Now if they could also remove the other 100+ games that come out every week that are the same shovelwear rubbish, maybe steam can start to look like a decent place to find games. Everyday so much rubbish floods the store with most of it being terrible rip off stuff, makes it so hard to find the little gems, think if games like bastion came out now it would just be hidden in all this clutter

Ricepudding:

Now if they could also remove the other 100+ games that come out every week that are the same shovelwear rubbish, maybe steam can start to look like a decent place to find games. Everyday so much rubbish floods the store with most of it being terrible rip off stuff, makes it so hard to find the little gems, think if games like bastion came out now it would just be hidden in all this clutter

I agree. I'm all up for easy publishing games on steam for independent devs to have a chance, but there should be some sort of a certifications process to filter the trash.

There are lot of little kids that download stuff from Steam, how the hell is possible that this platform doesn't control what kind of contents are published? These people can hide porn content in their "games" and the players will be the first ones to discover it. Steam it's freakin ridiculous, Valve doesn't give a shit of the customers. 😡

Damn... for a moment i thought they were removing Dota 2.

gianluca:

There are lot of little kids that download stuff from Steam, how the hell is possible that this platform doesn't control what kind of contents are published? These people can hide porn content in their "games" and the players will be the first ones to discover it. Steam it's freakin ridiculous, Valve doesn't give a crap of the customers. 😡

That maybe true gianluca but it can happing on any other platform, you need look at real root of the real problem which all boils back to trading cards and some case even skin and 100,000s of keys being sold of to 3rdparty steam key site.

I have a simple solution: If the average rating of a developer's/publisher's content is below 60% positive, they will not be allowed to publish more content until the ratings improve. This will help reduce shovelware while also encouraging devs to put in more effort. If the developer is being held back by a handful of really poorly rated games, they can opt to remove the game from the store. I also feel that if a product's rating dips below 33%, it ought to just be removed, and customers may get refunds.

This is such a good thing. Another bad thing is these beta games that is not even playable in some cases that they sell.

Silva:

I agree. I'm all up for easy publishing games on steam for independent devs to have a chance, but there should be some sort of a certifications process to filter the trash.

Some weeks are crazy, most weeks have 200+ games coming out... like you i'm all for independent games coming out, but so many games are trash to make a quick buck

schmidtbag:

I have a simple solution: If the average rating of a developer's/publisher's content is below 60% positive, they will not be allowed to publish more content until the ratings improve. This will help reduce shovelware while also encouraging devs to put in more effort. If the developer is being held back by a handful of really poorly rated games, they can opt to remove the game from the store. I also feel that if a product's rating dips below 33%, it ought to just be removed, and customers may get refunds.

Only issue with this is some games get review bombed, GTA went down to like 30% should that then be removed? It is quite hard to do a blanket cover of a game... i think its more these games need QA testing more than anything, so many are games that have clearly been made in a week and shouldn't be put on steam for release. sadly with around 200 games coming out every week who could QA test that? there is no way a small team could handle that and a big team would be so expensive to pay just to test games. Though maybe stuff like blacklistings of developers from people they often get horrid reviews and ratings and people wanting refunds and complaints might feel this gap? Though we might see developers just make new names for themselves to counteract this... its hard to find a nice middle ground on what is best to do and not hurting developers that actually want a good game Looking now at the worst reviewed games it seems a lot of them might have been review bombed down... C&C4 for example might not be the best game (infact it's the worst one) in the series but i think it's better than a 18% or 18/100

schmidtbag:

I have a simple solution: If the average rating of a developer's/publisher's content is below 60% positive, they will not be allowed to publish more content until the ratings improve. This will help reduce shovelware while also encouraging devs to put in more effort. If the developer is being held back by a handful of really poorly rated games, they can opt to remove the game from the store. I also feel that if a product's rating dips below 33%, it ought to just be removed, and customers may get refunds.

I doubt that would ever happen. If everyone could move away from Steam and go back to a more traditional model (many publishers, many points of sale) I feel this would be less of an issue. Valve would be more inclined to try and be competitive instead of doing only what they need to maintain profit.

Ricepudding:

Only issue with this is some games get review bombed, GTA went down to like 30% should that then be removed?

Are you saying there actually was a point where GTA's overall rating went below 30% or are you just speaking hypothetically? Because to my knowledge, not even No Man's Sky got that low. Also, maybe it wouldn't be an immediate removal but rather a warning, where the developers need to fix something within a certain time limit. Regardless, as Prince Valiant pointed out, it likely isn't ever going to happen anyway.

