Assault Android Cactus+ Dev (87 on metacritic): Epic Game store "wasn't interested."

[Swenhir]

It feels like the media's stance has never been about presenting a fair account of facts or even call out anti-consumer practices but to simply go against Steam, just because.

I'm not going to speculate at to the reasons for that because each of them makes my blood boil. Durante has the right of it when he calls them sycophants because that's exactly what they have been showing themselves as.

 

[Demacabre]

Video games media coverage of Epic has been poor. They took up a narrative predicated on a fallacious factoid ("30% vs 12%"). Epic's game store was cast as a positive market disruption without a good factual analysis of the situation. Then some sites doubled down despite the growth and development of the story, handwaving away apologies for some significant issues with Epic's game store, usually just regurgitating Epic's PR clips without further critique.

In that time Epic has...
- told most indie developers to, basically, go fuck themselves
- outright stated they want to control digital distribution (i.e. limited/no 3rd party key selling) and prices
- tried to appease user criticism by allowing 3rd party selling on a very limited and disingenuous basis (humble's site only)
- pushed credit card process fees onto users
- pushed discovery costs onto developers
- continued to moneyhat exclusives just about to release on Steam
- locked out user usability options, like reviews and customer service
- basically shit on PC users telling them they don't know what's good for them
- was discovered to be stealing Steam user data

And Valve has...
- stopped one shitty game, which was never going to be approved for sale, from being approved for sale
- continued to expand and support Steam Link
- continued to develop and improve discoverability
- continued to significantly improve the user interface
- is working on dedicated servers for any game
- and more

I can recall several sites that regurgitated Epic PR points without much analysis. I can't think of many sites that covered any of the above concerns or issues with the Epic store with any sincerity. Meanwhile the coverage of Valve has mostly revolved around one shitty game that was never going to be approved.

I understand gaming news is, like any other news, driven by interest and titillation (dirty laundry), but it's worth pointing out how weak the coverage has been of the entire situation.

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It's almost like Epic is tossing around money in the marketing push of their new storefront and might be a big advertiser and many news sites depend on advertising revenue...

(It's been shit reporting by the gaming press and very disheartening)

 

[ThankDougie]

Valve used to decide which games were good and worthy. Devs told them they were wrong, and research backed them up. I don't care how broadminded a curator one thinks oneself - you can't account for all tastes. That good stuff gets buried (beneath stuff both good and bad) is true in literally every facet of life.

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Absolutely, but this brings us back to where I wanted to stay in the first place: Valve's attitude toward curation is not pointing the ship in the right direction, it just happens to be what's easiest for Valve and simultaneously most accepting for developers. It's HUGELY debatable that works for a number of reasons, one of which includes the issues of privilege I brought up before.

I'd love to see Valve keep the market open and improve their sanitation efforts (if we like the word more than curation, fine). But I'm not encouraged by their approach to the issue so far.

 

[Thekeats]

I think that point is being misunderstood. I was replying to this comment: "We've seen from experience that going heavy-handed in the other direction [i.e., heavy curation] never works out, though, and that's Epic's chosen solution.

My point is that curation works fantastically for platforms like Playstation. Curation and exclusivity are major drivers of sales success. The idea that heavy curation necessarily leads to creative or financial death seems wildly over-estimated.

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Yeah but you are ignoring the fact that he said Heavy curation. Because even Sony and MS don't go for heavy curation. This was what steam used to do. None of us want to return to that period.

 

[Deleted member 15440]

I think that point is being misunderstood. I was replying to this comment: "We've seen from experience that going heavy-handed in the other direction [i.e., heavy curation] never works out, though, and that's Epic's chosen solution.

My point is that curation works fantastically for platforms like Playstation. Curation and exclusivity are major drivers of sales success. The idea that heavy curation necessarily leads to creative or financial death seems wildly over-estimated.

