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