Steams new approach ?

[Guest]

I don't really understand the implications of the new approach,of sell whatever regardless,but I do know the difference between quality control (does the product work and do what is intended and censorship ) really hard to make sense of what their trying to do https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44393415

 

[Darkening Demise]

Great just when they couldn't sink any lower they do. But this is in part of what happens and what it looks like when you have zero competition. Look at Playstation this generation and now they do shit like Life of Black Tiger and Playstation Now. They could care less since everyone will love them for it because there are no alternatives.

Competition brings cancerous fanboys sure, but also ushers quality to ensure your product is the number one seller. Without it you could just make a MS Paint image of a dong and sell it for $60. To which expect many of those things on Steam now. Sad.

[Evilynn]

19 minutes ago, Darkening Demise said:

Great just when they couldn't sink any lower they do.

I'm not sure what you are upset about... It doesn't sound much different than what they do now other than allowing things like adult content... I'd like to see adult content on steam...

 

It's not like they police games for quality now.

 

Buying a game without looking into it will continue be a waste of money. I'd love to play some good adult games, and right now it's hard/impossible to find.

 

What am I missing?

[Reginald_001]

1 hour ago, Evilynn said:

I'm not sure what you are upset about... It doesn't sound much different than what they do now other than allowing things like adult content... I'd like to see adult content on steam...

 

It's not like they police games for quality now.

 

Buying a game without looking into it will continue be a waste of money. I'd love to play some good adult games, and right now it's hard/impossible to find.

 

What am I missing?

You're not missing anything. Being negative about any sort of change has become the go-to attitude for most people these days.

The only thing that Steam is changing is that it will allow more content than it did before and will be a neutral party in providing this content.

 

Before, Valve, took responsibility over the presented content and from here on in, they don't.

[Fuzzy_Fox]

I think this is in response to the people who demanded that the anime cartoon novels be taken off the store due to their "soft porn nature." So what better way to tell those people to sod off than to say in a polite way. "This is our store and we will sell what we like."

 

Personally I like this stand from Valve at last a company is standing up to these people who claim they are "woke", I hate that word and would punch anyone who uses it in a serious tone.

 

As for poor quality products on the store I guess you will have to research the game and listen/ read reviews or better still watch Twitch streams of the game before you buy. Don't pre-order anything either.

[Guest]

Not sure why people are getting their panties in a bunch.....seriously why complain? Instead of reading some biased articles written by some fool with a high school diploma in journalism, why not read Steam's direct statement instead? and make your own bias? Just a thought.

 

1. This was largely in response to Steam's decision to remove adult content, especially visual novels. They overturned that decision because of the huge backlash.

2. Steam did state that they will still be putting in efforts to remove low quality/troll games.

3. Steam is going to make it easier for you to filter stuff so that you can stop crying about content you don't want to see instead of Steam taking the initiative and hiding it for everyone.

and my last point. . . .

4. So many of you seem concerned that you'll be duped into buying trash games because of the "lack of quality control" you feel this change will bring. Do you forget that Steam lets you refund the game as long as you haven't had it for more than three days and haven't played it for more than 2 hours?

There's literally nothing bad about this and on the upside will mean that non of your games will be discriminated against in terms of it being sold or not.

[GrimReaper]

It's kinda funny to see how disconnected all the game journalists are. They're all living in their own little peer-filterbubble and every outlet shits the bed preaching doom because apparently steam endorses hate speech now. Meanwhile, consumers are mostly glad because

1) Trashy asset flips are pretty much invisible on the store front unless you search for them

2) Steam won't curate on content anymore which means more anime tiddies for everyone

3) Games won't be removed anymore because an employee at valve thinks it's offensive

4) Devs can release the games they want without having to make compromises in the depiction of gore and sexual content

 

They're also mad because the new rules (what valve sees as illegal and/or trolling) are pretty ambiguous and not clearly defined. Guess what, if you make elaborate rules people will make a competition out of it to break the rules without technically breaking them.

