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[J-Snake]

but the question is: how does this game's existence negatively affect steam?

By taking away some of the collective attention space and lowering the trust of the customer in the games sold on the store:

In some future: just imagine a weeklong deals list with 10 pages of competent games vs a weeklong deals list with now 100 pages, including the same games plus 90 pages of engine-toy-arounds and scams, which can only only be recognized as such when you play them. Sure, better selling games will be filtered out to rise to the top but the customer will be more hesitant to check out new (or less known) games, because of the increased general suspicion.

As an analogy compare the two following super markets:
 
- super market 1: has no quality control
- super market 2: has quality control

Now you go out to buy some fruits in market 1. Now imagine 90% of fruits are rotten inside, but it is not always easy to spot on the first glance. But you know from your friends how to locate the 10% of the fruits which are in good condition. So yes, you have a way of getting good fruits, but would you overall trust market 1 and be happy with the store? Would you feel comfortable in trying out new products? Or would you rather prefer market 2, which has the same stuff you potentially may want but no rotten fruits? I think the answer is clear.

So sure, Steam's revenue increased as they opened the gates, but it increased because the overall selection of fruits increased, not because there are rotten fruits on the market. So their solution is still far from being optimal. And the main reason they get away with this is simply because there is no competition, no market 2 yet (Gog etc. might still be too selective and lacking other features).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think the difference though is that a rotten fruit is actually harmful to your health. playing a bad game is actually *beneficial* to your knowledge of game design, because it teaches you what not to do, and is often beneficial in other ways (is funny / so bad that it's entertaining). the more bad games you play, the better of a person you are, whereas the more rotten fruit you eat, the worse your health gets

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

that's valid point for people who are also into game dev.but for a player it's different.
 I was looking for games in the sale section for three different categories: gore, horror, and anime . And i kept stumbling upon that game. because kids probably had fun tagging the trash game as a horror, gore and anime game. (Fortunately there's this thing to report the falsely tagged game.)
And at some point i just stopped looking for games because i couldn't trust the list. And i don't think it's a customer job to manually click "not interested" for a title to stop appearing in featured areas.

(a long time ago, i kept seeing Bubsy Two-Fur in the horror, post-apocalpytic category.) A valve official should be handling those stuff. it's funny to put bubsy in the horror category, but it isn't helpful for customers at all.)

Valve did a good job with the front store, as i stopped seeing low-quality games at all. but on the other side, i've never seen ஒழுக்கின்மை and J-Snake game anymore.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think perhaps what would help with that would be better search options (which goes back to my better discoverability issue). for instance, the ability to exclude certain tags, the ability to exclude games with mixed or negative review ratios, and so on. perhaps even an ability to block particular games from appearing in your search results, so that once you see it once, and decide you don't want it, you can block the game from appearing again. something more like amazon, has, basically. amazon is the discoverability king when it comes to online stores

[Bad_Dude 2017]

- super market 1: has no quality control
- super market 2: has quality control

supermarket 1: AppStore
super market 2: GOG and Playstation

[_glitch]

- super market 1: has no quality control
- super market 2: has quality control

supermarket 1: AppStore and Google Play
super market 2: GOG and Playstation

Fixed.

[s0]

Ive only regretted 2 purchases on steam. For both it wasnt a problem to get a refund.

Also i agree with paul eres. what bakkusa is saying is more a result of bad search function than "too many games"

The fruit analogy doesnt really work either, because unlike fruit you can do a LOT of research on games (reviews, gameplay footage) to tell whether they are rotten/bad

[quantumpotato]

i think perhaps what would help with that would be better search options (which goes back to my better discoverability issue). for instance, the ability to exclude certain tags, the ability to exclude games with mixed or negative review ratios, and so on. perhaps even an ability to block particular games from appearing in your search results, so that once you see it once, and decide you don't want it, you can block the game from appearing again. something more like amazon, has, basically. amazon is the discoverability king when it comes to online stores

Yes, a block feature would be great.

[J-Snake]

The fruit analogy doesnt really work either, because unlike fruit you can do a LOT of research on games (reviews, gameplay footage) to tell whether they are rotten/bad

I doubt you can do a lot of research on rotten or less known games in general, plus it all would add up to more research time, and time of the player is a limiting factor. That is precisely the problem.

Also, it is well possible that people rarely regret their purchases. But it is an illusion to think that low-effort-games don't have an impact on their purchase decisions, in collective probability. It is because the "rich getting richer" principle takes effect, healthy and well known fruits are promoted on top, and that is all you are picking because you personally are already satisfied with the offered diversity. The "effective" diversity, however, is still limited because of the general suspicion that "the deeper you go", the more likely you will get a rotten fruit, thus you potentially miss all the diversity of good products resting next to the rotten fruits. So you get a selective streamlined view on the products in the market place, which actually doesn't reflect the real diversity of good products it has to offer. In short, you will only see the streamlined popular stuff.

