Is Steam a Store or a Kickstarter?

[The Brown Hornet]

When I first joined Steam which was not that long ago it did in fact seem like a STORE, a digital store with awesome PC titles and amazing sales. But now with the addition of EA and even Greenlight it feels more like a doner Kickstarter service. Steam in my opinion has definitely begun to blur the line between Store and FUNDRAISER, I dont know if it can be both, is this right direction for the platform....it almost doesn't even seem legal.

In the PC world the term "Indie developer" sounds nice, honest, and innocent but what happens when you open the flood gates and let every "Indie developer" talented and NON TALENTED into the "Store" all begging for community time, funding, and support? For me it has actually become annoying, I'm literally fed up with all the low quality games popping up seemingly in the dozens everyday...

The truth is I haven't actually purchased any EA or Greenlight products so I haven't truly loss anything but nevertheless it has affected me in the sense that I no longer like or enjoy the STORE that use to be STEAM. For a time I use to spend a lot of money here but now its rare I buy anything. I personally dont trust all these drive-by-night Indie developers who pop up like flies on a daily basis. I use to look forward to visiting the Store when I logged on Steam, now I cant stand to look at it cause its full of bloatware and shovelware...slap the word "Indie" on it and thats suppose to somehow make it all right? Bloatware is bloat and I wish Steam would get rid of it or regulate it to different areas of the platform.

I have tried to customize but the crap titles keep popping up, nothing you can do about it....my view is that "Indie" aka Early Access, aka Greenlight, aka Kickstarter, aka GoFundMe, have taken over Steam and its a lesser experience as a result. I know the bottom line is making money and I know Steam is doing a good job of that but over the past year or two there has been a tremendous drop in quality. I want Steam to go back to quality over quantity and/or create some other outlet for the blight.

[MainframeMouse]

I'd still lkke to know if you can cancel your EA order like you can with a pre-order. Because in an attempt to get back to the OP, I'd say EA is a less regulated and unclear version of kickstarter, rather than mr gency's view of being a pre-order with benefits.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di MainframeMouse:

I'd still lkke to know if you can cancel your EA order like you can with a pre-order. Because in an attempt to get back to the OP, I'd say EA is a less regulated and unclear version of kickstarter, rather than mr gency's view of being a pre-order with benefits.

Actually it's a trade off. Early Access is a store transaction.. not a donation.
In kickkstarter you are donating something. IN Early Access you are purchasing something. So to answer the OP's original question It is a store.

[The Brown Hornet]

C.f.

Messaggio originale di MainframeMouse:

I'd still lkke to know if you can cancel your EA order like you can with a pre-order. Because in an attempt to get back to the OP, I'd say EA is a less regulated and unclear version of kickstarter, rather than mr gency's view of being a pre-order with benefits.

Yep, that question does get us back on topic. My original conception of EAG was that buyers could purchase and play nearly complete games early. In reality it is a testing ground for nowhere near complete ideas, promises, visions, and experiments. There isn't even a requirement that the game has to be completed and actually released. This is a major flaw and loophole in the service, easily manipulated and taken advantage of by so called "Indies"

I think a game being sold in Early Access for over 2-3 years (Dayz...cough) is ridiculous and embarrassing for Steam. These type of games were never nearly complete, it has been developed or better yet underdeveloped entirely in Early Access. Indie developers need only submit a shell of a game, write Indie,survival, crafting on the page and presto $19.99...

Sure some EA games have delivered what was promised but the system itself is a cancer that's infecting and contaminating PC gaming. Why bother creating complete, high quality games when you can sell unfinished turds in the protective custody of Early Access.

Restructure the system, Early Access games should actually be in Beta testing before they are sold on Steam. There shouldn't be no question of when and if it will actually be finished and released.

[fluxtorrent]

You make a lot of claims there brown hornet, I'd like to see your emperical data to support it.

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

C.f.

Messaggio originale di MainframeMouse:

I'd still lkke to know if you can cancel your EA order like you can with a pre-order. Because in an attempt to get back to the OP, I'd say EA is a less regulated and unclear version of kickstarter, rather than mr gency's view of being a pre-order with benefits.

Yep, that question does get us back on topic. My original conception of EAG was that buyers could purchase and play nearly complete games early.

Which was something that was never said or promised. In fact they go out of their way to say the exact opposite.