It is quite hard to do a blanket cover of a game... i think its more these games need QA testing more than anything, so many are games that have clearly been made in a week and shouldn't be put on steam for release. sadly with around 200 games coming out every week who could QA test that? there is no way a small team could handle that and a big team would be so expensive to pay just to test games. Though maybe stuff like blacklistings of developers from people they often get horrid reviews and ratings and people wanting refunds and complaints might feel this gap? Though we might see developers just make new names for themselves to counteract this... its hard to find a nice middle ground on what is best to do and not hurting developers that actually want a good game

It's not that hard to realize, even as the developer of a game, when your game is not ready for release. Due to Steam's refund policy, it is important for the customers to get what they paid for: a game they enjoy. But this is exactly the point of my first suggestion: if the developer isn't good enough at maintaining quality, they need to prioritize quality over quantity. The only way to force that to happen is to prevent them from releasing things until they can improve their own ratings. If they're afraid they'll never get their ratings back up, well, then maybe they shouldn't have released garbage to begin with. Remember, without punishing developers for negligence, ultimately the problem comes down to 2 things: 1. The customer is who really gets screwed over in the end. 2. The store gets littered with garbage, and good games get overshadowed by the influx of the garbage.

schmidtbag:

Are you saying there actually was a point where GTA's overall rating went below 30% or are you just speaking hypothetically? Because to my knowledge, not even No Man's Sky got that low. Also, maybe it wouldn't be an immediate removal but rather a warning, where the developers need to fix something within a certain time limit. Regardless, as Prince Valiant pointed out, it likely isn't ever going to happen anyway. It's not that hard to realize, even as the developer of a game, when your game is not ready for release. Due to Steam's refund policy, it is important for the customers to get what they paid for: a game they enjoy. But this is exactly the point of my first suggestion: if the developer isn't good enough at maintaining quality, they need to prioritize quality over quantity. The only way to force that to happen is to prevent them from releasing things until they can improve their own ratings. If they're afraid they'll never get their ratings back up, well, then maybe they shouldn't have released garbage to begin with. Remember, without punishing developers for negligence, ultimately the problem comes down to 2 things: 1. The customer is who really gets screwed over in the end. 2. The store gets littered with garbage, and good games get overshadowed by the influx of the garbage.

Maybe you missed it but couple of weeks ago GTA5's ratings went down to around 30% if i remember correctly, similar thing happened to Firewatch recently due to people bombing the reviews due to all sorts of reasons. I'm mostly playing the devils advocate to your examples, as it can be quite hard to find a good solution that always works. i've seen games drop score due to a recent change they made in the game for example, this would often be reversed mind you. Scores themselves are just not the best or good way to approach the subject as they are open to abuse. one example would be a rival company review bombing on another to get their games removed, might be rare but companies will do anything to get ahead as has been shown in the past. But like i said mostly playing devils advocate here, for the most part i do agree with what you're saying mind you i would tweek some things here and there. I think that maybe new developers might need QA testing before they can be allowed onto the site... People who have passed wouldn't need to do this like EA and Bethesda for example Beyond that then yeah maybe go with the 30% thing, remove from the store if it stays that long for x amount of time and doesnt show improvements

Ricepudding:

Maybe you missed it but couple of weeks ago GTA5's ratings went down to around 30% if i remember correctly, similar thing happened to Firewatch recently due to people bombing the reviews due to all sorts of reasons.

I did miss it, but the overall rating was at 30%? I can see now that GTA in the 60s, so it has a long way to go before the overall rating reaches 30%. Note that I didn't say a game should be removed if it lost 30%, but rather if the overall rating is at 30%.

I'm mostly playing the devils advocate to your examples, as it can be quite hard to find a good solution that always works. i've seen games drop score due to a recent change they made in the game for example, this would often be reversed mind you. Scores themselves are just not the best or good way to approach the subject as they are open to abuse.

I agree, but for games that that already had satisfied customers like GTA or Firewatch, the developers really need to understand their audience rather than listen to corporate administrators sitting behind a desk. When such people realize their opinions backfire, they're not going to tease people with stupid ideas and broken software. There is never a good excuse to piss off your customers enough to the point where your rating dips below 30%.

one example would be a rival company review bombing on another to get their games removed, might be rare but companies will do anything to get ahead as has been shown in the past.

That would be a valid point, except for one thing: to my recollection, you need to actually own and play the game for a certain amount of time before you can post a review of it. I don't think companies would buy dozens of copies of a game just to spam a few hundred negative reviews. Besides, even if you could, what's stopping them from doing that now? People are hesitant to buy a game (even AAA titles) with bad recent reviews. Considering scores from critics and other external sources like Amazon, console reviews, Metacritic, and so on, I think people would get a little suspicious of Steam having a weirdly high amount of negative reviews compared to everyone else.

gianluca:

There are lot of little kids that download stuff from Steam, how the hell is possible that this platform doesn't control what kind of contents are published? These people can hide porn content in their "games" and the players will be the first ones to discover it. Steam it's freakin ridiculous, Valve doesn't give a crap of the customers. 😡

Ain`t that a responsibility of the parents - what their kids do? If parents permit to do anything on the computer (since Steam is a PC exclusive) than primary line of defense against inappropriate content is removed.