Of course one could argue: But the selection is already broad enough, I get what I want, so where is the problem?
But then one could also say: May be, in a better store, it is easier to get something even better from time to time? So fair enough, no point in arguing on that level.

Note that my argument tries to take the whole picture of the process into account, not the personal reality/success story of a single individual. The number of Steam games is still relatively very small. In some future there can be millions of games.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

still, again, what makes you think steam is better at determining whether you'll like a game than you are? taste is subjective. steam could reject a game you like, or allow a game you would have rejected. to think that everyone would obviously reject the same games is silly, different people have different tastes. i would have allowed that klabi mentioned earlier for instance, but i would have not allowed games like 'bloody boobs' which seem to just be "games" that trick the player into buying them through looking like porn but not actually having much substance in the game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/545250/ -- but obviously from it having some positive reviews, some people would enjoy that thing even though i can't imagine how anyone could like it

[J-Snake]

still, again, what makes you think steam is better at determining whether you'll like a game than you are? taste is subjective.

I already mentioned that curation is not about taste, but mainly about common sense: looking whether the game is functional/doesn't crash etc., and checking its gameplay and content to distinguish it from engine-toy-arounds. Of course there will be some borderline decisions but in doubt you can just give the game a pass and you will still filter out the majority of rotten fruits. It's silly to assume that it cannot be done to a beneficial extent. It is like saying "there is no common metric, everything can be good, so why bother with quality control". May be there are few individuals who actually have a fetish for rotten fruits, so we will offer them in our supermarket - same argument.  

[Photon]

still, again, what makes you think steam is better at determining whether you'll like a game than you are? taste is subjective. steam could reject a game you like, or allow a game you would have rejected. to think that everyone would obviously reject the same games is silly, different people have different tastes. i would have allowed that klabi mentioned earlier for instance, but i would have not allowed games like 'bloody boobs' which seem to just be "games" that trick the player into buying them through looking like porn but not actually having much substance in the game: http://store.steampowered.com/app/545250/ -- but obviously from it having some positive reviews, some people would enjoy that thing even though i can't imagine how anyone could like it

If that's the case, perhaps a better Steam curators functionality would be in line? Right now, I don't really see the point: they give you like two sentences to justify their recommendation that may provide thinking material but lacks meat. Give curators more tools. Then if Steam really wants to go hands-off, set up a system by which customers can tailor the storefront based on curators they trust and identify with. A group of people can come together and share recommendations and opinions with people of similar tastes. Yeah, you probably won't agree with them all the time, but that's normal and you could still have a secondary part of the front page for "no-holds-barred" advertising. Could be better than Steam trying to do it from a smaller sample size (read: a single customer.)

[Nelvin]

What about this one?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/531070

[s0]

has 100% negative reviews lol

[Bad_Dude 2017]

ok, now im convinced, dispatch a cleanup team

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

just noticed that i need a filter for games that cost more than 5$ (more than 8&  would be more adequate) as the section of games under 10$ is overflooded by 1$ low quality games.

[quantumpotato]

just noticed that i need a filter for games that cost more than 5$ (more than 8&  would be more adequate) as the section of games under 10$ is overflooded by 1$ low quality games.

Yep. "Race to the bottom", plague of mobile phone stores already.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

still, again, what makes you think steam is better at determining whether you'll like a game than you are? taste is subjective.

I already mentioned that curation is not about taste, but mainly about common sense: looking whether the game is functional/doesn't crash etc., and checking its gameplay and content to distinguish it from engine-toy-arounds. Of course there will be some borderline decisions but in doubt you can just give the game a pass and you will still filter out the majority of rotten fruits. It's silly to assume that it cannot be done to a beneficial extent. It is like saying "there is no common metric, everything can be good, so why bother with quality control". May be there are few individuals who actually have a fetish for rotten fruits, so we will offer them in our supermarket - same argument.  

if it's just a bare minimum type thing, then that klabi game would probably meet that bare minimum right? i mean it does look like babby's first game maker game, but it's still arguably meeting a bare minimum: it is a game, it's not buggy, it works, etc.

[J-Snake]

if it's just a bare minimum type thing, then that klabi game would probably meet that bare minimum right? i mean it does look like babby's first game maker game, but it's still arguably meeting a bare minimum: it is a game, it's not buggy, it works, etc.

How do you know it works, isn't buggy, and is a serious effort at making a game? Have you played it? If the trailer isn't indication enough you can distinguish between immature and mature intentions at making a game when you play it. When you are still undecided after playing, just give it a pass and you will still have a significantly better curated system. Just note that the metric "taste" and "low quality games are good to study for devs" have no place in a curation process intended to provide diverse quality content for its players.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

because the reviews aren't universally negative, that's how -- it has mixed reviews, many positive, many negative. that shows some percent of people enjoyed it. if even 10% of people enjoy a game of those who buy it, it's worth being on steam.