Steam Sux! andor Rox!

[Rosbjerg]

So ever since Prison Architect made it on steam greenlight, the introversion forums have flooded. So, mixed blessing methinks.

 

Introversion are awesome, I didn't know it was made by the guys who made Defcon and Uplink! .. Nice!

[Zoraptor]

Greenlight: an ingenious way to avoid the responsibilities and costs of Valve's closed marketplace (ffs, you'd think with their market share they could actually employ some people to vet games) while garnering goodwill for the 'openness' of their approval process. Which is still a lottery of one off, arbitrary, no greenlight needed approvals based on god knows what; games that are already on steam having, arbitrarily to submit (Drakensang/ RoT); submission guidelines that, arbitrarily, apply to some but not all; some developers that already have multiple titles on steam having, arbitrarily, to submit (eg Wadjet Eye) while others, arbitrarily, don't; and at the end it's still the same old, arbitrary, selection that results in borderline scams/ crapware like WarZ getting a no questions asked pat on the back Special Backstage Pass while far more deserving games are ignored. Why anyone has any confidence in Valve as the arbiters of PC gaming is quite beyond my comprehension.

 

Yeah, was going to post that in the Greenlight thread, but don't want to overly offend any tender sensibilities.

[alanschu]

Had a feeling that a new post in this thread would be about the Greenlight process haha.

 

The WarZ debacle is certainly interesting.  It definitely calls into question any sort of insistence on quality before approval is allowed.

 

I remember Greenlight originally cost $100 for the submission (which would later be given to Child's Play charity - I've always wondered what type of tax benefits this can give a corporation, however).  Though it sounds like that fee has been waived.

[BruceVC]

Greenlight: an ingenious way to avoid the responsibilities and costs of Valve's closed marketplace (ffs, you'd think with their market share they could actually employ some people to vet games) while garnering goodwill for the 'openness' of their approval process. Which is still a lottery of one off, arbitrary, no greenlight needed approvals based on god knows what; games that are already on steam having, arbitrarily to submit (Drakensang/ RoT); submission guidelines that, arbitrarily, apply to some but not all; some developers that already have multiple titles on steam having, arbitrarily, to submit (eg Wadjet Eye) while others, arbitrarily, don't; and at the end it's still the same old, arbitrary, selection that results in borderline scams/ crapware like WarZ getting a no questions asked pat on the back Special Backstage Pass while far more deserving games are ignored. Why anyone has any confidence in Valve as the arbiters of PC gaming is quite beyond my comprehension.

 

Yeah, was going to post that in the Greenlight thread, but don't want to overly offend any tender sensibilities.

 

 

Okay I won't claim to understand the shortfalls of  Steam better than yourself as I do think it offers an excellent gaming distribution system but what do you really want from them in respect to Greenlight. They ask potential buyers to vote on the games and people do vote. Its a democracy in its most simplest form. Also whats to stop people they hire from unfairly considering a Greenlight game as good, isn't our view of a game in almost all cases going to subjective . I would think the Greenlight system, even though flawed, does offer the best way for Steam to allow indie games to be part of there system as gamers have  voted for them so it carries some credibility?

[Nordicus]

Yeah, was going to post that in the Greenlight thread, but don't want to overly offend any tender sensibilities.

Really I would have even liked if any Greenlight debates took place there, it's just that your post came off as a rather pointless rant to let off some steam

 

This faction of people to whom Greenlight is awesometastic that seems to exist in your head, does not exist in the real world. Or if they do, then in tiny-*** numbers. The fact of the matter is, this system exists, it's managed horribly while the initial idea was good, and Gabe Newell acknowledges this yet still sits there with his thumb up his *** and does nothing about it. Even the simple of thing of doubling the greenlighting rate could potentially work wonders, even while the annoying problem of proven good (or otherwise anticipated) games arbitrarily not being able to go through the old fashioned submission method.

