| 1 | VALVE EXPLAINS HOW IT DECIDES WHO'S A 'STRAIGHT UP TROLL' \r |
| 2 | PUBLISHING VIDEO GAMES ON STEAM (VICE.COM) \r |
| 3 | \r |
| 4 | Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD)\r |
| 5 | from the behind-the-scenes dept.\r |
| 6 | \r |
| 7 | o Reference: 0102640946\r |
| 8 | o News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/2146237/valve-explains-how-it-decides-whos-a-straight-up-troll-publishing-video-games-on-steam\r |
| 9 | o Source link: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmej7/valve-it-really-does-seem-bad-games-are-made-by-bad-people\r |
| 10 | \r |
| 11 | \r |
| 12 | An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard:\r |
| 13 | \r |
| 14 | > Wednesday, Valve, the company that operates the huge online\r |
| 15 | video game store Steam, shared more details about [1]how it\r |
| 16 | plans to control and moderate the ever-increasing number of\r |
| 17 | games published on its platform . In the post [2]published\r |
| 18 | Wednesday , Valve shared more details about how it determines\r |
| 19 | what it considers "outright trolling." "It is vague and we'll\r |
| 20 | tell you why," Valve wrote. "You're a denizen of the internet\r |
| 21 | so you know that trolls come in all forms. On Steam, some are\r |
| 22 | simply trying to rile people up with something we call 'a game\r |
| 23 | shaped object' (ie: a crudely made piece of software that\r |
| 24 | technically and just barely passes our bar as a functioning\r |
| 25 | video game but isn't what 99.9% of folks would say is "good.")\r |
| 26 | \r |
| 27 | >\r |
| 28 | \r |
| 29 | > Valve goes on to explain that some trolls are trying to scam\r |
| 30 | folks out of their Steam inventory items (digital items that\r |
| 31 | can be traded for real money), while others are trying to\r |
| 32 | generate a small amount of money through a variety of schemes\r |
| 33 | that have to do with how developers use keys to unlock Steam\r |
| 34 | games, while others are trying to "incite and sow discord."\r |
| 35 | "Trolls are figuring out new ways to be loathsome as we write\r |
| 36 | this," Valve said. "But the thing these folks have in common\r |
| 37 | is that they aren't actually interested in good faith efforts\r |
| 38 | to make and sell games to you or anyone. When a developer's\r |
| 39 | motives aren't that, they're probably a troll." One\r |
| 40 | interesting observation Valve shares in the blog post is that\r |
| 41 | it rarely bans individual games from Steam, and more often\r |
| 42 | bans developers and/or publishers entirely. [...] Valve said\r |
| 43 | that its review process for determining that something may be\r |
| 44 | a "troll game" is a "deep assessment" that involves\r |
| 45 | investigating who the developer is, what they've done in the\r |
| 46 | past, their behavior on Steam as a developer, as a customer,\r |
| 47 | their banking information, developers they associate with, and\r |
| 48 | more.\r |
| 49 | \r |
| 50 | \r |
| 51 | \r |
| 52 | [1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmej7/valve-it-\r |
| 53 | really-does-seem-bad-games-are-made-by-bad-people\r |
| 54 | \r |
| 55 | [2] https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/deta-\r |
| 56 | il/1708442022337025126\r |
| 57 | \r |
| 58 | \r |
| 59 | ** Just charge a $5K "listing fee" (Score:5, Interesting)\r |
| 60 | (by west ( 39918 ))\r |
| 61 | \r |
| 62 | \r |
| 63 | 98% of the total garbage disappears (as well as a few percent of\r |
| 64 | the good). Of course "not terribly good games" will still\r |
| 65 | appear, but it gets rid of the absolute garbage.\r |
| 66 | Or if people are appalled at paying to appear on Steam, allow\r |
| 67 | spending $10K for a Steam "check-mark of marketing", and allow\r |
| 68 | users to filter to show only check-marked games.\r |
| 69 | \r |
| 70 | ** \r |
| 71 | \r |
