Screw Steam (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Sou Da
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And they only pulled it out because "risks". They do reject a "lot" of R18 games but they allow a lot of others. The actual system barely functions at all.
There is a lot of insincerity on both sides of the argument from what I can tell. We shouldn't attack this as an You vs. Me argument. Just reading your posts I can tell we both don't want these games to exist on Steam. We should figure out how to get there and what to push Valve to do. So it doesn't take what it did for Rape Day to be removed.
As far as asset flips, I can only share my own opinion that they are far down the list of things I could give a shit about when it comes to Steam. There really shouldn't be fears that removing a small amount of toxic games would change Steam irrevocably.
I do feel steam needs to be better about kicking out shit like rape day from the start or at least, not displaying stuff that has that kind of language on the store until it is reviewed so they dont end up in this can of worms again.
Lost in all of this is the fact that Tim Sweeney publicly complained about Alex Jones being banned from Twitter. If you are looking for someone to "compete" with steam on keeping out questionable content, Epic ain't going to be it.
Just because you have a few valid complaints about Steam doesn't mean that Epic is actually providing anything useful that we should support.
Just because you have a few valid complaints about Steam doesn't mean that Epic is actually providing anything useful that we should support.
They allow them because they actually pass the checks. They need to be more clear on what the checks are, as sometimes the publishers really have no idea what the issue was, but they are checked.
I don't know why he needs to bring Epic into this.
Only reason to bring up Epic is before Steam could do what they wanted and no one really did anything because Steam was it. Now that there are other stores and a name like Epic into it, Steam should be careful and fix what they need to before consumers get tired of it.
Only reason to bring up Epic is before Steam could do what they wanted and no one really did anything because Steam was it. Now that there are other stores and a name like Epic into it, Steam should be careful and fix what they need to before consumers get tired of it.
Since these checks are based on "risks" a lot of shit still gets through. The current system is ass, not sure how can be argued otherwise.
Everybody has already agreed that games like Rape Day shouldn't be on Steam. There's no discussion there. The discussion is because Sterling adopted the absurd position that we should support Epic's bullshit because that game slipped through the cracks.
Absolutely not. Everybody has already agreed that games like that have no place on Steam and we were talking about curation in general.
I mean, the system needs to be improved, but it is not ass. The system worked as intended but it worked too slow and allowed an unapproved game to be seen.
I'd actually prefer that they not make all the guidelines completely public, it just makes it easier for people to tiptoe around them.
Honestly, the only problem I have with the way it was handled is that it should have been taken down sooner, and a game promoting Rape is offensive enough that they should have issued an explicit condemnation of it, even if that isn't typically their policy for rejected games.
I'm not really sure what's so pathetic about it. Steam is both a shockingly huge company and also has to deal with much less content making its way to its door than, say, Youtube is. I don't see what it is about the Steam store that they won't have some manual supervision and more explicit content guidelines other than a lack of interest in doing so. A game like Rape Day shouldn't even get to the "hm, well, maybe" stage that it did, let alone removed with such a bland statement from Valve after its removal.
But I guess Valve's where the content is and heaven forfend more gamers actually consider where they get their content from
And don't even get me started on the absolute pointlessness that is the user curation system. Far too many odious voices (a certain tophatted fellow comes to mind) whose only interest is in letting me know what resolution and framerate a game runs in, with no discussion at all about content. At least that one dude who commented on the water in games on Miiverse at least went into detail on an actual aspect of the game's content even if it was from a rather shallow engagement with it. Sure, they're not the only voices out there but there are enough of them, and the whole review-in-a-sentence matter is still not really worth engaging in. It is impossible to get any critical engagement with a game in a single sentence.
And then they also have the whole Amazon problem with their recommendation system. It's to the effect of, after having just bought a vacuum, the store suggesting all these other vacuums that you could buy in addition to the one you just got. Which, frankly, how many vacuums does one person need? I didn't quote your comment on this but I have to say that I take a dim view on the idea that ML could ever be useful enough to replace actual human oversight.
Again, there are different aspects about the curation discussion.
One is the stuff about hate speech, homophobia, fascist propaganda, racist stuff, etc. where no one except absolute assholes will argue that they have a place on Steam or any other store.
The other aspect, which people often lump together with the other, is stuff people throw in Steam they threw together in a few days with Unity, UE or whatever other engine can be had for free but not containing hate speech and other vile stuff. Their offense is being a bad game or looking bad. But people throw every nuance out of the window and lump them together with the hatefull stuff.
The solution people are offering to that isn't working as we can see with the current version of the Epic Store. It is supposed to be good for developers but so far not even 1% of indie developers are benefitting from it. And Epic doesn't even QA properly for the amount of games they let on their store or else someone would've found the Axiom Verge steam glitch before it got released on the EGS.
There is indeed a "middle ground" however it is mostly on EPIC/nintendo/sony to reduce their moderation to an acceptable degree. Steam just needs to handle the "fake" and offensive games better. Steam, again, is in a better position in terms of curation then the other stores.