In reality it is a testing ground for nowhere near complete ideas, promises, visions, and experiments. There isn't even a requirement that the game has to be completed and actually released. This is a major flaw and loophole in the service, easily manipulated and taken advantage of by so called "Indies"

Actually to date only 3 of the 300 or so early access games have cancelled without completion. A 1% failure rate is note a bad rate. The breaks on your car have a much higher percentage of spontaneously failing than an early access game shuttering.

I think a game being sold in Early Access for over 2-3 years (Dayz...cough) is ridiculous and embarrassing for Steam. These type of games were never nearly complete, it has been developed or better yet underdeveloped entirely in Early Access. Indie developers need only submit a shell of a game, write Indie,survival, crafting on the page and presto $19.99...

DayZ DayZ. Nwait are we talking about the same Dayz That has averaged mostly positive out of 120K+ reviews. Gee seems like the majority of those who bought and are playing the game would disagree with you Brown. Seems the buyers are for the most part very happy. It's like wow. You you don't own or play the game are saying one thing and yet those who have purchased and played it say something different.

Sure some EA games have delivered what was promised but the system itself is a cancer that's infecting and contaminating PC gaming. Why bother creating complete, high quality games when you can sell unfinished turds in the protective custody of Early Access.

And yet, they do. Imagine that. There must be some benefit of finishing a game that you have yet to discover.

Restructure the system, Early Access games should actually be in Beta testing before they are sold on Steam. There shouldn't be no question of when and if it will actually be finished and released.

There's already Beta testing for ghames that do that. Early Access was never marketed or sold as Beta testing. It's not STeam or the developers fault if a few consumers are bad at reading.

I mean your whole idea is to restructure a system that is proven to be working quite well just so it matches your ill-informed concept.

[Fearless Airlines]

store

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

Messaggio originale di Zetikla:

gee sorry that disagreeing with you sudenly makes me a dev, let alone a scam dev

gotta love your genious logic

You must be a Scam dev its the only explanation for why you can't recognize what has happened to the Steam store the past 2 years

I've never developed a single game before, yet Steam has only gotten better in the last couple years.

Why?

Because Steam has started carrying a greater variety of games.

About five years ago, Steam had basically zero games I was interested in. Now it has at least 50 or so.

That's progress from my perspective.



If you don't like certain tags, you can filter them out by editing the URL in the store search to put a negative sign before the tag number.

The frontpage is basically whatever the store wants to sell at the moment. Like meatspace storefronts, what you should never do is buy stuff because it looks good at the storefront. Instead, beeline to the game you want to buy, pay for it, install it, and play it.

Wanna find interesting new games to play? Ask your friends, especially ones with similar taste. Don't rely on some website to tell you what to play next.

Oh, the Discovery Queue feature is a stupid load of crap.



If you're dying to have a website tell you what are very nice games you want to play next, then go to GOG. They hand-pick everything that goes on their store, I hear.

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

Messaggio originale di Zetikla:

ive been there in his other thread too, same story

just wait until this thread gets locked and he will open yet another one

And you and the running man invade every one of those threads defending like Ravens in the SuperBowl. I think you two have made it obvious you are part of the influx of bad development for sale!

You've neglected the simpler explanation: that they're just two people who enjoy spending way too much time arguing on the Steam forums. :P

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

I use to think Steam had standards, that they tested or required every game sold on their site to gain the Valve seal of approval. I now realize that having a game on Steam is simply a matter of uploading the files and listing it. If the game sucks Valve will be the last to know, only responding when customers who got burned start complaining in droves.

Yeah, thanks to those stringent standards, Flying Red Barrel and a bunch of other neat Japanese indie games didn't make it to Steam (or maybe only belatedly did so, such as in the case of the Suguri games).

Messaggio originale di Aaron:

I'd like to see an 'indie' section, divided from the rest of the Steam store if people so wished. Even a filter would work, just one you could permanently select.

As mentioned above, you can filter out indie games from a store search by negating the indie tag number.

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

Steam apparently knows what an "Indie" title since it slaps the label on each one that's sold in the store. For me the label has become synonymous with buy at your own risk, incomplete game, as is, buyer beware, no returns

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

You do know that it's the devs publisher that apply those tags right?

Not quite.
Publishers (including self-publishing developers) set them initially, but then the community gets to add, upvote, and downvote tags.