| 72 | ** Re: (Score:1)\r |
| 73 | (by Anonymous Coward)\r |
| 74 | \r |
| 75 | \r |
| 76 | "Choices"???\r |
| 77 | Thirty-five (35) games were released on Steam today alone .\r |
| 78 | Go fuck yourself.\r |
| 79 | \r |
| 80 | \r |
| 81 | \r |
| 82 | ** Steam wants the garbage (Score:3)\r |
| 83 | (by rsilvergun ( 571051 ))\r |
| 84 | \r |
| 85 | \r |
| 86 | because there's no accounting for taste, and if you took away\r |
| 87 | garbage there'd be no Goat Simulator. As the saying goes, one\r |
| 88 | man's trash is another's treasure.\r |
| 89 | \r |
| 90 | Plus, a lot of good devs get their start making trash.\r |
| 91 | \r |
| 92 | ** Re: (Score:3)\r |
| 93 | (by AC-x ( 735297 ))\r |
| 94 | \r |
| 95 | \r |
| 96 | > because there's no accounting for taste, and if you took\r |
| 97 | > away garbage there'd be no Goat Simulator. As the saying\r |
| 98 | > goes, one man's trash is another's treasure.\r |
| 99 | I'm sorry, but anyone with a functioning brain would see\r |
| 100 | that infinitely more effort and polish has been put in to\r |
| 101 | games like Goat Simulator than any of those garbage "asset\r |
| 102 | flips" that litter the Steam store.\r |
| 103 | Yes the difference between a good and bad game is\r |
| 104 | subjective, but broken zero effort trash is much easier to\r |
| 105 | agree on...\r |
| 106 | \r |
| 107 | \r |
| 108 | \r |
| 109 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 110 | (by mentil ( 1748130 ))\r |
| 111 | \r |
| 112 | \r |
| 113 | Will never happen. There are way too many games like PUBG\r |
| 114 | that would've never become Steam hits if they had such a\r |
| 115 | policy. It only needs to be enough to make the trolls miss\r |
| 116 | it/lose out with their scams; $100 would likely be enough.\r |
| 117 | \r |
| 118 | \r |
| 119 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 120 | (by Escogido ( 884359 ))\r |
| 121 | \r |
| 122 | \r |
| 123 | Either would shut a lot of starting indie games developers\r |
| 124 | out of the system, thus preventing said developers and the\r |
| 125 | gaming industry in general from making future hits.\r |
| 126 | Basically, all new games are either essentially\r |
| 127 | reskins/clones of existing games, or trying new mechanics\r |
| 128 | and/or interactions, and sometimes (rarely) stories and\r |
| 129 | characters. Given the typical indie level production values\r |
| 130 | are garbage, in general, only the ones that try to innovate\r |
| 131 | actually do have some value for the industry. However, first\r |
| 132 | \r |
| 133 | \r |
| 134 | ** Best New Feature (Score:2)\r |
| 135 | (by Kunedog ( 1033226 ))\r |
| 136 | \r |
| 137 | \r |
| 138 | > A second set of changes was focused on improving how you can\r |
| 139 | > ignore things you're not interested in. In the past you've been\r |
| 140 | > able to ignore individual games or product types (like VR, or\r |
| 141 | > Early Access) you didn't want to see again. But now we've added\r |
| 142 | > ways for you to also easily ignore individual developers,\r |
| 143 | > publishers, and curators.\r |
| 144 | Imagine how much easier browsing Netflix would be if you could\r |
| 145 | filter out whole franchises and showrunners. Of course, that\r |
| 146 | might make it obvious how little on Netflix actually interests\r |
| 147 | you.\r |
| 148 | \r |
| 149 | ** Re: (Score:2, Funny)\r |
| 150 | (by Anonymous Coward)\r |
| 151 | \r |
| 152 | \r |
| 153 | Then they could charge a fee to shows that don't want to be\r |
| 154 | filtered by you\r |
| 155 | \r |
| 156 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 157 | (by Archfeld ( 6757 ))\r |
| 158 | \r |
| 159 | \r |
| 160 | Sounds like Amazon, and the Kindle Library. No matter what\r |
| 161 | you search, every 7th listing is a 'Sponsored' listing,\r |
| 162 | and even if you specify a particular author or absolute\r |