[Reginald_001]

58 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

It's kinda funny to see how disconnected all the game journalists are. They're all living in their own little peer-filterbubble and every outlet shits the bed preaching doom because apparently steam endorses hate speech now. Meanwhile, consumers are mostly glad because

1) Trashy asset flips are pretty much invisible on the store front unless you search for them

2) Steam won't curate on content anymore which means more anime tiddies for everyone

3) Games won't be removed anymore because an employee at valve thinks it's offensive

4) Devs can release the games they want without having to make compromises in the depiction of gore and sexual content

 

They're also mad because the new rules (what valve sees as illegal and/or trolling) are pretty ambiguous and not clearly defined. Guess what, if you make elaborate rules people will make a competition out of it to break the rules without technically breaking them.

That trolling rule basically constitutes as 'Don't be a dick'.

[kionee]

Good for steam. Sick of hearing from people how everything they don't like or doesn't fit into their ideology should be banned. Is there stuff on there I don't like, sure, but I don't look at it or buy it. Are there things on there that offend me, possibly, but what offends me is irrelevant. Boy Bands offend me, doesn't mean I want them banned. 

[guk]

More freedom for game content sounds great, but...

 

 

I remember browsing the Steam Store on every seasonal sale. Usually you could see the blockbuster games at first glance, bundled with all DLCs and final patches for 5-20€. Games with high production value that are fun for something like 10-30 hours, but otherwise not worth buying at release.

 

Well since they don't even do "Greenlight" for indie games anymore, you literally have to dig through hundreds or thousands of absolute trash games before finding a halfway decent one. You know all those pixel graphics - side scrollers - card games and other total shitproducts. For some reason these games also have the highest ratings, probably because discerning players don't even consider buying and thus rating them - while the few good games are often wrecked in the ratings because a chinese translation is missing or god-knows-what else.

 

[ToJKa]

Yay, porn!

[KoolHndLuke]

4 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

more anime tiddies for everyone

This can't be anything but good imo.? We already have more than enough blood and gore.

 

[Ernest Lemmingway]

This is old news. A religious group in 'Murica tried to put legal pressure on Valve to take down certain eroge (erotic games, such as Huniepop) and it looked like they might succeed for a time. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but their efforts have had the opposite effect it seems. Delicious irony.

[LesboIsBesto]

God I love it when a game company says fuck off to these kinds of people & does some good shit like dis. Can't ever let the lowest common denominator have any say in anything gaming

[pinky6225]

Seems the right decision to me as steam is a games vendor not the morality police

 

Don't like it then don't view it/buy it

[TanookiTamaTachi]

This has upsides and downsides:

 

+ Adult games don't have to hide behind uncensor patches anymore.

 

+ Game devs of games with any other potentially contested content no longer have to be afraid of backlash.

 

- Trolls and outrage-baiters of any interest group will have a field day figuring out how far they can push things before valve shuts them down.

 

- The landfill of literal digital garbage that is the steam catalog is about to get a whole lot deeper. Considering the "usefulness" of current filter and search options, I don't have much hope finding anything good is going to become much easier, either.

 

- This attitude might have actual legislative consequences in some places. Unless valve is very through with their regional filters, I can see steam getting banned in numerous places in the not too far future...

[Darkpig]

I have a feeling this might come to bite steam in the butt in the future. I am not keeping track of what sort of age rating system steam is using to keep the kiddos away from games that are too mature for their age group because I don't really give a fuck. But some people might and if they manage to get some all important politician on the scene because Valve forgot to add an age rating on a game they mindlessly shipped out there then there will be hell to pay for all of us.

 

Case and point: Parents can be total dicks when it comes to children. Too much? Not enough? Either way steam needs to watch its ass.

 

Just my two cents

[Vyxenne]

19 hours ago, Fuzzy_Fox said:

I think this is in response to the people who demanded that the anime cartoon novels be taken off the store due to their "soft porn nature." So what better way to tell those people to sod off than to say in a polite way. "This is our store and we will sell what we like."

 

Personally I like this stand from Valve at last a company is standing up to these people who claim they are "woke", I hate that word and would punch anyone who uses it in a serious tone.

 

As for poor quality products on the store I guess you will have to research the game and listen/ read reviews or better still watch Twitch streams of the game before you buy. Don't pre-order anything either.

^^^^^So much this.

[myuhinny]

I see nothing wrong with their decision and at least they have more brains/balls then patreon did.