[76561198001062896]

Messaggio originale di Quint the Robot Girl:

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

You must be a Scam dev its the only explanation for why you can't recognize what has happened to the Steam store the past 2 years

I've never developed a single game before, yet Steam has only gotten better in the last couple years.

Why?

Because Steam has started carrying a greater variety of games.

About five years ago, Steam had basically zero games I was interested in. Now it has at least 50 or so.

That's progress from my perspective.



If you don't like certain tags, you can filter them out by editing the URL in the store search to put a negative sign before the tag number.

The frontpage is basically whatever the store wants to sell at the moment. Like meatspace storefronts, what you should never do is buy stuff because it looks good at the storefront. Instead, beeline to the game you want to buy, pay for it, install it, and play it.

Wanna find interesting new games to play? Ask your friends, especially ones with similar taste. Don't rely on some website to tell you what to play next.

Oh, the Discovery Queue feature is a stupid load of crap.



If you're dying to have a website tell you what are very nice games you want to play next, then go to GOG. They hand-pick everything that goes on their store, I hear.

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

And you and the running man invade every one of those threads defending like Ravens in the SuperBowl. I think you two have made it obvious you are part of the influx of bad development for sale!

You've neglected the simpler explanation: that they're just two people who enjoy spending way too much time arguing on the Steam forums. :P

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

I use to think Steam had standards, that they tested or required every game sold on their site to gain the Valve seal of approval. I now realize that having a game on Steam is simply a matter of uploading the files and listing it. If the game sucks Valve will be the last to know, only responding when customers who got burned start complaining in droves.

Yeah, thanks to those stringent standards, Flying Red Barrel and a bunch of other neat Japanese indie games didn't make it to Steam (or maybe only belatedly did so, such as in the case of the Suguri games).

Messaggio originale di Aaron:

I'd like to see an 'indie' section, divided from the rest of the Steam store if people so wished. Even a filter would work, just one you could permanently select.

As mentioned above, you can filter out indie games from a store search by negating the indie tag number.

Messaggio originale di The Brown Hornet:

Steam apparently knows what an "Indie" title since it slaps the label on each one that's sold in the store. For me the label has become synonymous with buy at your own risk, incomplete game, as is, buyer beware, no returns

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

You do know that it's the devs publisher that apply those tags right?

Not quite.
Publishers (including self-publishing developers) set them initially, but then the community gets to add, upvote, and downvote tags.

More like: I thought it wouldnt hurt to inform clueless steam folks

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

Somewhere towards the middle ground here.

Allowing independent producers into the market gives a wider range of games and the possibility of true innovation.

However Steam's lack of quality control would be lamentable for most retailers. One does not expect to go to the supermarket, buy food and then receive poisonous dreck, only to be told you should have checked the reviews before buying.

My solution would be simple and cost Steam relatively little.

Within the Steam community there should be a designation of "Community Elder", ranking below "Moderator" and the designated reviewers. These would be people who would pass a basic "sanity test" in the form of their site contributions - i.e. no scammers, no-one abusive, no one illiterate, no one evidently barking mad or pointlessly confrontational.

Each new game to be proposed to be sold in the store would have to be given free to ten community elders for review purposes. They would have to play it for at least six hours, then write a review, and pass or fail it as retail ready. A review might indicate a "dislike" but still accept that the game was competent enough to be sold. If at least eight out of ten reviewers did not pass the game as retail ready then it wouldn't get sold. Major developers would be exempt. A "rejected" product could be appealed to a second council of ten elders but this time would need at least a nine out of ten pass rate. Senior Steam personnel could have an overrule but since all reviews would be published and "rejected" games would carry a "reject" warning symbol their prospects wouldn't be good.

S.x.

[76561198001062896]

Messaggio originale di gallifrey:

Somewhere towards the middle ground here.

Allowing independent producers into the market gives a wider range of games and the possibility of true innovation.

However Steam's lack of quality control would be lamentable for most retailers. One does not expect to go to the supermarket, buy food and then receive poisonous dreck, only to be told you should have checked the reviews before buying.

My solution would be simple and cost Steam relatively little.

Within the Steam community there should be a designation of "Community Elder", ranking below "Moderator" and the designated reviewers. These would be people who would pass a basic "sanity test" in the form of their site contributions - i.e. no scammers, no-one abusive, no one illiterate, no one evidently barking mad or pointlessly confrontational.