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it's also possible to be more permissive yet still restricting things like hate speech. itch.io has done exactly this, and if anything they're even more permissive than steam.

you're conflating things that don't require each other. steam hosting white supremacist message boards and allowing anyone to put their game on their platform are separate, one is bad and one is good and they could fix the bad one without killing the good.

 

[ThankDougie]

Yeah but you are ignoring the fact that he said Heavy curation. Because even Sony and MS don't go for heavy curation. This was what steam used to do. None of us want to return to that period.

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Maybe I'm struggling against a definition of "heavy curation" then. None of this is happening in a market where alternatives to Epic aren't available. Steam used to pull the heavy curation ticket and it was obviously over-the-top, but who else existed outside of Steam at the time? I think comparing Epic now to Steam then is off for a number of reasons, one of which is that the market now is massively different than the market from 2004 or whatever.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

I can't even read past this. Both are possible. The idea that it isn't is an idea promoted by Steam and Reddit to save them money.

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I'll quote a part you didn't read for reference.

I would much prefer a system where any content can be submitted but some content can be removed due to users seeing it as problematic, to a system where all content is pre-moderated and only that which qualifies is allowed. It's both much more efficient, and lets content creators make regular content without worrying about arbitrary cutoffs for quality. Like, for instance, any messageboard works. In that regard, this "no curation" policy is superior to all feasible alternatives.

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As the size of the open community can increase at an unlimited rate, then in order to enforce full pre-moderation the platform owner must be able to increase their manpower and expenses at an unlimited rate - which, outside of having a friendly AI for moderation purposes, is functionally impossible. What is possible, is delegating the matters of moderation to the community members and the store visitors, as both can also increase at an unlimited rate. Thus, store visitors can discover unwanted or offensive content and report it for investigation (sometimes even without going to mass media with it), and communities can follow general rules and police themselves, leaving the limited platform-owner staff to respond to technical issues and investigate reports.

 

[Deleted member 3058]

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What the?

Not everyone is in the central time zone.

 

[ThankDougie]

it's also possible to be more permissive yet still restricting things like hate speech. itch.io has done exactly this, and if anything they're even more permissive than steam.

you're conflating things that don't require each other. steam hosting white supremacist message boards and allowing anyone to put their game on their platform are separate, one is bad and one is good and they could fix the bad one without killing the good.

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OK, yes, I agree! BUT, Valve hasn't done that. To the extent that Itch has been successful in moderating hateful content, I think it is the far superior platform on this issue. But that makes me wonder: why the hell can't Valve curate in a similar fashion with all the money they have behind them?

 

[Thekeats]

Maybe I'm struggling against a definition of "heavy curation" then. None of this is happening in a market where alternatives to Epic aren't available. Steam used to pull the heavy curation ticket and it was obviously over-the-top, but who else existed outside of Steam at the time? I think comparing Epic now to Steam then is off for a number of reasons, one of which is that the market now is massively different than the market from 2004 or whatever.

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But that is the whole basis of the tweets. Epic is acting like it is still 2004. They are trying to be the arbitters of what is good and what is crappy. Regardless of what there customers may think. Regardless of what devs think.

 

[Deleted member 15440]

OK, yes, I agree! BUT, Valve hasn't done that. To the extent that Itch has been successful in moderating hateful content, I think it is the far superior platform on this issue. But that makes me wonder: why the hell can't Valve curate in a similar fashion with all the money they have behind them?

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well clearly they could and choose not to do so, which is why pretty much everyone here agrees that there are things they could be doing better.

but none of that is really the point here, in a topic about epic's short-sighted exclusionary policies about game submissions to their store. it's an entirely separate thing and even if steam should be moderating better it doesn't change the fact that an open platform that doesn't curate the games they accept is better for everyone involved.

 

[Deleted member 22002]

I don't think an indie dev lost even A SINGLE sale because of an asset flip or one of those troll games: automatic refunds take care of that problem even for the most distracted buyer.