A CFW switch can play NES, GBA,etc. games while the official firmware can't. How come steam needs to have "much" better curation while nintendo and epic don't?
at least from it was how it sounded from the video.
Yes having a rape game is pretty bad, so are the "fake" video games but steam gives you weapons to fight them. Do tell me what weapons companies like nintendo give me to be able to play games i want that aren't on their platform because they don't allow it. Answer why does epic/nintendo/sony have "better" curation then steam when for anyone that plays video games should know they are worse.
You talk like steam hasn't changed over the last few years and somehow just because there are fake games steam isn't taking action. Do you remember them controlling steam cards to curb fake games?
Rape Day is so in your face of it's vile nature that would require some level of imcompetence, but a lot of other shit, as I said, did gets through.
When did he say that? Can you time stamp me to point when he said that we should support this?
His point is that Steam BS with allowing any old crap is making it a far more attravice deal for devs and publishers to choose Epic over Steam.
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Steam does need improvements, but the Epic store is not the solution. Steam moderation really isn't a new topic so most of the video is just repeating past opinions, but I cannot agree that EGS is the solution. It's way too anti-consumer right now.
I really don't agree with the "you're bad for using steam" rhetoric some people are implying. This isn't a black and white issue. Steam and EGS can both have issues, and cheering on EGS as if it has nearly zero problems will only make EGS worse and repeat the issues that Steam has.
I really don't agree with the "you're bad for using steam" rhetoric some people are implying. This isn't a black and white issue. Steam and EGS can both have issues, and cheering on EGS as if it has nearly zero problems will only make EGS worse and repeat the issues that Steam has.
It didnt get through! The game was uploaded to review and refused in less than a day. Which means that the manual check up of R18 games works as intended.
The issue was them allowing unreviewed R18 games (or heck any game) to have a Steam page without any previous review, as well as not having a blacklist of words that should be preapproved to utilize (such as rape or genocide, as games can be made about the subject as long as they understand the minutia and are not troll material).
Those are big fails that Steam should take notice and FIX IMMEDIATELY, as they will otherwise have another game like this soon as trolls will easily see a way to market their game doing this fucking same thing.
Edit: and continue adding more moderators for forums, reviews and games as they did last year.
Why those games deserve to be sold on a store like Steam? Barely functional, troll games? What, we as consumers, do lost by not having these games on Steam?
I can tell you what: nothing is lost. Same way nothing is lost by not having Rape Day.
Sure there's something between allowing 1% of games and allowing 99% of games. Not sure why people thing that Steam having some minimal amount of curation to avoid clear troll games will have some effect on potential hidden gaming jewels....
Maybe I didn't watch closely enough, but I didn't see where he particularly endorses the Epic Games Store, but maybe I am wrong. Didn't his argument boil down to game makers will go where shit like "Rape Day" and the AIDS game aren't put up? Either way fuck Steam for even allowing a game called "Rape Day" to pass through any sort of channel on their store and even be listed, or that shit AIDS game.
It didn't get me more than 5 minutes to find a R18 game where women are sexually assaulted/raped. The system dosn't works.
They used to have manual curation, and back then, instead of having Jim Sterling making a video complaining about every broken game that made it in, they had TotalBiscuit making a video complaining about every borderline competent game that didn't make it in.
Then they went to greenlight, and shitty devs took advantage by selling broken games in big bundles for pennies, and promising steam keys (and cards) if the game was voted in.
So then they switched to the current system. The issue is hard. Valve certainly don't have all the answers. But Epic and Jim Sterling sure as shit don't either.
Then they went to greenlight, and shitty devs took advantage by selling broken games in big bundles for pennies, and promising steam keys (and cards) if the game was voted in.
So then they switched to the current system. The issue is hard. Valve certainly don't have all the answers. But Epic and Jim Sterling sure as shit don't either.
Steam was better back in the day before they started allowing any steaming pile of crap game that bribed people with keys or paid to get on the store. It's basic quality curation. They shouldn't be allowing terrible crap games on their platform. Nobody buys this junk unless it's as a joke and it just makes the platform look bad. Valve can't rely on algorithms for everything because it isn't working, and steams community is too far gone to reliably curate for them. I'm tired of valve expecting the community to do half their work for them. It's literally impossible to even browse the store anymore because everyday it's just another 100 new garbage games.
It's not just that game though. There have been more than two or three situations where Valve has failed to care.
Not just that competent games didn't make it, but that garbage like Revelations 2012 made it in instead.
I still preferred those days to what we have now. However, Im sure we will never go back considering valve makes money off people paying to put their asset flips up.
Heh. Revelations 2012 looks premium compared to other trash that is available on Steam. A modicum of moderation/curation is desireable.
Thank god for Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft consoles for actual quality control. The sooner Epic store take down Steam the better.
That's certainly true. Like I say, time will tell if Epic has any interest in not replicating the foibles of Steam, but it sure would be nice if someone else like, say, Discord took notice of what Epic were doing and did something similar, because I think overall they have shown themselves to be at least good at moderation, which is leagues beyond what most of these companies can argue for.