Each new game to be proposed to be sold in the store would have to be given free to ten community elders for review purposes. They would have to play it for at least six hours, then write a review, and pass or fail it as retail ready. A review might indicate a "dislike" but still accept that the game was competent enough to be sold. If at least eight out of ten reviewers did not pass the game as retail ready then it wouldn't get sold. Major developers would be exempt. A "rejected" product could be appealed to a second council of ten elders but this time would need at least a nine out of ten pass rate. Senior Steam personnel could have an overrule but since all reviews would be published and "rejected" games would carry a "reject" warning symbol their prospects wouldn't be good.

S.x.

Publishers and devs wouldnt go into that, plus too much hassle from Valve's end that still wouldnt resolve all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and moaning

People wanted to see more games on Steam, we got Greenlight

Be angry at people who upvote garbage games

[Gus the Crocodile]

Unless all ten of those "community elders" are me, they don't speak for me and I don't want them deciding I can't buy something because it's below their standards. If I only wanted to play things that some set of random strangers approve of, I'd buy an Xbox.

[76561198001062896]

Messaggio originale di Gus the Crocodile:

Unless all ten of those "community elders" are me, they don't speak for me and I don't want them deciding I can't buy something because it's below their standards. If I only wanted to play things that some set of random strangers approve of, I'd buy an Xbox.

Thats why Greenlight exist, to give people the choice

I have a feeling that the mentioned poster doesnt realise that democratic systems arent always "fair"

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Zetikla:

Messaggio originale di Gus the Crocodile:

Unless all ten of those "community elders" are me, they don't speak for me and I don't want them deciding I can't buy something because it's below their standards. If I only wanted to play things that some set of random strangers approve of, I'd buy an Xbox.

Thats why Greenlight exist, to give people the choice

I have a feeling that the mentioned poster doesnt realise that democratic systems arent always "fair"

In this case though the democratic system doesn't remove choices... simply adds more. When a game gets through greenlight it's not taking up the space of another title. Nope. Infinite store space.

And yeah the elder idea pretty much sucks because again, you're essentially always going to be giving the finger to some part of your user base. Better you be criticized for having too much variety than too little.

The latter will always increasse your customer base and revenue. Simple as that.

Messaggio originale di Zetikla:

People wanted to see more games on Steam, we got Greenlight

Be angry at people who upvote garbage games

Yup but wait, if people are upvoting and it takes around a 1000+ votes to get through greenlight.. that would mean there are at least 500 people who genuinely like the game and want to purchase it. Which means the 'garbage game' has people who like it. WHich would imply it's not garbage.

I wonder how many can grasp that simply chain of logic. Though it's no surprise that at least two examples that were held up Dayz for example is very well received by the people who actually bought it. It's almost funny that most people who complain about low quality games, rarely actually purchased the games the complain about.

[76561198001062896]

Messaggio originale di Start_Running:

Messaggio originale di Zetikla:

Thats why Greenlight exist, to give people the choice

I have a feeling that the mentioned poster doesnt realise that democratic systems arent always "fair"

In this case though the democratic system doesn't remove choices... simply adds more. When a game gets through greenlight it's not taking up the space of another title. Nope. Infinite store space.

And yeah the elder idea pretty much sucks because again, you're essentially always going to be giving the finger to some part of your user base. Better you be criticized for having too much variety than too little.

The latter will always increasse your customer base and revenue. Simple as that.

Messaggio originale di Zetikla:

People wanted to see more games on Steam, we got Greenlight

Be angry at people who upvote garbage games

Yup but wait, if people are upvoting and it takes around a 1000+ votes to get through greenlight.. that would mean there are at least 500 people who genuinely like the game and want to purchase it. Which means the 'garbage game' has people who like it. WHich would imply it's not garbage.

I wonder how many can grasp that simply chain of logic. Though it's no surprise that at least two examples that were held up Dayz for example is very well received by the people who actually bought it. It's almost funny that most people who complain about low quality games, rarely actually purchased the games the complain about.

Exactly

[Start_Running]

Messaggio originale di Aaron:

Messaggio originale di Quint the Robot Girl:

As mentioned above, you can filter out indie games from a store search by negating the indie tag number.

Unfortunately, it requires you to do that every time you search. It doesn't affect what comes up on the Store front, though. That's why I'd like a permanent option to filter the entire store at all times. Could work both ways, too.

Except that would be against Steam's agreement with its key customers.