When they ask for "curation" they ask for similar-quality devs to be put out of business so they don't dilute their feeding pool, it's the ultimate hypocrisy. Your pixel art masterpiece is "another shitty pixel art" game in the eyes of a curator, your walking simulator you put blood and sweat into making is "another shitty walking sim" in the eye of a curator, and I could go on, or get even darker as curation can also start to single out things like "a trans protagonist" or "too much lgbt content". And if your game distinguishes itself so much to the point you can shrug and pass any curation, chance is you were going to have exactly the same success "diluted" by asset flips, and lower quality games, last time I heard, Dead Cells and Hollow Knight weren't dying out.

"Curation" is entitled dev nostralgia toward the pre-bubble burst days of indie development, when even bad games were top shelf material just because they existed and didn't cost 60$ and weren't brown shooters. That time ain't coming back.

 

[ThankDougie]

but none of that is really the point here, in a topic about epic's short-sighted exclusionary policies about game submissions to their store. it's an entirely separate thing and even if steam should be moderating better it doesn't change the fact that an open platform that doesn't curate the games they accept is better for everyone involved.

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This is where I disagree, sorry. "Better for everyone involved" is the kind of privileged language I'm talking about. It is the point because Epic is taking an explicitly curatorial stance on the admission of content, which means they are taking direct responsibility for the content in their store. Are they going over-the-top? Yeah. But the Tweet I was responding to suggested that Steam/Valve had the right idea and that Epic should consider being more open to content in a similar way. I disagree. Given the market, given that Steam and Itch and GOG already exist, Epic's stance isn't damaging anyone's visibility in a way that Steam or Itch or GOG already aren't too. In other words, at the very least Epic is willing to say "this is acceptable" and "this isn't acceptable." Steam's response is, "yeah whatever sell it here and we'll get around to banning it later, quietly, maybe."

 

[Deleted member 15440]

This is where I disagree, sorry. "Better for everyone involved" is the kind of privileged language I'm talking about. It is the point because Epic is taking an explicitly curatorial stance on the admission of content, which means they are taking direct responsibility for the content in their store. Are they going over-the-top? Yeah. But the Tweet I was responding to suggested that Steam/Valve had the right idea and that Epic should consider being more open to content in a similar way. I disagree. Given the market, given that Steam and Itch and GOG already exist, Epic's stance isn't damaging anyone's visibility in a way that Steam or Itch or GOG already aren't too. In other words, at the very least Epic is willing to say "this is acceptable" and "this isn't acceptable." Steam's response is, "yeah whatever sell it here and we'll get around to banning it later, quietly, maybe."

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i honestly don't know how you can say this. being pro-curation is a privileged stance, because it literally selects for the already successful and popular studios and hands them an even more disproportionate share of sales and attention. the creators who are hurt by epic and old steam-style curation policies aren't scammers and nazis but the poor and disadvantaged, who overwhelmingly tend to be LGBT/women/racial minorities/third world developers.

whether you want to acknowledge it or not there is a substantive difference between curation (whitelisting, as in the only games admitted are manually chosen and approved) and moderation (blacklisting, everything is allowed except that which breaks the platform's rules). steam and itch.io both do the latter, the issue you have is simply that steam's rules are inadequate. that can be fixed without completely shifting from moderation to curation.

 

[BBboy20]

had to deal with severe personal issues like deaths in families and severe health issues including brief hospitalizations and chronic illness that impacts to this day

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Jesus :(

 

[ThankDougie]

i honestly don't know how you can say this. being pro-curation is a privileged stance, because it literally selects for the already successful and popular studios and hands them an even more disproportionate share of sales and attention. the creators who are hurt by epic and old steam-style curation policies aren't scammers and nazis but the poor and disadvantaged, who overwhelmingly tend to be LGBT/women/racial minorities/third world developers.

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Itch is pro-curation, right? It's not a privileged stance to advocate for minority voices by asking that curation be dedicated to protecting their existence within the system.