 

As it is, only less than 4% of the games put on the damn thing have been greenlit, even fewer than that have actually released. When I look at my own Yes-vote rates, I come at 10% of all the games I've seen (25/263), and I'm a picky guy with tastes that extremely few share 1-to-1

 

Edit: at the end of the day, even with my own series of gripes with Greenlight, I want it to improve rather than stop existing altogether.

 

 

I remember Greenlight originally cost $100 for the submission (which would later be given to Child's Play charity - I've always wondered what type of tax benefits this can give a corporation, however).  Though it sounds like that fee has been waived.

The fee hasn't gone anywhere. It was implemented in September to keep troll submissions away.

 

Jews Did 9-11 would have been a catchy title for a game, dontcha think?

Edited April 19, 2013 by Nordicus

[alanschu]

Regarding the fee: http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/18/valve-adds-concept-section-to-greenlight/

[Zoraptor]

Really I would have even liked if any Greenlight debates took place there, it's just that your post came off as a rather pointless rant to let off some steam

It came off as a rant to me as well, which is why I stuck it here. My presumption was that the Greenlight thread should be kept, uh, 'clean' since it is what it is and the system has to be dealt with as it is. No point obscuring any projects that deserve publicity beneath yet another steam argument.

 

When it comes right down to it they need consistent- and consistently applied- guidelines for submission and a transparent approval process, for a company that wants to control the PC market it does not fill one with any confidence whatsoever to look at greenlight and see that they have a system with obvious flaws, several of which could be fixed with almost no effort whatsoever. If you want to do that you have to be fair and not cherry pick stuff that benefits you only, as you've made it so that other people's livelihood's depend on your whims. And some of their criteria are just utterly baffling. Drakensang from ValuSoft is on steam, Drakensang from dtp has to go through greenlight- and they're the exact same game. Why, Valve? Why? If Steam did not have such a dominant market position their arbitrariness wouldn't matter, but they do, so it does.

 

They ask potential buyers to vote on the games and people do vote. Its a democracy in its most simplest form. Also whats to stop people they hire from unfairly considering a Greenlight game as good, isn't our view of a game in almost all cases going to subjective . I would think the Greenlight system, even though flawed, does offer the best way for Steam to allow indie games to be part of there system as gamers have  voted for them so it carries some credibility?

It isn't a fundamentally terrible system in theory, but the implementation is woeful and it is specifically designed to maximally benefit Valve as they still get to apply whatever criteria they like but can send everything else to greenlight, and it saves them money by getting the general public to filter games for them. And if people complain about being declined? "Not Valve's fault, you don't have enough votes!" thus shifting blame from Valve to the apathetic fans/ unpopular game. It's also good, free, market research, same as getting people to 'like' facebook pages. And it rubs me up the wrong way as it's more special snowflake treatment for steam that it would not get away with if it had smaller market share.

 

There will never be a perfect system since 'deserving' games is a subjective criterion and many of the factors involved cannot be looked at objectively, but at present and as above, Valve shows little interest in fixing even the most obvious issues.

[Humanoid]

Is it just me or is Tomb Raider permanently listed in the specials section despite not being on special at all? It's been there for a few weeks every time I check, and at full price.

[Nepenthe]

I like the fact that I can sometimes get both win and os x versions for one price, but I tend to avoid it due to the rabid fanboyism it enjoys. Personally, I buy few enough pc games (mostly console here) for most of the supposed benefits to kick in, anyway. I guess.

[Katphood]

Viking: Battle for Asgard is on sale for another 3 hours. Definitely worth the 3 bucks if you ask me.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/211160/

Edited April 30, 2013 by Astiaks

[AGX-17]

Viking: Battle for Asgard is on sale for another 3 hours. Definitely worth the 3 bucks if you ask me.

 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/211160/

$3.00 was tempting, but even for that little... vikings are overdone and overrated. Never understood the popularity, especially now that there's some romantic history revisionist movement in Scandinavia to frame them in a positive light. But that's neither here nor there. The plot sounds suspiciously like God of War, but with Norse mythology as the basis.

[Rosbjerg]

 

Especially now that there's some romantic history revisionist movement in Scandinavia to frame them in a positive light. But that's neither here nor there.

