We have just about passed that time of the year where everyone was posting their best and worst lists of 2014. This included movies, songs, anime, and video games. I enjoy seeing what people have to say about their personal best and worst choices. Something I have noticed from worst lists representing both 2013 and 2014 is that there are quite a few Steam games that made it on those lists and I can understand why. Steam has a major problem. That problem is that developers have way too much power on their service. The ones I notably want to talk about are The Slaughtering Grounds from last year and Day One: Garry's Incident from 2013. In both cases, the developers took extreme measures to make sure their game didn't get as much negative press as what should have been seen in the first place given the condition of the games being sold on Steam. We can then see why these games are on the worst lists. The problem is that these developers should not have the kind of influence that they do; however, Steam barely does anything to combat this clear abuse of power.
Let's start with The Slaughtering Grounds. Arguably one of the most controversial games of 2014, The Slaughtering Grounds met with incredibly negative reception from reviewers and gamers alike. With eighty-five negative customer reviews on Steam in comparison to the twenty-four positive reviews (made entirely for parody mind you), one would imagine that this is a game that you should steer clear from. If the preview video on its page isn't evident enough that this game was lazily put together, then Jim Sterling's first impressions video definitely shed some light on this otherwise poorly done game.
Everything would have progressed fairly. Another bad game is released on Steam, gets panned by its audience, and no one bats an eyelash at it ever again. Well, ImminentUprising (the developer) couldn't let all of this harsh criticism go unpunished. They saw this as an injustice to them and their first game. They were the victims here. They were on the moral high ground. They had to get the last word. So, what did they do? Start up a witch hunt beginning with Jim Sterling.
They first struck at Jim Sterling by making a "review the reviewer" video where they added scathing text commentary on top of Jim's first impressions video. Most of the wordage used was spiteful, vulgar, and insulting toward Jim. The video served to belittle Jim's video where he negatively criticized the game. Jim found this hilarious and subsequently released a video showing how funny he found it. Then the developer made another video commenting on Jim's commenting of the developer's farce commentary on Jim's original impressions video. This was by all accounts one huge explosion of insanity. Trust me, it was weird the first time I heard about this, too.
Regardless of this unprecedented meltdown, the developer filed a DMCA copyright infringement report on Jim's first video. Here is the kicker: ImminentUprising claimed that Jim Sterling somehow uniquely copyright infringed on their game by using the word "absolute" in the description of the game as a failure and in so doing is now able to take him to court. The fortunate side to all of this is that the company faced yet another absolute failure in that their attempts to legally penalize Jim Sterling led nowhere. That's right, the company behind arguably one of the worst games of the year failed again to try to censor an outspoken critic of their game.
So, they failed on Youtube, but were they content with just trying to silence Jim Sterling? Of course not! ImminentUprising went so far as to ban any gamer on Steam who had the slightest criticism toward the game. One tactic they came up with was baiting gamers on Steam by offering game codes for anyone who would write something negative about The Slaughtering Grounds. Lo and behold, they banned everyone who entered. Prior to this, they wrote up fake positive reviews on Steam. Each account that had a positive comment on the game had only that single game as a review, no friends, and only The Slaughtering Grounds in their library. See how ridiculously abused power can get on Steam these days?
Let's go back a little bit to 2013 with the Day One: Garry's Incident kerfuffle. One of my favorite Youtubers, TotalBiscuit, released a video on his "WTF Is" series for this particular game. To keep a long story short, the game is awful. The gameplay is both tedious and broken, the graphics are a mixed bag, and it's full of bugs and glitches. The developer (Wild Games Studio) saw TotalBiscuit's video and unsurprisingly issued a copyright claim against him. Wild Games Studio claimed that they were protecting their license "because Total Biscuit has no right to make advertising revenue with our license".
The monkey wrench in this equation is that the developer did in fact give TotalBiscuit a game code for the video and permission to monetize from said video as TotalBiscuit's network made it perfectly clear that advertising on the preview videos is how they make revenue. Amidst this controversy, TotalBiscuit revealed Wild Games Studio's other questionable practices via fake funding on Kickstarter and posting fake positive reviews on Metacritic. Wild Games Studio also went on to entice users with Steam keys by voting to pass their game on Greenlight. Both before and after the game's release, the developer went on to censor user submitted reviews and comments that were negative about the game. Multiple posts that were critical of the game saw instant removal.
Gamers' frustration grew as their voices were being silenced on Steam. Their solution was to converge to other forum sites to vent. The discussion expanded from these forums into the bulk of the gaming media. Along with TotalBiscuit's problems and the increasing scorn from gamers, Wild Games Studio was called out for their actions against the greater community which led to the developer issuing an apology on Steam. Since then, the apology has been removed.
