clyde

I was reminded today about how much this thread helped me develop my personal poltics. I'm hoping to create something similar for others, but I'm concerned it will go awry.

I seem to be doing it wrong. https://steamspy.com/year/2017/march Halp!

Better categorization or using the curation system would not only remove the stuff you consider shit from your view, it would also remove the stuff you don't want to play. So people could still find it and buy it if they want and you wouldn't notice it was there unless you went looking for it. Don't they show top-sellers by default? In combination with better categories, wouldn't this be fine for a new user to browse without concern of low-effort games?

I'm fine with more reliable categories. Removing games from the store is what I have a problem with. No one is stealing people's money in any of the circumstances we have discussed so far. Also, if you take a chance with fewer games that are chosen by Valve employees or whatever and you don't like the game, what is the difference? I want to see this. How do you do this search?

I'm glad I asked; I was legit confused about how you were relating the thing about tags and categories to my disapproval of removing games from the store because of most users quality standards. Here is one of the things that is having an impact on my views: I also have an imaginary consumer in mind as I'm thinking through this situation; it is basically me when I first started buying games on PC rather than on a console. The appeal of Steam were explicitly these things: -I don't have to worry about viruses if I download games from this store. -I don't have to worry about credit-card theft if I buy from this store. -I will be able to re-download the game after the publisher has gone out of business. During my first couple of years buying games on PC, I was also unaware of how wide of an array PC-gaming was. This was around 2008. At the time visual-novels and early-access were not on the store. Short, interesting games like Gravity Bone were not on the store. Wasn't 30 Flights of Loving was controversial when it was put on the Steam store? The climate has changed a lot since then largely due to Itch.io and Gamejolt, but I think that it is an entitled (as defined previously by Gormongous) assumption that folks that scared about downloading PC games will know about or trust stores like Itch.io. On an early episode of the Giant Beast Cast, Vinny Caravella expressed very clearly that he was not willing to download from (I'm pretty sure it was) Itch.io because he was afraid he would get viruses. There is an industry professional who is unwilling to download a PC game from something smaller than Steam, Origin, Uplay or Battlenet. Y'all don't seem to think that these frightened PC players would enjoy smaller games that a lot of folks wouldn't consider worth a buck, but I certainly would have if I had known they existed.

You can by foot in COD multiplayer too. I don't think that people are looking for Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 when they are searching for racing games. I assume they are looking for something like Project Cars or Assetto Corsa, not GTA5. p.s. I'm continually surprised by what y'all seem to think my position has been in this thread. Not sure what is causing the confusion. I guess it's not a big deal. It's weird though.

Maybe Valve should concentrate of fixing their categories rather than removing games from sale (or not putting them up at all). here is the second page when I browse "Racing" Based off of some of the positions stated in this thread, an uneducated consumer might buy Car Mechanic Simulator 2015 or Mad Max or Arma III DLC thinking that it is a racing game. This failure to properly categorize is also burying games and losing revenue for hard-working game-makers. Why isn't this the priority solution when it is something that more people would be happy with?

Do you think older games should be removed from the store? Pretty much all stores remove stock when it expires or becomes out-dated. I would think that some of the older games on Steam aren't even compatible with Windows 10. In your view, would this be a good way to remove some of the cruft in Steam?

I assume that this isn't an attempt to represent my position, but I'm still curious which priviledges you are referring to.

Don't they have the right to allow something on their store that a certain group of its consumers consider a scam or just noise?