 

 

Scandinavia has pretty much always idolized it's Viking heritage.. So nothing new there. Just as any country idolizes it's own perceived 'Golden Age'.

[Rosbjerg]

So, I just got 2 -75% off Shogun 2.. If anyone are interested?

[Walsingham]

I use Steam despite hating the concept because I can see the way the wind is blowing. Overlays and intermediaries are the future. Chiefly because of DRM, in my opinion.

 

The fact that I get a chat overlay and community gubbins, and access to old games just sweetens an otherwise bitter pill.

 

Using Steam has also trebled my yearly spend on games (estimate).

 

And dropped my Amazon spend on games to zero. Which is always good.

[babaganoosh13]

I've now switched to Desura for those indie games that GOG doesn't have. Just picked up DLC Quest and Dead Pixels.

 

[broken record] I just wish they would fix that dang offline mode. Make it a top priority over anything else they do to it. Then I would be happy to give them money again. [/broken record]

[Katphood]

You can get Drakensang along with some other games for 5 bucks(or more) here: http://groupees.com/bm8

[LadyCrimson]

Re: Offline mode

 

After Steam decided to update itself (fairly big, hadn't gone online in a while) today, I ran into that "can't connect" offline-mode issue for the first time. Where it gives you that message then doesn't load. So I went back into online mode and unchecked the "Enable Steam Community In-Game" setting and tried again - worked fine that way.  I think the only reason I had it checked was there was a FNV mod that wanted it once.

 

So current version of Steam launcher now gives me this lame issue, but at least it still works with that setting off (I did not need that setting off, personally, before).

[babaganoosh13]

^^^^^^^^^

 

I'll try that one next time, thanks.

 

I would swear that updates keep disabling old tricks of keeping you logged in for offline mode. As DRM, Steam is really coming across as the crappiest one as of today BY FAR for me, because nothing else I have prevents me from playing my games at home.

[Walsingham]

Hah. Steam's the only DRM I don't have issues with, because - as I say - they sweeten the pill. 

 

Which reminds me: I haven't made rude and repuslive gestures in the direction Ubisoft for days. F*** Uibsoft and their attitude to piracy in general and DRM in particular. Sorry, but I have to say regularly that or I get a build up of Ubirage.

[Zoraptor]

Rise thread, rise from the dead! I command you!

 

That I do not, my problem is that while you seem to hate Steam and/or Valve with a passion strong enough to let us know in a noticeable chunk of you posts, you use the same "Oh but GFWL works fine FOR ME, Steam is the spawn of money-grubbing satan" anecdote that you hate when used in reverse.

By Jove, I do believe you're right!

Oh wait, that was kind of the point...
 

28MB data cap

A glorious 4GB. A mere day's usage for glorious Suomi no doubt, but I'm too far from an exchange to get ADSL. And, frankly, asterix having to take special precautions about it just because some clown's garbage code is inveigled into so many games. I've found literally no other program so rubbish in that respect, every other program I've used either has an offline mode or updates that can be scheduled/ otherwise controlled, and which don't break either the program itself or everything linked to them if they don't get the update they're demanding.

Oh, and what was I saying about people trying to blame the users for steam's faults? Steam isn't broken, it's the data cap that works for everything else that is!

[melkathi]

Zoraptor, you should know by now, you are only allowed to say bad things about GFWL and possibly UPlay. Even if you say something bad about Origin you are walking a thin line

[Hurlshort]

Origin is a wonderland!  

 

Actually Origin really is the best of the bunch when it comes to running smoothly from what I've seen.  But I still rarely use it.

[melkathi]

Origin is a wonderland!  

 

Actually Origin really is the best of the bunch when it comes to running smoothly from what I've seen.  But I still rarely use it.

 

And then there is that return policy they announced. Haven't looked at it further, but it sounded promissing.

[Nepenthe]

 

A glorious 4GB. A mere day's usage for glorious Suomi no doubt, 

 

Yes, if I get home late in the evening after a day trip to some lake, or something.