In Epic's case, I agree with you a little more, except that Epic isn't the only game on the block and those developers can get their work recognized on some fairly large platforms. What I'm saying is that Epic needs to loosen their stance and Valve needs to tighten theirs up. Absolutely agree that minorities need to get a boost, but also agree that supremacists and etc. should have platforms taken away from them. Valve's approach has been to do this under external pressure. There's no self-monitoring there at all, and whatever other people think: they have the money to make such monitoring possible.

 

[the_wart]

Exactly. EGS wants to be this high-order curator but with none of the variety. Criterion is smart in their selections since film, like games, span a variety of subjects, eras, and budgets.

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Criterion also, afaik, isn't going out of it's way to undermine other more open brands and platforms.

 

[Deleted member 15440]

Itch is pro-curation, right? It's not a privileged stance to advocate for minority voices by asking that curation be dedicated to protecting their existence within the system.

In Epic's case, I agree with you a little more, except that Epic isn't the only game on the block and those developers can get their work recognized on some fairly large platforms. What I'm saying is that Epic needs to loosen their stance and Valve needs to tighten theirs up. Absolutely agree that minorities need to get a boost, but also agree that supremacists and etc. should have platforms taken away from them. Valve's approach has been to do this under external pressure. There's no self-monitoring there at all, and whatever other people think: they have the money to make such monitoring possible.

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it feels like i'm completely talking past you. my entire point in bringing up itch is that they do not curate, it's an open platform where anyone is allowed to publish content. they do moderate and do not allow hate speech, but that is not curation.

the problem with epic here is that they are clearly trying to replace steam and they have a lot of money being thrown at this initiative. if they continue on their current path that is a net harm for the PC games space.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Anyone who comes into Epic threads to rant about how Epic is good for the little guys needs to take a good, long hard look at this. AAC is fantastic.

Steam's old curation policy literally held back indie gaming. It's completely fucked up that nobody has learnt from it and Epic are poised to repeat the exact same approach to curation.

Itch is pro-curation, right? It's not a privileged stance to advocate for minority voices by asking that curation be dedicated to protecting their existence within the system.

In Epic's case, I agree with you a little more, except that Epic isn't the only game on the block and those developers can get their work recognized on some fairly large platforms. What I'm saying is that Epic needs to loosen their stance and Valve needs to tighten theirs up. Absolutely agree that minorities need to get a boost, but also agree that supremacists and etc. should have platforms taken away from them. Valve's approach has been to do this under external pressure. There's no self-monitoring there at all, and whatever other people think: they have the money to make such monitoring possible.

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Itch has basically zero curation (only moderation of hate speech), and it's great.

 

[shadowhaxor]

OK, yes, I agree! BUT, Valve hasn't done that. To the extent that Itch has been successful in moderating hateful content, I think it is the far superior platform on this issue. But that makes me wonder: why the hell can't Valve curate in a similar fashion with all the money they have behind them?

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Because they did this in the past, and people rejected this. Valve/Steam then changed their stance and this helped promote more games being available on Steam. Yes, shovelware is an issue, but this opened the doors to more games, especially indie games, being readily available.

TLDR; it's bad, Valve knows it's bad, they've been told it's bad. We don't want to go backward.

 

[oni-link]

AAC is great, and it really does undermine the EGS when they reject games that are clearly fantastic for no good reason

It's interesting that the dev also points out that Steam can be bad for new games trying to get noticed, when a lot of people on Era seems to take the view that games that fail on Steam only fail because there are better games, and not because there are so many games it's impossible for all the good ones to gain enough traction to get noticed

In an ideal world there is enough space in the PC market for a store like Steam and for a store that curates it's content, but I don't think Epic are in a position to be that 2nd store based on how they have acted thus far

 

[Tonypark]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

 

[onpoint]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

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Highlighting issues and concerns about a new platform from first hand experiences is not whining. I'm thankful to see this information as a fledgling indie developer.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

Valve's approach has been to do this under external pressure. There's no self-monitoring there at all, and whatever other people think: they have the money to make such monitoring possible.