I'm in a weird spot because if I don't respond then it will look like I'm ignoring you and if I do it will provide you with more evidence of my manipulative rhetorical tactics. If I just say the above then it'll probably seem like I'm accusing you of something so I'll just go ahead and attempt to clarify my positions on your points: I don't think Sterling is a bad man. I do think that he is using fascist imagery while saying things like "A 15 million dollar lawsuit should never have happened. Multiple copyright strikes against dozens of YouTube channels shouldn't happen. Stalking, threats, invasive behavior, this string of not just unprofessional but recklessly unhinged little animals thinking that they run the show, it should never have gotten so far and so out of hand. For years, I thought the problem was the games, the shitty games flooding Steam. James remind taught me different. Threats to kill me through continued harassment taught me different. Accusations of trademark violation and developers who think their ass-pool(?) users beat Valve's rules taught me different. Shitty games are a symptom, shitty people are the disease and the thought of disinfecting them for good fills me with a near perverse level of pleasure; the work continues." probably helps to encourage the behavior he is supposedly condemning. I linked this article earlier. I'm not suggesting that the developer didn't also harass folks, but I think it is worth considering that this developer has received harassment from the fans of Sterling who again is dressed like and presents himself like a fascist. I'm happy that he is a proponent of social justice, but that doesn't change how I'm seeing this particular campaign and his role in it. I read the Hernandez review. Similar to how I view the Jim Sterling stuff, it seems performative to me. When someone goes in to review a game that has racked up 454 mostly negative reviews in five days and is selling for 24cents for a publication or their YouTube channel, I tend to assume that it is going to be a hit job for laughs. I don't entirely dismiss their observations because of that motive, but I do see it as performative rather than some sort of good-faith desire to enjoy a game. That's fine with me if they want to do comedic hit-jobs, people love that stuff but it is a performance in both cases. I'm okay with this conversation happening, I just think that I'm right and Twig is wrong. I still want to hear y'alls opinions and express mine, but I'm not expecting in to result in us agreeing. I still find value in it. I am open to the possibility of better curation being a net positive for customers and developers of games. I don't think that removing games from the store because of status-quo standards is better curation. I still think that the folks who find these games to play are looking for them. Maybe they want to do a comedic hit-job. Maybe they want to be obstinate about fake-games. The point is that I don't see these games served to uneducated consumers in an exploitative manner. Better curation in my view would be allowing folks to do things like search by publisher, be able to subscribe to the recommendations of others, and be able to filter by user review scores. I think they have done all that, but that is the type of thing that I think leads to better curation. Not removing something from sale on a digital store. I think you are overstating my disdain for Sterling. If there is a particular thing I said you want me to address I can. So my Let's Play is up.

I don't think I'm using strawmen. Valve is getting advice from Jim Sterling on this issue. Jim Sterling did a performance that was based on the the idea that it is ridiculous to have a Digital Homicide game on Steam. So it seems like Valve is considering enforcing the types of standards that Jim Sterling has for games. If we are just talking about the game and not the actions of consumers and the developer in this conflict I know little about, there is no reason for Devil's Share to not be on Steam. It's not fraudulent in any way. I enjoyed it. It's not a swindle. Jim Sterling thought that games like this are unworthy of Steam as a platform. I just made a Let's Play of Devil's Share. I'll probably publish it tonight. Also what about my other examples like Magic Wand or Mountain. You think that Jim Sterling or his fans would have the aesthetic flexibility to see the value of it being on Steam? I don't have that much faith in them.

But historically, attempts to remove some of these games and games like these used the same arguments. I think you are looking at this problem retrospectively and as if the standards of quality are objective. When another game comes out that is in the position to do what Mountain or Five Nights At Freddy's or Gone Home did comes out in the future and defies the expectations gamers have about what is allowed to be sold as a game, I don't want these fake-game hunters to have the ability to protect the public from them. I think that 50 Short games and Magic Wand are particularly good examples. I know that thecatamites was putting Magic Wand up on Greenlight at some point and the sensibility of that game is something that would likely be targeted by the complaints of the game-police. Even if it got through Greenlight because of an established fandom, all those fans would be accused of being sock-puppet accounts because the game-police are so convinced that what they define as a game worthy of being on Steam is the only possible definition.

"no" what?

Of course they will have other venues for distribution, but some examples of games that have artistic value that I imagine would be targeted for removal: -Depression Quest -Magic Wand -50 Short Games -any Twine game -games made with RPG Maker -Visual novels -any game that uses a publicly available 3d model or environment from the Unity asset store. With the exception of the Digital Homicide games, I'm not aware of any that are up for sale, but I'm sure there are some. -Dominique Pamplemousse -Mountain