I feel like this site would have a lot better discussion if instead of framing issues as "pro-/anti-consumer" people would be more honest, like, "I don't want to do anything that inconveniences me" which is the argument people take any time there's discussion of economic realities.
Most games on Steam suffer from poor discoverability, specially those from smaller developers. This has been documented many times and even been featured in some documentaries.
I don't disagree that what you mentioned is a problem for smaller developers, but I don't think that Steam solves that problem more than a lottery ticket solves poverty.
The thing is, even if you filter out all the trash there are still A LOT of good and competing games on Steam. How should Valve solve this?
Yeah I guess he says he welcomes the Epic store and he doesn't blame studios for going there. I mean can you really blame studios for going there? I don't and I'm not saying that, that doesn't affect consumers. If someone could actually explain to me how the Epic store affects the consumer in a negative way as I am not too knowledgeable about the situation. Is the main reason because people are unable to buy keys from 3rd party places?
Thier own poor repsponse to it gave people more then enough ammo
0/10. You have to slip that into a larger post for the proper effect.
God knows that epic, steam and publishing companies aren't giving me any more than what I pay for, so I can choose what service I want to use.
Framing those who say that EGS is "anti-consumer" are really just using fancy words to say "I don't want to do anything that inconveniences me", then you're not in the PC gaming space like some of us are. And btw, I do put my money where my mouth is, which is why I don't buy anything from amazon, as well as Epic Games. (No one can avoid AWS)
I haven't seen a lot of poor responses from the "pro valve" side.
So, just a question... Lately I see a lot of people talking about how competition is good and how we should encourage it but I see some of this people also saying ''I hope Steam gets taken down, I hope it closes or disappears.''
Isn't that like... the opposite that you are trying to defend with all the epic and competition stuff?
Isn't that like... the opposite that you are trying to defend with all the epic and competition stuff?
I mean yeah, the best result of this competition is that both companies keep improving.
Uh, no? But Steam barely provides any service that is actually useful to me beyond being a place where I have my games. Cloud saves seems to be the biggest feature that people point to that it has that other services like Epic have (and I guess I should probably be a bit more precise in my view that I don't think framing this as a Steam vs. Epic matter is all that great when there are so many other services out there to buy games on, a lot of which have nothing to do with either service at all, like itch). And even then I can't care. Cloud saves? A USB drive will let me transfer files from one system to another and the damn things can go for as cheap as a cup of coffee.
I'm not sure that there is a clear solution here. At brick and mortar stores, games only remain in circulation for a limited time. They may be in stock for years if the game is popular enough, but you're not going to find copies of games that came out in 2003 on shelves at GameStop. On Steam and similar digital services, games can remain on the store in perpetuity, which while convenient for anyone that wants to buy a game thirteen years after it came out, eventually contributes to a growing sense of bloat that hinders the ability to find games without being very specific in terms of what it is you're looking for.
I wonder if the most sensible and realistic solution is to keep games on Steam's store for a set period, and then sunset them. Buyers can redownload them as often as wanted, but the ability to buy the game is removed. I'm not sure how much sales would be impacted if this window was set at five years, for example. I doubt many games keep doing big numbers after five years on Steam.
I'd rather have cloud saves than trying to remember where X game puts their profile/saves or where did I put that pendrive anyway.
I buy old games all the time, I think that's a terrible idea. I bet Modern Warfare 2 keeps selling copies and that game is almost 10 years old.
Because a company like Epic cares about its reputation and they'll never in a million years allow a game called "Rape Day" or a game about shooting school children on the store no matter the competition?
Uhm, what? No! :) This sounds terrible. Limiting the supply? That is EPICs way.
EDIT: I have no solution. Maybe even better tools for discovering games? Maybe some curated sections in the Store?
Then the thing you want is just a big store like Epic who surely won't do anything bad ever and lots of little stores around? And that kind of competition would be different that the one we have now?
Regardless of whether or not your a fan of Steam or Epic, Valve has the money to actually have people do moderation instead of having an algorithm try and fail at curating this stuff. If there are too many junk games coming out on your platform that you have to have an algorithm do it instead of people, that should tell you right there something needs to change.
If cloud saves don't matter, why do so many people have PSN+ just for them? Or all the begging for Nintendo to finally give it to switch owners (not exactly the same, as local save backups are still locked away)? Cloud saves matter.
Reading reviews from other steam users matter to me.
Using Proton to dual boot Linux matters to me.
My friend got to play DOOM 2016 because I lent my copy to him using family sharing when I was finished.
I can go on.
And finally, you can have an opinion if you're not really invested in the PC gaming space. That's fine.
Wow this is the first time in years that I agree with what Jim has to say.
This is a weird day.
This is a weird day.
Why shouldn't they be on Steam? It's not like you see these other than people like Jim Sterling making videos about them with "Look at how bad this game is hurdur! Steam sure sucks" while ignoring the dozens of decent to good games that released alongside it. But that doesn't give the clicks as much.
If they make it too specific they would have cases where they have to bend the rules and play favorites with what is let and not let on Steam. Or people would find ways to circumvent these rules.