I read this as "Valve removes 98% of games from Steam".

mbk1969:

Ain`t that a responsibility of the parents - what their kids do? If parents permit to do anything on the computer (since Steam is a PC exclusive) than primary line of defense against inappropriate content is removed.

BINGO!

I recently watched a video reporting that in 2016 alone, more games were released to Steam than all the games that existed on Steam previously. That has to say something about the amount of trashy games that make their way onto the platform

mbk1969:

Ain`t that a responsibility of the parents - what their kids do? If parents permit to do anything on the computer (since Steam is a PC exclusive) than primary line of defense against inappropriate content is removed.

Parents can't control anything. Certainly they can't play the full campaign of every game their childrens play just to check if their is innappropriate content hidden in it. I was speaking of hidden content. That's why on consoles there is the PEGI certification, it's one of the ways with which the system protects the customers. That's why the common toys made of plastic or other materials have to get certain certifications before entering the market. And we can go on making many other examples. Steam allows everybody to publish a game just paying a small fee and try to avoid the preventive control that they should do on the published material simply asking the developer to declare that his game has certain characteristics. It's bs, plain and simple. Valve is only trying to make as money as they can, without spending any to improve the Steam platform (they would have to hire many people to control the games before publishing and they would publish way less games each year if there was an approvement procedure to pass, losing their shares on the sales).They are just greedy bstrds. That's it.

gianluca:

Parents can't control anything. Certainly they can't play the full campaign of every game their childrens play just to check if their is innappropriate content hidden in it. I was speaking of hidden content. That's why on consoles there is the PEGI certification, it's one of the ways with which the system protects the customers. That's why the common toys made of plastic or other materials have to get certain certifications before entering the market. And we can go on making many other examples. Steam allows everybody to publish a game just paying a small fee and try to avoid the preventive control that they should do on the published material simply asking the developer to declare that his game has certain characteristics. It's bs, plain and simple. Valve is only trying to make as money as they can, without spending any to improve the Steam platform (they would have to hire many people to control the games before publishing and they would publish way less games each year if there was an approvement procedure to pass, losing their shares on the sales).They are just greedy bstrds. That's it.

Well, in many trailers to games there is PEGI part at the beginning. I am lazy parent myself, but when it comes to games played at home computer it is easiest thing to control: 1) you just need to search for a game info; 2) you just play first part of game yourself to check; 3) you just let kids play in your presence; 4) you simply sit nearby (reading, listening music player, making fun of player) while kids play. You can`t control what is happening outside, at school, with friends. But when kids are at home, let me to not believe you. Do not overestimate harm of inappropriate content. It is more harmful for a kid to witness inappropriate stuff going at home, between both parents, between parents and kid himself, between parents and other people. If parents are competent educators kid will come to them with questions about spotted inappropriate content. Oh, and I partially agree with you that some people at Valve are greedy bastards.

gianluca:

Parents can't control anything. Certainly they can't play the full campaign of every game their childrens play just to check if their is innappropriate content hidden in it. I was speaking of hidden content. That's why on consoles there is the PEGI certification, it's one of the ways with which the system protects the customers. That's why the common toys made of plastic or other materials have to get certain certifications before entering the market. And we can go on making many other examples. Steam allows everybody to publish a game just paying a small fee and try to avoid the preventive control that they should do on the published material simply asking the developer to declare that his game has certain characteristics. It's bs, plain and simple. Valve is only trying to make as money as they can, without spending any to improve the Steam platform (they would have to hire many people to control the games before publishing and they would publish way less games each year if there was an approvement procedure to pass, losing their shares on the sales).They are just greedy bstrds. That's it.

Steam offers quite a bit in parental controls features like setting a PIN that can restrict access to the storefront, specific games, community functionality, Steam Friends and so on, so it is not like they don't give parents the tools to do their job, but some parents will plonk little Jack an Jill down in front of the cheap babysitter, then go ape shit when both little Jack and Jill come in contact with stuff that there was plenty of options to stop them coming into contact with in the first place if said parents had bothered, and if parents can set up a steam, email, MS or PSN accounts there really is no excuse.

Ain`t that a responsibility of the parents - what their kids do? If parents permit to do anything on the computer (since Steam is a PC exclusive) than primary line of defense against inappropriate content is removed.

Yes and no but any retail shop also has the responsibility to prevent the sale of certain age restricted products to those that are not the correct age. That's easy because most shops will know what they sell and will know what is and isn't age restricted. Valve on the other hand doesn't give a flying f*ck and probably doesn't have a clue about even a tiny fraction of the content that is being sold on it's service, the issue isn't just the total lack of Q and A by the store front providere selling the products it's actually the degree and lengths that publishers have to go to before Valve actually start to take notice and do something. So far we have these guys who literally had to spam cr*p on to the service for to get Valve to do something and Digi Homi who had to threaten Valve with legal action before Valve took notice. I could imagine a publisher could very well hide age inappropriate content within their games and even when the community is going batsh*t crazy over it Valve would still stand at the side lines shrugging it's shoulders and saying 'not our problem.'