. Valve merely hosts the files, not wanting any more involvement than that. So they have, at most, a right to a SMALL margin of the profits. 75% for the mod maker, 25% for valve/bethesda, combined with quality/copyright control. THEN we're talking. As it is now, it's just blatant money grabbing off of other people's work.

 

[Mutant1988]

It seems like Valve is quick to bring ideas like these to market, and when the inevitable (and quite frankly obvious) problems occur, they rely on the large amount of goodwill they have banked with gamers to let them handwave the problems away. Meanwhile, they still don't have a viable refund policy, they've super slow to react to problems, and they still don't seem to appreciate the need for them to do more than just passively provide a storefront.

Valve has become the anti-Spider Man. They've got the great power, and couldn't care less about the great responsibility.

I'm still waiting for them to make their store front search function not shit.

Exception filters anyone? I don't want to browse games I already own (How this is still not a toggle is beyond me) or from genres I don't like.

Not to mention how often the store just breaks and displays nothing when one of the few filters are applied.

Really, the only good parts of Steam to me is the sales and the fairly non-intrusive DRM it constitutes (And even that's only better than the alternative, which is software embedded DRM).

Their refund policies are absolute garbage, as is their customer support. Valve is running out of good will fast.

 

[My name is JACK]

The problem is Steam and it's non-committal attitude towards quality control and customer support

*snip*

Valve has become the anti-Spider Man. They've got the great power, and couldn't care less about the great responsibility.

Wouldn't that be stoner spiderman? With great power comes-- uh -- do we have anymore fruity pebbles?

 

[shrekfan246]

Yeah, I'll have to agree with everyone else.

There have always been assholes who try to make a quick buck with some kind of ripoff scam, even in the games industry. Thing is, most of them don't end up getting promoted by Amazon or Gamestop or Best Buy (or your local equivalents) by being placed right at the front and center of the store (though I'm sure some people will make jokes about Ubisoft/EA/Activision here).

Greenlight, sure, you have to go searching for that, but once you do it's immediately obvious just how futile it is to try finding something actually decent.

Valve seems to want Steam to be this monolith for PC gaming, but they don't want to take any of the responsibilities that come with managing such a thing.

 

[ffronw]

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it. Valve merely hosts the files, not wanting any more involvement than that. So they have, at most, a right to a SMALL margin of the profits. 75% for the mod maker, 25% for valve/bethesda, combined with quality/copyright control. THEN we're talking. As it is now, it's just blatant money grabbing off of other people's work.

Luckily, they've ended the program already (as seen here: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/140608-Valve-Ends-Paid-Mod-Program-On-Steam-Workshop). Just be prepared for it to reappear later down the road in a slightly edited fashion.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

I think its an issue on both sides. Like others have said Steam needs to curate things like these and listen to people's feedback. On the other hand if people didn't just try and make a quick buck by tricking others then none of this would be an issue. Or it would be a smaller issue. The correct way for Steam to do paid mods is to add a donate button and at the very least split the money at 33% per party (mod creator, Valve and Publisher) though it would be more beneficial for more money to go to the mod creators than the other two.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

If you start a day-care center and the children end up getting hurt, wetting themselves, eating food they're allergic to, getting covered in paint, eating bugs, etc...all because you refused to watch them or step in at any point...

Well it ain't the kids fault.

 

[G00N3R7883]

The problem isn't Steam. Steam has good ideas that would help others. The problem is con-men and jerks who decide to exploit the system for their own use.

But Valve/Steam deserves a share of the blame in every one of those examples because they can't be bothered to put in any effort to stop those con-men and jerks. They don't care about quality control.

I regularly watch Jim Sterling's videos on youtube, where he plays some of the absolute worst trash on Steam. You can see after less than 15 minutes of playing time that these games are horribly broken and will never be worth playing.

Are you telling me that Steam can't afford to hire one or two people to do even that level of play testing before putting something up on their service? One person, testing a game for one hour, could get through 7 games in a normal working day, 35 games in a normal working week. If the game doesn't meet a minimum quality standard, refuse to put it on the store for at least 6 months.

It won't identify every game that has a problem, but at least it will get rid of the worst ones. And that in turn can help to repair the reputation of Early Access and Greenlight.

 

[Smooth Operator]

If they were a back alley dealer that would apply yes, however every legally established store needs to adhere to consumer protections laws. In short if they sell defective shit they are the primary party responsible and they need to resolve the issue.
So if Valve were running a legitimate store every item would get checked before it goes on a shelf, but since no one has taken a legal interest in their shady shit they don't have to. They just hock any trash as long as their cut is good, no responsibility, no accountability, so far no repercussions.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I kind of disagree. While it is true that the arseholes who exploit the system should get the most scorn, that doesn't absolve Steam for giving them the platform to do so.

And I disagree with the whole "this is a good idea and would have no problems if humans stopped acting like humans." Ideas that rely on hypothetical situations divorced from reality are not good ideas, because we live in the real world, and they cannot be applied here.

Putting a plastic bag over my head wouldn't be lethal if I didn't need to breath.

 

[Smooth Operator]

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it.

Actually they can, any software company can claim ownership on data created with their tools. MS could seriously claim all documents ever written with their shit, luckily no one is that fucking nasty. Unless they are Blizzard or Bethesda it seems.

If however you made the content with your own tools and share no assets with someone's proprietary software they can't claim anything. But as long as people are dealing on Valve terms that doesn't matter, their rule is you get the smallest cut as you have the least legal pull and that is the only way on offer.

 

[laggyteabag]

Sure, I think that Valve were really optimistic, and only hoped for the best when it came to programmes like early access and greenlight, but their lack of policing and curating really dropped the quality of Steam as a platform.

If you look on Jim Sterling's YouTube channel for more than about 5 minutes, you will find a wonderful selection of the amount of crap that crawls its way onto Steam using these programmes, and Steam is doing nothing about it. There is no incentive for Steam to curate, because for every sale made through Steam, Valve gets a pretty hefty cut. It really is a shame.

Sure, Valve isn't exactly calling for bad and exploitative games to be released on Steam, but they aren't exactly actively trying to prevent it, either.

 

[lacktheknack]

If you start a day-care center and the children end up getting hurt, wetting themselves, eating food they're allergic to, getting covered in paint, eating bugs, etc...all because you refused to watch them or step in at any point...

Well it ain't the kids fault.

As accurate as it is, it's a touch embarrassing that, over and over and over and over, gamers are demonstrating that they REALLY CAN be directly compared to toddlers.

Urgh.

 

[DoPo]

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it.

That sentence makes no logical sense. Please elaborate.

 

[DoPo]

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it.

Actually they can, any software company can claim ownership on data created with their tools.

Actually, they can't.

Where the hell am I? Have I been transported to the We-Make-Up-Random-Laws-As-We-Go-Along-LOL universe?