| 163 | title, you always get 10 or 12 additional 'bonus' items\r |
| 164 | listed.\r |
| 165 | \r |
| 166 | \r |
| 167 | \r |
| 168 | ** Early Access Garbage and abandonment (Score:2)\r |
| 169 | (by shendar ( 674986 ))\r |
| 170 | \r |
| 171 | \r |
| 172 | How about if a developer starts a EA Project and walks away\r |
| 173 | (takes forever with no progress) they are banned from further\r |
| 174 | EA? How about if they are banned from the store entirely?\r |
| 175 | \r |
| 176 | ** Re: (Score:3)\r |
| 177 | (by AC-x ( 735297 ))\r |
| 178 | \r |
| 179 | \r |
| 180 | I'm sure the type of developer who does that would simply\r |
| 181 | abandon their old label and create a new developer account to\r |
| 182 | carry on.\r |
| 183 | \r |
| 184 | \r |
| 185 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 186 | (by mentil ( 1748130 ))\r |
| 187 | \r |
| 188 | \r |
| 189 | "I'm sick of development, so here's version '1.0'."\r |
| 190 | Also define 'forever' in a timescale that doesn't apply to\r |
| 191 | Notch, Rockstar or Valve.\r |
| 192 | \r |
| 193 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 194 | (by Calydor ( 739835 ))\r |
| 195 | \r |
| 196 | \r |
| 197 | Wait. I see what you did there.\r |
| 198 | You mentioned three developers.\r |
| 199 | CONFIRMED: Half-Life 3 is being produced by Notch and\r |
| 200 | Rockstar!\r |
| 201 | \r |
| 202 | \r |
| 203 | \r |
| 204 | ** Great Yet Another Meaning For Troll (Score:1)\r |
| 205 | (by Crashmarik ( 635988 ))\r |
| 206 | \r |
| 207 | \r |
| 208 | Already May well be the most overloaded operator in the English\r |
| 209 | language. As it seems to mean anything anyone anywhere takes\r |
| 210 | objection to, or otherwise makes them feel bad.\r |
| 211 | \r |
| 212 | ** Re: Great Yet Another Meaning For Troll (Score:2)\r |
| 213 | (by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ))\r |
| 214 | \r |
| 215 | \r |
| 216 | The troll in me wants to say that "nazi" probably has "troll"\r |
| 217 | beat ;)\r |
| 218 | \r |
| 219 | \r |
| 220 | ** \r |
| 221 | \r |
| 222 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 223 | (by tepples ( 727027 ))\r |
| 224 | \r |
| 225 | \r |
| 226 | Furthermore, unlike console and mobile platforms, Steam has\r |
| 227 | very little switching cost. An end user can always just up\r |
| 228 | and switch to Itch or Origin or GOG or Humble or wherever\r |
| 229 | else.\r |
| 230 | \r |
| 231 | \r |
| 232 | ** Steam's progression (Score:3)\r |
| 233 | (by Luckyo ( 1726890 ))\r |
| 234 | \r |
| 235 | \r |
| 236 | So Steam started as "shove it down their throats" Counter Strike\r |
| 237 | 1.6 launcher. Evolved into highly curated game store over about\r |
| 238 | a decade.\r |
| 239 | Then decided to suddenly drop all curation and allow anything\r |
| 240 | and everything on the platform. Got flooded with garbage. Added\r |
| 241 | weird "meta gaming" shit like trading cards. Got games that\r |
| 242 | literally existed just to allow people to get cards. Allowed\r |
| 243 | some trading and other meta gaming of the system. Even got\r |
| 244 | pressured by some SJW types to drop politically controversial\r |
| 245 | games like Hatred and even had their recent porn games brouhaha.\r |
| 246 | And now, they're doing this. I guess there's just too much\r |
| 247 | pressure from all directions, and they really just decided that\r |
| 248 | no, we're not bending to various pressure groups, and instead\r |
| 249 | just making sure that asset flips and such are not on the store.\r |
| 250 | If true, good on them.\r |
| 251 | \r |
| 252 | ** Early Access (Score:2)\r |
| 253 | (by tylersoze ( 789256 ))\r |
| 254 | \r |
| 255 | \r |
| 256 | Eh, all I really want from Valve is a filter that blocks all\r |
| 257 | "Early Access" games from ever appearing, as I'm browsing for\r |
| 258 | games on their web site.\r |
| 259 | \r |
| 260 | \r |