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Valve's stance, the version of it you are describing, is "we will only remove things that trouble other users", which a standard moderation policy. The way it is supposed to work, is users will report such content using existing platform tools, such as the little flag button with the tooltip of "report this product" on the Steam store page for any game. This will prompt an investigation, and if the content (i.e. game) is not amended, it is then removed from the store with no fanfare. This is exactly the same process by which any existing social media is moderated. Just because someone managed to see an offending game and send it to the news before it was reported and removed, doesn't mean Steam moderation staff doesn't find and remove such games on their own.

You don't see posts removed by moderators on forum boards, because the point of such moderation is to make it as if the content was never there, not just ban the responsible party. The end users not seeing the offending content after all is said and done is the entire point.

 

[Paz]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

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Sure, I've deleted the tweet.

I don't want or need to deal with assholes here or on twitter anymore.

 

[GhostTrick]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

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You're right. Let's not say a single thing. Let's bend to the will of any corporation. You, my friend, seems to be the perfect customer in this industry.

 

[Deleted member 15476]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

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Yet here you are whining on the internet

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

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Indie developers can and should tell people about how things like strict curation can negatively effect their lives, especially when so many idiots on forums are pushing for it so much.

Sure, I've deleted the tweet.

I don't want or need to deal with assholes here or on twitter anymore.

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Sorry you have to deal with idiots like him

 

[Jiffy Smooth]

Itch is pro-curation, right? It's not a privileged stance to advocate for minority voices by asking that curation be dedicated to protecting their existence within the system.

In Epic's case, I agree with you a little more, except that Epic isn't the only game on the block and those developers can get their work recognized on some fairly large platforms. What I'm saying is that Epic needs to loosen their stance and Valve needs to tighten theirs up. Absolutely agree that minorities need to get a boost, but also agree that supremacists and etc. should have platforms taken away from them. Valve's approach has been to do this under external pressure. There's no self-monitoring there at all, and whatever other people think: they have the money to make such monitoring possible.

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I think a line should be drawn between moderation and curation. Everyone agrees with you when you say Valve should do better on moderation issues - removing hate speech, making sure white supremacists don't feel safe there, etc. (It's an internet problem as much as a Valve problem.)

You seem to argue for curation, though, when you talk of good games being "buried", and I just don't see a way that works in indie devs' favour. And it definitely doesn't protect minorities, because history suggests that their games will be the first to suffer.

 

[MaLDo]

Indie developers can and should tell people about how things like strict curation can negatively effect their lives, especially when so many idiots on forums are pushing for it so much.

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Praise.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

don't whine about it on the internet.

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naw

 

[Deleted member 12790]

Sure, I've deleted the tweet.

I don't want or need to deal with assholes here or on twitter anymore.

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do you want me to delete the quote in the OP and ask for a mod to lock this topic? I really think this is important but don't want to bring you duress.

 

[cyress8]

Curation means choosing. It's rather easy to believe doing curation is basically saying "oh, here is a AAA title, it looks great, get in" and then "oh, here is a broken game". It's far more complicated than that.

Curation also means choosing between a shitload of indies. I think a lot of people on ERA but also among indies underestimate how many legitimate indie titles want to release their game.
I'll take an exemple with this game:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/834930/Bishi_and_the_Alien_Slime_Invasion/

When looking at it, you might think "Oh, it looks like a crappy shovelware. Looks like something that belong to Newsground or some shit like this".
When I looked over that point, I found that despite it's flaw, it's a game that has been made by an indie dev with a legitimate wish to make a game. Sure, it looks bad, sure it looks outdated and nothing special. But their intent here was to pour as much as they can into it and sell it.

There's a shiton of that kind of games. A lot more than you think and they represent the bulk of these 6000 games that released last year on Steam.

