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[Schrompf]

Of those? None, and the world would be a *better* place in my books. But that's just judging from the images, and that's not the point. Valve could, as a first step, demand a playable build before they allow you to use their infrastructure. And put a few people on the job who simply download it and run it once. If the game is an obvious asset swap, or someones first tries at Unity, kill it. If it has obvious bugs, like not being able to start the game, kill it.

Microsoft once tried the same, managing their marketplace thingy only by automated tools. Turns out that there's a lot of ugly people in the world, and even *your* game could be up there under someone else's flag. Of course they all signed a contract that they have the rights to publish the thing, but automated tools never sue. So the whole shop goes downhill quickly.

[Bad_Dude 2017]

If the game is an obvious asset swap, or someones first tries at Unity, kill it.

what is "asset swap", wheres the line, and what if someone first try at unity is decent.

If it has obvious bugs, like not being able to start the game, kill it.

that is straight up Fucked Up and Nazi because startup failure is not an obvious bug and may not be a bug at all

[Schrompf]

You are right, bugs are a thing that every player has to accept. Quality control is facism basically.

On the asset swap topic: that's indeed a difficult topic. You'd have to look carefully to distinguish pure asset swaps from the "Oh, but I can't afford to create assets, but I still want to be heard!" wannabes. With the latter to be included in the shop, I guess. Arguable. As a player I think there's nothing lost if you exclude these. As a developer I see the problems with this approach.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

my main thought on this is that, if the fee is too low (100-200), it won't be any different than it is now. if the fee is too high (above 2k), it will simply force indies to use shady/scammy indie 'publishers' like black shell media and similar (which would pay the fee for all indies who ask, and in return, they'd take like 30% of the indie's profits. because most games on steam actually do make more than the fee, it would average out and they'd get easy money). the same "publishers" that get a game through greenlight in exchange for a percent of the profits or a hefty fee (and there are many such groups) will be the ones that pay the steam direct fee in exchange for a percentage of the profits

i expect the fee will be about 500, somewhere in the middle between those two possibilities

anyway i mostly agree with alec s.'s earlier post, about discoverability being the main problem, *not* too many games or asset flips (which i think are scapegoats). i do think discoverability is improving, but let me give an example of how it still has problems

if you go to my game, immortal defense, on steam (link in sig), you'll notice very few reviews, but a good review ratio. but scroll down a bit, and go to 'more like this', where it's supposed to recommend to people more games like my game. one thing to notice is that there are 12 games there, and only 1 of those 12 is a tower defense game. steam thinks games that aren't remotely similar are similar, because they share certain sets of tags, such as 'sci-fi', 'great soundtrack', and similar

now to me, someone who just finished playing an indie tower defense game, and is looking for more games like it, would probably be looking for other tower defense games -- not games that also just happen to be sci-fi and have a great soundtrack, because that could be anything

the same is true in reverse. my game is *not* in the 'more like this' section for most tower defense games. but it *is* in the 'more like this' section for random indie games that happen to be sci-fi or happen to have a great soundtrack tag or whatever. i've seen my game pop up in that section for a huge assortment of games that aren't like it, and never seen it pop up in that section for other tower defense games, even though my game does have the tower defense tag, all tags are treated equally in strength, including inane ones that aren't really relevant to why someone likes a game

i think the biggest thing steam could do to improve discoverability is to give different tags different 'strength' levels somehow; genres and subgenres would get the highest, and then other core gameplay tags such as whether a game is turn-based or real-time, and only then maybe motif tags like sci-fi or fantasy, and then all the other tags

otherwise you get the system saying that starcraft is more similar to asteroids than to warcraft, or that shadowrun returns is more similar to axiom verge than to jagged alliance

[s0]

Help I can't decide whether to buy [shitty asset flip] or [actual decent game].  There's just too many games. I need some Quality Control!!!

[Alevice]

minimum standard of quality

whats that
everyone tell me which product desrves to pass greenlight(black desert excluded for obvious reasons)

the one that includes an exe or equivalent at least. there have been reports of green lit games you can pruchase that dont even include an exe file of all things.

[Schoq]

mygame.py

[J-Snake]

minimum standard of quality

whats that
everyone tell me which product desrves to pass greenlight(black desert excluded for obvious reasons)

the one that includes an exe or equivalent at least. there have been reports of green lit games you can pruchase that dont even include an exe file of all things.

It is more likely that some just put the exe into a wrong depot (Steam jargon for the folder where you place your content) by accident. That's how the player gets the wrong impression.

[J-Snake]

Help I can't decide whether to buy [shitty asset flip] or [actual decent game]. There's just too many games. I need some Quality Control!!!

I think the problem is that the player cannot always tell what's an asset flip and what is not in advance, especially not if there are only few Steam reviews, which have to be taken with a grain of salt anyway. So the only sure way of knowing is to check out the game yourself, and that just takes time and money. So if you are looking out for good new games, you will miss more of them the more "low effort"-games there are in the store.

That's the difference to a store like Amazon. On Amazon you already know the product you are recommended, and you have at least some knowledge or trust in the company behind the product. For example if you are recommended a Nvidia Gpu, you already know it is a quality company and there are very likely some serious reviews for the particular product out there.

[J-Snake]

i think the biggest thing steam could do to improve discoverability is to give different tags different 'strength' levels somehow; genres and subgenres would get the highest, and then other core gameplay tags such as whether a game is turn-based or real-time, and only then maybe motif tags like sci-fi or fantasy, and then all the other tags

Yes, giving appropriate weights to the tags would be better. However, even when only the desired types of games are recommended, you still don't know if they are any good if you don't curate your market place. Or, there is a (probable) way of knowing if only popular games with very positive reviews are recommended. But then you will increase the probability that many good games don't get their spot to shine and remain relatively unnoticed, so the "rich get richer" problem kicks in. The conclusion is that the market place has to be curated by knowledgeable human beings to a defined extent in order to "make customers even more happy".

