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 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
8 o Source link: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmej7/valve-it-really-does-seem-bad-games-are-made-by-bad-people
11 An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard:
12 Wednesday, Valve, the company that operates the huge online
13 video game store Steam, shared more details about how it plans
14 to control and moderate the ever-increasing number of games
15 published on its platform. In the post published Wednesday,
16 Valve shared more details about how it determines what it
17 considers "outright trolling." "It is vague and we'll tell you
18 why," Valve wrote. "You're a denizen of the internet so you
19 know that trolls come in all forms. On Steam, some are simply
20 trying to rile people up with something we call 'a game shaped
21 object' (ie: a crudely made piece of software that technically
22 and just barely passes our bar as a functioning video game but
23 isn't what 99.9% of folks would say is "good.") Valve goes on
24 to explain that some trolls are trying to scam folks out of
25 their Steam inventory items (digital items that can be traded
26 for real money), while others are trying to generate a small
27 amount of money through a variety of schemes that have to do
28 with how developers use keys to unlock Steam games, while
29 others are trying to "incite and sow discord." "Trolls are
30 figuring out new ways to be loathsome as we write this," Valve
31 said. "But the thing these folks have in common is that they
32 aren't actually interested in good faith efforts to make and
33 sell games to you or anyone. When a developer's motives aren't
34 that, they're probably a troll." One interesting observation
35 Valve shares in the blog post is that it rarely bans
36 individual games from Steam, and more often bans developers
37 and/or publishers entirely. [...] Valve said that its review
38 process for determining that something may be a "troll game"
39 is a "deep assessment" that involves investigating who the
40 developer is, what they've done in the past, their behavior on
41 Steam as a developer, as a customer, their banking
42 information, developers they associate with, and more.
45 ** Just charge a $5K "listing fee" (Score:5, Interesting)
49 98% of the total garbage disappears (as well as a few percent of
50 the good). Of course "not terribly good games" will still
51 appear, but it gets rid of the absolute garbage.
52 Or if people are appalled at paying to appear on Steam, allow
53 spending $10K for a Steam "check-mark of marketing", and allow
54 users to filter to show only check-marked games.
63 Thirty-five (35) games were released on Steam today alone .
68 ** Steam wants the garbage (Score:3)
69 (by rsilvergun ( 571051 ))
72 because there's no accounting for taste, and if you took away
73 garbage there'd be no Goat Simulator. As the saying goes, one
74 man's trash is another's treasure.
76 Plus, a lot of good devs get their start making trash.
82 > because there's no accounting for taste, and if you took
83 > away garbage there'd be no Goat Simulator. As the saying
84 > goes, one man's trash is another's treasure.
85 I'm sorry, but anyone with a functioning brain would see
86 that infinitely more effort and polish has been put in to
87 games like Goat Simulator than any of those garbage "asset
88 flips" that litter the Steam store.
89 Yes the difference between a good and bad game is
90 subjective, but broken zero effort trash is much easier to
96 (by mentil ( 1748130 ))
99 Will never happen. There are way too many games like PUBG
100 that would've never become Steam hits if they had such a
101 policy. It only needs to be enough to make the trolls miss
102 it/lose out with their scams; $100 would likely be enough.
106 (by Escogido ( 884359 ))
109 Either would shut a lot of starting indie games developers
110 out of the system, thus preventing said developers and the
111 gaming industry in general from making future hits.
112 Basically, all new games are either essentially
113 reskins/clones of existing games, or trying new mechanics
114 and/or interactions, and sometimes (rarely) stories and
115 characters. Given the typical indie level production values
116 are garbage, in general, only the ones that try to innovate
117 actually do have some value for the industry. However, first
120 ** Best New Feature (Score:2)
121 (by Kunedog ( 1033226 ))
124 > A second set of changes was focused on improving how you can
125 > ignore things you're not interested in. In the past you've been
126 > able to ignore individual games or product types (like VR, or
127 > Early Access) you didn't want to see again. But now we've added
128 > ways for you to also easily ignore individual developers,
129 > publishers, and curators.
130 Imagine how much easier browsing Netflix would be if you could
131 filter out whole franchises and showrunners. Of course, that
132 might make it obvious how little on Netflix actually interests
135 ** Re: (Score:2, Funny)
136 (by Anonymous Coward)
139 Then they could charge a fee to shows that don't want to be
143 (by Archfeld ( 6757 ))
146 Sounds like Amazon, and the Kindle Library. No matter what
147 you search, every 7th listing is a 'Sponsored' listing,
148 and even if you specify a particular author or absolute
149 title, you always get 10 or 12 additional 'bonus' items
154 ** Early Access Garbage and abandonment (Score:2)
155 (by shendar ( 674986 ))
158 How about if a developer starts a EA Project and walks away
159 (takes forever with no progress) they are banned from further
160 EA? How about if they are banned from the store entirely?
166 I'm sure the type of developer who does that would simply
167 abandon their old label and create a new developer account to
172 (by mentil ( 1748130 ))
175 "I'm sick of development, so here's version '1.0'."
176 Also define 'forever' in a timescale that doesn't apply to
177 Notch, Rockstar or Valve.
180 (by Calydor ( 739835 ))
183 Wait. I see what you did there.
184 You mentioned three developers.
185 CONFIRMED: Half-Life 3 is being produced by Notch and
190 ** Great Yet Another Meaning For Troll (Score:1)
191 (by Crashmarik ( 635988 ))
194 Already May well be the most overloaded operator in the English
195 language. As it seems to mean anything anyone anywhere takes
196 objection to, or otherwise makes them feel bad.
198 ** Re: Great Yet Another Meaning For Troll (Score:2)
199 (by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ))
202 The troll in me wants to say that "nazi" probably has "troll"
209 (by tepples ( 727027 ))
212 Furthermore, unlike console and mobile platforms, Steam has
213 very little switching cost. An end user can always just up
214 and switch to Itch or Origin or GOG or Humble or wherever
218 ** Steam's progression (Score:3)
219 (by Luckyo ( 1726890 ))
222 So Steam started as "shove it down their throats" Counter Strike
223 1.6 launcher. Evolved into highly curated game store over about
225 Then decided to suddenly drop all curation and allow anything
226 and everything on the platform. Got flooded with garbage. Added
227 weird "meta gaming" shit like trading cards. Got games that
228 literally existed just to allow people to get cards. Allowed
229 some trading and other meta gaming of the system. Even got
230 pressured by some SJW types to drop politically controversial
231 games like Hatred and even had their recent porn games brouhaha.
232 And now, they're doing this. I guess there's just too much
233 pressure from all directions, and they really just decided that
234 no, we're not bending to various pressure groups, and instead
235 just making sure that asset flips and such are not on the store.
236 If true, good on them.
238 ** Early Access (Score:2)
239 (by tylersoze ( 789256 ))
242 Eh, all I really want from Valve is a filter that blocks all
243 "Early Access" games from ever appearing, as I'm browsing for
244 games on their web site.
git://git.nikiroo.be / gofetch.git / blob