[peculiaris]

On 6/9/2018 at 12:16 AM, Darkpig said:

I have a feeling this might come to bite steam in the butt in the future. I am not keeping track of what sort of age rating system steam is using to keep the kiddos away from games that are too mature for their age group because I don't really give a fuck. But some people might and if they manage to get some all important politician on the scene because Valve forgot to add an age rating on a game they mindlessly shipped out there then there will be hell to pay for all of us.

 

Case and point: Parents can be total dicks when it comes to children. Too much? Not enough? Either way steam needs to watch its ass.

 

Just my two cents

You have to input your age every time you want to view an Adult rated game on steam, so if a kids gets a hold of a game with something like nudity or gore they lied about their age which makes them the person responsible not Valve.

[Slorm]

I'm surprised they've done this but generally I think it's a very welcome move. How long they can stand the heat from the various self appointed moral guardians (of all persuasions) is a matter for conjecture though

[Darkpig]

11 hours ago, peculiaris said:

You have to input your age every time you want to view an Adult rated game on steam, so if a kids gets a hold of a game with something like nudity or gore they lied about their age which makes them the person responsible not Valve. 

That is the general idea but if steam accidentally releases a game that is not behind that barrier then the store would be responsible. Of course I posted before even reading the article durrr! So I ended up judging the company based on previous experiences based on Steam's hands off approach to things. If Valve as a company does do all the things stated in the article then it might just get away with some amazing stuff. Despite my shitty ill informed post I stand by my previous statement that Steam needs to watch itself.

[BoozeJunky]

On 6/8/2018 at 1:10 AM, Evilynn said:

It's not like they police games for quality now. Buying a game without looking into it will continue be a waste of money.

You could make the argument that it's a form of censorship in itself, but I would love to see Steam keep their open doors policy, while vastly upgrading their ability for the customer to search titles and filter out content that they're not interested in. Have entirely separate sections of the store for Publisher produced games and Indie games - which is where filtering would get tricky. VNs like Sakura Fantasy and games like Deep Space Waifu are rather cheap productions, but there's still a respectable quality behind them that puts them - in my mind - well above the typical asset flip and sub-mobile dross that's causing so many problems. The way the Xbox 360 handled the situations last gen was a pretty good yardstick for handling them. Though still woefully unfriendly to the consumer in terms of search ability and UI, they managed to have distinct sections for larger Publisher games, a section for Indies (XBLA Arcade), and then a section for really low-skill/low-effort titles. Maybe some combination of that tiered storefront approach along with the current curators section (to promote cross-tier promotion/visibility of worthwhile titles depending on taste)

 

And of course, titles could shift tiers depending on user-engagement and studio status. A smaller indie studios who's game gets picked up on and improved with publisher investment could get moved to the larger publisher tier so that it's not unfairly competing against other indie titles, and asset-flip tier games which actually end up having a lot of continued development put in and gain in popularity, could get moved up to the indie tier as it's proven to be a quality game people want to play.

[CheddarTrauma]

On 6/8/2018 at 1:13 PM, Ernest Lemmingway said:

This is old news. A religious group in 'Murica tried to put legal pressure on Valve to take down certain eroge (erotic games, such as Huniepop) and it looked like they might succeed for a time. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but their efforts have had the opposite effect it seems.

Many of the creators of those games received emails from steam entailing that their games were under review to be removed for their "content." It wasn't until after the creators spread the word around and got into contact with Steam that Steam put out this change to solidify their commitment against removing games.

 

Most of the dispute can be read through the HuniePop creator's twitter NSFW:

Spoiler

HuniePotDev

 

It had nothing to do with provocative content as is being shouted around for some reason, and it's not like there isn't already plenty of that to varying degrees in titles from bigger budget publishers/studios that are untouched.

Personally, I believe any game or movie should never be censored or refused a platform regardless of its content. Bigoted, hateful, ect. it doesn't matter - the freedom should be there to create and purchase any product like this that isn't illegal. The cost and sales of a product pushing a creator into bankruptcy is what will prevent garbage like that.

 

What I'd ask for from Steam is stricter rules on publishers to prevent misleading information of descriptions on store pages, and a community driven system of flagging games to show up as 'potentially misleading' from what's advertised on the store page (like how user-defined currently work.)

[Midnight19]

i wonder if this means Hardcore Sex Sims will be coming to steam