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

the idea of 'good' or 'bad' games is a myth really. there are reviews to see if other people liked it. there's demos. there's the refund policy

also i've seen people recommending steam hire people to curate, but they don't realize that that's what they used to do prior to greenlight, and those curators rejected almost all games that they personally didn't like (often based on genre or engine). la mulana and aquaria were both rejected by steam prior to greenlight as was my own game, and many others.

i think you may also not realize how time intensive it is. about 50 games are released on steam each day. if each of those is only played 5 hours to evaluate it, that's 250 hours you have to pay people to do each day. a full time team of 32 people, working 8 hours a day. 32 people times valve's yearly salary. that's millions and millions of dollars. just to get something that is often fails terribly. and that's just to play the games that get on steam. imagine playing the games that don't get on steam, it could double that easily.

besides, you realize that if steam did have curation, chances are they'd reject 'trap them', your steam game, immediately? just due to the bad graphics and seemingly simple idea, most people dismiss that game out of hand, including most valve employees. valve employees are not some special people, they don't have better taste than the average gamer. they often rejected a game (prior to greenlight) because it's not 3d, or whatever.

[J-Snake]

the idea of 'good' or 'bad' games is a myth really.

All it needs is an appropriate definition for the purpose of curation: low effort vs high effort, there is a line for minimal required effort that can be set by knowledgeable curators (that doesn't mean that only super polished award winning games get a pass, like Steam was in its early days).

there are reviews to see if other people liked it. there's demos. there's the refund policy

Reviews are not very representative if there are only a handful of them. Demos and refund policy are all for the better, but you cannot account for one of the most valuable factors, and that is the customers limited time. In a sufficiently curated market place the customer will get less often disappointed and more often positively surprised with all the game choices he makes. The implication of that is that "the rich getting richer" principle will take less effect since the awareness of competent games will be more evenly distributed. All of that is probabilistic reality. It is only that Valve doesn't want to do the job, they want a magic space that can fly on its own without much involvement. In that case I also see Steam Direct as the next best option.  

[J-Snake]

also i've seen people recommending steam hire people to curate, but they don't realize that that's what they used to do prior to greenlight, and those curators rejected almost all games that they personally didn't like (often based on genre or engine). la mulana and aquaria were both rejected by steam prior to greenlight as was my own game, and many others.

That only shows that they didn't have a definition for the minimal quality bar. It can still be relatively low, but it will still filter out a lot of low-effort-games which get regularly greenlit.

i think you may also not realize how time intensive it is. about 50 games are released on steam each day.

Valve is a multi billion dollar company.

[J-Snake]

besides, you realize that if steam did have curation, chances are they'd reject 'trap them', your steam game, immediately? just due to the bad graphics and seemingly simple idea, most people dismiss that game out of hand, including most valve employees. valve employees are not some special people, they don't have better taste than the average gamer. they often rejected a game (prior to greenlight) because it's not 3d, or whatever.

Curation shouldn't be about taste, you have to put your taste aside. For example, I am not a fan of Undertale but I wouldn't reject it just because it looks like an ugly rpg-maker game on the first glance. It is not hard to realize that there is effort behind this game, you realize the creator is serious about it. The same goes for Trap Them, you don't have to be a puzzle fan to realize there is serious effort behind its puzzle design (or if you don't see it then let it someone review who is more into puzzle games, that organization has to be a part of a competent curator team). Just by applying this common sense alone will make you quickly distinguish between serious attempts at making a game and scams or some toying around in an engine: a fool with a tool is still a fool.

[ｂ∀ ｋｋｕｓａ]

Just by applying this common sense alone will make you quickly distinguish between serious attempts at making a game and scams or some toying around in an engine: a fool with a tool is still a fool

+1
Common sense is all what is required to judge if a game is deemed to be on steam or not honestly. It isn't hard to notice if effort is put behind a game or not.

unless someone thinks that this kind of game has its place on steam (greenlit thanks to massive groupee bundle vote and giveaways) :

[J-Snake]

Just as much as this one (also greenlit with massive help):

[Schoq]

sweet jesus

[Mark Mayers]

The player is put in role of Fluffy McCuddleston, the member of peaceful, intellectual race. One day, his world wad invaded by the nefarious Dr. Sadisto who captured Fluffy and his partner Snuggly Von Purpleton for his evil purpose.

[Bad_Dude 2017]

Does it looks better than TrapThem Sniper Edition though?

[s0]

+1
Common sense is all what is required to judge if a game is deemed to be on steam or not honestly. It isn't hard to notice if effort is put behind a game or not.

unless someone thinks that this kind of game has its place on steam (greenlit thanks to massive groupee bundle vote and giveaways) :

but the question is: how does this game's existence negatively affect steam? it doesnt look like something most people would even pay attention to.

most of these arguments don't make sense to me. i mean sure "discoverability" is worse (getting on steam is not free marketing anymore). but like i said, for the majority of devs it's a net positive. and if you (the general "you") think your game would get past steam's hypothetical quality control just because you "worked hard" on it, i think that's bullshit. there are several games on steam i enjoy that would have in all likelihood been rejected by quality control.

either way, let's say steam introduces some "minimal" quality control and keeps the shittiest of shit games, such as the one above, out. nothing really changes. these are games almost no one really knows or cares about. if your game is at least decent, you're not competing with those games to begin with.