Now, let's say you want to curate away this game. Fine, you think it doesn't deserve a chance to make a little bit of its money back.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/353540/Stephens_Sausage_Roll/

Stephen's Sausage Roll is a ugly looking game, with terrible visuals. Heck even its banner looks like a MS Paint Job with a terrible font used. Guess what ?
https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/stephens-sausage-roll
It seems like it's an amazing game, despite its menu looking like its from an asset flip.

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Don't forget Undertale. The game would have failed if Epic was the one running things.

 

[MaLDo]

Sure, I've deleted the tweet.

I don't want or need to deal with assholes here or on twitter anymore.

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Sorry.





It seems everything about EGS is pro-dev.

/s

 

[Shengar]

In an ideal world there is enough space in the PC market for a store like Steam and for a store that curates it's content, but I don't think Epic are in a position to be that 2nd store based on how they have acted thus far

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Steam already have curator feature, so why don't we use that again? Oh, if we do remember to use Steam curators as intended, we don't need 'curated store' like EGS in the first place.

 

[BernardoOne]

Who cares, they do wtv they want with their platform. Worst case scenario their loss.
Rejection is part of life don't whine about it on the internet.

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the sheer stupidity of this comment is something else.

 

[Deleted member 19813]

this is for every dumbass who thinks curation is good.

Curation is a fucking shit system that 100% of the time will end refusing good games. There's no way around it.

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Truth

 

[Ganransu]

I think a line should be drawn between moderation and curation. Everyone agrees with you when you say Valve should do better on moderation issues - removing hate speech, making sure white supremacists don't feel safe there, etc. (It's an internet problem as much as a Valve problem.)

You seem to argue for curation, though, when you talk of good games being "buried", and I just don't see a way that works in indie devs' favour. And it definitely doesn't protect minorities, because history suggests that their games will be the first to suffer.

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Well said.

I would just add that this "good game" is entirely subjective and as we can see here, this game is a perfectly good and proven game and yet was rejected by this "we only want good games" curation.

If we were to see stricter curations, we are still going to see games like that Quiet Man or whatever shit game by the AAA publishers, because the production values make them look more marketable; let's face it, when Tim said EGS only want good games, he meant "marketable games", games that can become the face of his store, not whatever subjective definition any one of us have for a "good" game, because realistically speaking, they aren't going to know what each of us like.

Stricter curations will mean indie developers that can't afford to make their games look like a mainstream game won't see their games on the shelf, even though, there are just so many and many indie games that, while not looking AAA, are absolutely better than anything these rich publishers can pump out.

In another word, there will be less variety, which, I guess, can be a good thing if all one wants is the same few games. Me? I like being surprised by what indie can come up with.

 

[oni-link]

Steam already have curator feature, so why don't we use that again? Oh, if we do remember to use Steam curators as intended, we don't need 'curated store' like EGS in the first place.

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I really liked that feature but it seems like barely anyone uses it, so I stopped using it

There isn't any reason why there can't be another store that only accepts titles it considers to be great games, or hidden gems

I don't think that is Epic, but it's also not going to be Steam as they're against curation (and there are downsides to curation too) but that doesn't mean there are no positives to curation

Long term another good store making inroads into the market will likely force Steam to improve and adapt at a faster rate

 

[Kilbane65]

Because they did this in the past, and people rejected this. Valve/Steam then changed their stance and this helped promote more games being available on Steam. Yes, shovelware is an issue, but this opened the doors to more games, especially indie games, being readily available.

TLDR; it's bad, Valve knows it's bad, they've been told it's bad. We don't want to go backward.

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This, and no matter how bad or good one might think this has done to indie sales, the fact is that Valve's paradigm shift shaped the industry in a way that you can't compare it to PSN or XBL anymore, it's a different beast.
ThankDougie would you honestly say that Indie developers that focus on PSN and those who focus on PC are playing the same field? The independent developers scene on PC changed so much due to Valve's policies that you would have to go back in time to make that comparison. You can't put that Genie back in the bottle again.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

This thread has been closed at the request of the original poster.