I played some Pixel Day Gun-Z which is not nearly as interesting as the previous two games. I watched some more Jim Inquistion videos about the beef with Digital Homicide and Unit-Z "asset-flips". I think that those are two different situations that shouldn't be conflated. In one case Sterling claims that the developer started harassing him with frivolous lawsuit threats. He also goes into detail about stuff like creating a honey-pot for people who were critical of the game so that they could be pre-emptively banned before writing bad reviews (I think?). On the flip side of that it looks like there was a pretty significant campaign of writing comments in every possible crevice of the developer's store-fronts to talk shit. I wasn't there, I don't know what's really going on, it seems like more of an issue involving terms of use for developers and consumers on the social portions of the Steam store. With games like Pixel Day Gun-Z (which is still on Steam but took some effort to have it appear on a list of games) the issue seems to be that folks are buying a game-pack called Unit-Z and an bundle of 3d models off of the Unity Asset store, putting them together in the fastest way and then getting the game through Greenlight somehow. I also saw it mentioned that some games are being submitted to Greenlight by people that actually did not make the game. I don't know how they got it, but I guess someone could take a game off of itch.io and put it on Steam Greenlight claiming that it is theirs? The reason I mention these two types of circumstances together is because in both cases the problem seems to be that Greenlight is somehow being gamed. I'm kinda curious about how that is done. Are they using botnets or just giving away free keys for upvotes? I'm not bothered by Pixel Day Gun-Z being on the store. I think it is astoundingly uninteresting and if I had a store this would not be in it, but I don't know. I am concerned that every game that uses a store-bought asset is going to get attacked by these purists and maybe the advantage of having games like Pixel Day Gun-Z on the store is that it establishes one side of the spectrum of expectations. I'd love to see an examination of the game that expresses appreciation for it, I can't do it. Devil's Share is pretty cool though, and Galactic Hitman is not a fun game, but I still see those wet liver-faced aliens with tentacle mustaches shooting at me when I close my eyes and I can remember the exact intonation of "Target Down". So those are good examples of what concerns me about these efforts to get games removed from Steam. I think they are kinda neat (even though my appreciation for them is based on something other than fun-factor) and I expect that they would be lumped in during the purge. I think it's also worth mentioning that Galactic Hitman and Devil's Share may not have come into being if not for the motive to put them on Steam, I'm not sure about that but it is worth considering. I'm curious about how this Explorer's program will go now that I've investigated the situation a little bit. I might record a Let's Play of Devil's Share. I'm a bit nervous about doing so, but we will see.

So I've now beaten Galactic Hitman and another game by Digital Homicide called Devil's Share. Both games are rather short and also extremely punishing in how fast and inevitable damage is (until you realize that crouching makes you impossible to hit). I stopped playing Galactic Hitman after the first two levels. The levels are very similar to each other. Then I played some Devil's Share. Devil's Share is actually kinda awesome. I'm happy that I bought it and played it. I will admit that it would be confusing if I didn't come into this game expecting something normal, but that could be said about other games I've learned to appreciate. I don't really want to spoil Devil's Share for y'all; working through your expectations for how a game that looks like it should play is the fun and interesting part. If I just happened across either of these games on Steam somehow (which again, is impossible now) I would be really confused. I don't think that is reason to campaign against the developer though or for the store to remove the games (I understand that there was more complexity to this case, but I'm just saying based on the quality of the games themselves). Mildly interesting note: the trading cards are still earnable, but not buyable or saleable. Looking forward to trying Pixel Day Gun-Z tommorow or maybe a little bit tonight.

Guess what I just found for the ripe price of 10cents? Not Air Control. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01CS3XJB8/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491773024&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=galactic+hitman&dpPl=1&dpID=61dLsQEl28L&ref=plSrch

Awkward. Hmmm. It looks like there is some nuance to these events. http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/2016/09/21/yuma-digital-homicide-video-games-sue-users/90742572/ http://kotaku.com/game-developer-sues-100-anonymous-steam-users-for-18-m-1786721306 It looks like another case of consumer-vigilantes. Now I'm wondering if we are debating ethics in games-storefronts while someone is the victim of online harassment.

I can't buy Air Control or find a way to buy Galactic Hitman (maybe because I'm on my phone?) So it seems that Valve is removing games that the Youtubers freak out about having access to on the Steam store in some cases.

I think they have a right to not include all games submitted, I just don't think they have the responsibility to exclude games that gamers consider fake games. I still don't understand where these low-information consumers are being served these fake games as suggestions to buy. I don't see these dozens of complaints of games being non-refundable, possibly because I'm browsing by phone. I also don't consider use of assets from Unity's asset store a reason to dismiss the worth of a game. As far as why be concerned, Steam as a platform has an impact on what is considered legitmate and/or saleable. I can understand someone thinking that this does not necessitate that they have the responsibility to represent games outside of the status-quo, but Steam's influence is significant enough that the gamer-police can use its policies to damage the medium and the ability of small developers to reach their audience. I can easily think of a few games that this crew would get removed from consideration on the store that have historical been influential and successful financial or culturally. And again, the complaint that these fake games are creating so much noise and cheating customers continue to be unbased.

If the games had viruses then I would agree that there is a problem. Valve's job (as I see it) is to: -keep viruses or phishing methods or whatever off the store -to ensure that I can get refunds for games that are falsely advertised or don't run -keep harassment masked as free-speech games off the store -ensure that I can still download the game once the developer goes belly up. Not to enforce quality-standards of others on me.

Someone found one for me. It's on sale even! Looking forward to play it when I get home. I hope the haters don't get it removed first. http://store.steampowered.com/app/474790/

I still don't understand how this creates a problem for you. Is the problem that you don't want to see non-interactive stuff when you are browsing Greenlight submissions? I mean, what is the section of the store that people are browsing where fake games are creating too much noise? I never see them.