These two incidents are prime examples of why the power developers have on Steam is incredibly one-sided. While their efforts on other sites like Metacritic and Youtube result in botched attempts at censorship and advertising, they can bask in the leverage they have on Steam. There is no moderation to be had here except on the part of the developers. They control everything. While not all developers releasing games on Steam act the way that Wild Games Studio and ImminentUprising did, the problems still persist in other corners around Steam. Reports from Steam users of abuse of power and just in general poor performing games include multiple complaints regarding The Stomping Land, Air Control, Towns, 7 Ways to Die, and StarForge.
In all of these cases, the developers are not updating or working on their games to make them better and further they are taking steps to make sure that any negative publicity is quickly extinguished. This type of behavior is unacceptable. It's equally ridiculous that they have the kind of power they possess on Steam to be able to do as they please. Entire reviews can be deleted, users banned from forums, falsifying positive coverage, abandoning the development of games, and enticing the community with perks in exchange for passing Greenlight have been happening this entire time. This has to end.
There is no balance between developers and gamers here. While the power of the internet (and in some cases having strong stances against the powers that be) can make things go in favor of someone who was just sharing their opinion, the problems persist. We see how far developers are willing to go to keep gamers' criticisms from the eyes of the public. We see their attempts at taking on internet personalities and publications who have qualms with their games.
Quality control is in desperate need on Steam. It's not bad that developers are able to interact with the community on Steam. It's not bad that Steam gives indie studios a chance to show the community what they are offering. What I take issue with is Steam's selective approach to different situations. While Air Control is gone and Hatred is back up, developers abusing their power is still a major issue that Steam must address more directly. Day One: Garry's Incident and The Slaughtering Grounds are still available for purchase at five dollars a piece. The stories revolving around these two developers' unacceptable behavior were widely seen across the internet on many outlets. Why do they continue to exist as purchasable products? Steam needs to step it up lest more developers repeat the same actions like those listed above.
Sony has quietly lifted regional restrictions on multiple PlayStation titles on Steam, allowing more players to access their games worldwide.
Thank you for using the term "region" since that was always what happened. The amount of media that used the term country led to many misinformed people.
According to SteamDB Statistics:
"The use of the word "subdivisions" below refers to states, provinces, regions and other categories."
"Totals
As of december 2017, there are 250 countries, 4024 subdivisions and 45261 cities in Steam's location data."
Curious what gadgets are in the new Battlefield game? Check out a look at the ones available in Battlefield Labs.
The Epic Games Store wants you to help folks get healthy with this weeks free game.
Good read, this may be the door or crack that MS sees and could fix with their Win 10/Xbox App cross play features... Meaning, they see the issues, and they are beginning to combine the two... Maybe just maybe helping steam, using steam, or being an alternative to steam.
It's ridiculous that Steam doesn't give players a forum to safely discuss the game that they purchased. It's really getting disgusting how much publishers are trying to silence people. What's more disgusting is watching the big companies like Nintendo getting into the fray, taking down fair use videos that haven't been "approved" by Nintendo as not having negative comments and set up to profit them.
So,is not about early access which honestly needs a major makeover. Be able to purchase the games from as little as $5.00 to as high as $50.00 with no set price, able to get a refund from say game whether is early access or not will welcomed, etc. I feel that Valve is relying too much on gamers in running Steam. What I mean is Greenlight, the gamers not Valve are the gatekeepers of which games come to Steam. The curator is based on gamers curating Steam's overwhelming amount of games. This means gamers need to start looking at Steam as their personal storefront not Valves storefront.
I think practically everyone on here can agree with the upper paragraphs and the ridiculous degrees to which developers have gone. What I take issue with is whole all of that coalesces into making a point but then the final paragraph brings up "Quality control is in desperate need on Steam" as if that's connected with dev power over there, which I simply can't agree with at all.
For bringing up steam's selective process in dropping/allowing stuff onto the store, you seem to be acting similarly with airing you're greivances that Day One + Slaughtering Grounds are still available and--seemingly--glad that Air Control has been removed. But thank goodness Hatred made it back!
I know that final part is coming off condescendingly, but I'm just tired of seeing the same wishy-washy in paid reviewers + typical users who'll fight for the right of X controversial, functional game to exist on a digital storefront, that takes up no store shelf space, but not have a bunch of glitchy, broken games, whether or not their devs act poorly. Let's just make it more open AND make the information more readily available.