RedEye9 wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 19:55:

Sepharo wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 19:02:
Am I the only person on earth who doesn't care that there are garbage games on Steam?

Do people really just buy games like they're renting a video in the 90s, aimlessly wandering around?

Nope, there's 2 of us.

I know what games I want to buy, the storefront has little to do with it.
I either see them here in bluesnews or the blues forums.

Not to mention that nowadays you can just add "youtube" to your game search and find a gameplay video... or a few hundred thousands (in case of Stardew)

Creston wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 15:52:
I think the fee should be low. I mean, Steam is still getting its 30% cut, so there's no need for them to make money off the submission fee. However, the barrier to entry needs to be high so that we can get rid of all these blatant "stealware" games, where they put 2 hours of code together and are just trying to get a few hundred people to put money into it.

So I'd suggest they make a system where the cost of putting up a game is $5K, and then on your first $15K of sales, you earn back $4500 from the cut that Valve normally takes.

That should hopefully stop the absolute avalanche of garbage that's been infesting Steam.

I'm pretty sure that's what is going to end up implemented, it is just the dollar values at this point that are getting figured out. It just makes too much sense and fits in too well with their current architecture not to.

It automatically regulates. Make 100% of the fee recoverable by waiving all or some of valve's cut until it is recovered. You can make it so it takes ~$16.7k in sales to recoup the cost by waiving the entire 30% or you could waive just half the 30% until it is recovered so it takes around $33.3k.

Since you game has to sell for you to recoup the cost it will encourage the games to be at least good enough that they can sell copies.

Valve can also do a program for broke indie devs where some of them can get special exceptions.

ItBurn wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 22:35:
It already costs 100$ to get a game on Greenlight, so people are willing to pay that and I think that's a good number to prevent spamming. 5K is definitely too high. I personally put a game on Steam and didn't make anything close to 5K. Thing is, I would have paid the 5K if I had to, but it would have turned out that I would have lost a sh*tload of money and that that money was instead in Valve's pockets, which would make me feel like I was swindled... So, seems like this new project of theirs is about raising the price. If they're going to do that, I suggest they stay below 500$. I think they should just leave it at 100$. I really don't think there's a problem with too many or too low quality games on Steam. You can get refunds, there's great reviews and you can filter things easily.

I'm fine in general with that, but I'm not sure I can filter as well as I would like to.

Also the dumb recommended for you shit on top. If I don't act, I see the same one's for a looong period of time. I have to tag "Not Interested" and I will on some, but not all I want to permanently hide, so I just keep getting those over and over, it needs to at least recommend a completely new list every 24 hours. I really want the new stuff cycling up top first though like it was. Not happy with the move to their choice of recommend. I play a space game, one, and next thing you know I have a list of 10 space games from all genre's showing up as recommended, because I like one space game!

Here is what I have right now:
Galaxy on Fire 2
Galatic Junk League
Eve Ascension
Interstellar Rift
Everquest 2 (LOL)
Endless Space
The Ship
Sniper Elite 4
Endless Sky
Resident Evil 7
Primal Carnage
COD Black Ops 3

I get the majority of that because of Empyrion. RE7 is all I would consider from that list and I bet that is going out to everyone no matter likes or dislikes.

Now what I care about... scroll to bottom, Popular New Releases... Now most is shit, but at least that is something new and I'll tag Wishlist, Not Interested or nothing. 6 out of 10 Not Interested, hopefully never to be seen again, unless I do a very specific search.

Then over to Top Sellers tab... Which have 8 on my Wishlist waiting for a sale.

What I want is now at the bottom of a multi-page scroll. Why? Used to be at top and made sense to be at top... new stuff.

This comment was edited on Feb 11, 2017, 13:39.

All of this because of people whining that they had to scroll past games they didn't want in the store. Now the same people who were whining that there was too much crap on the list are worried that their particular brand of crap won't make it to the list. Hilarious :p

BIGtrouble77 wrote on Feb 11, 2017, 00:39:
I would be really disappointed if they upped the publishing fee simply because a lot of games I own on steam may not have ultimately been published, namely...
Unreal World, Curious Expedition, Sunless Sea, NEO Scavenger, etc. Each of these games could have just as easily been mobile exclusives.

To solve the problem of complete crap making it onto steam, Steam just needs to filter out poorly rated games more aggressively. I'm constantly getting complete garbage recommended to me... I don't care that crap games exist, I just can't stand that Steam still recommends abandoned early access title that have overwhelmingly negative reviews.

I'm working on a sports simulation that I intended to release on steam in the future, but damn $5,000 is a big hit to take. I've been working on this game for years for fun, but having to shell out $5k to see it released on Steam is not something I planned for.

Launch immediately in Early Access?

so wait... google and microsoft are trying to fix their fucked up stores by closing them up, and steam wants to save work by opening up? is this one of those vicious cycles?

I'm being sarcastic. steam will turn into a shitshow

I would be really disappointed if they upped the publishing fee simply because a lot of games I own on steam may not have ultimately been published, namely...
Unreal World, Curious Expedition, Sunless Sea, NEO Scavenger, etc. Each of these games could have just as easily been mobile exclusives.

To solve the problem of complete crap making it onto steam, Steam just needs to filter out poorly rated games more aggressively. I'm constantly getting complete garbage recommended to me... I don't care that crap games exist, I just can't stand that Steam still recommends abandoned early access title that have overwhelmingly negative reviews.

I'm working on a sports simulation that I intended to release on steam in the future, but damn $5,000 is a big hit to take. I've been working on this game for years for fun, but having to shell out $5k to see it released on Steam is not something I planned for.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 22:13:

Dev wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 21:29:
That would be because they have managers and people hired for support (even if they are probably out of India).
Valve has desks on wheels with no one interested in being on helldesk.

I'd be on HellChat 10 hours a day if Valve paid me six figures.

Probably not if you had wheels on desk and could choose between that and a million other things, including your own projects (such as spending millions on VR), or making hats, or making HL3, etc.
Valve needs to stop insisting they get the best generalists and hire contract specialists in support, even Indian support would be better than what they have now.

It already costs 100$ to get a game on Greenlight, so people are willing to pay that and I think that's a good number to prevent spamming. 5K is definitely too high. I personally put a game on Steam and didn't make anything close to 5K. Thing is, I would have paid the 5K if I had to, but it would have turned out that I would have lost a sh*tload of money and that that money was instead in Valve's pockets, which would make me feel like I was swindled... So, seems like this new project of theirs is about raising the price. If they're going to do that, I suggest they stay below 500$. I think they should just leave it at 100$. I really don't think there's a problem with too many or too low quality games on Steam. You can get refunds, there's great reviews and you can filter things easily.

Dev wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 21:29:
That would be because they have managers and people hired for support (even if they are probably out of India).
Valve has desks on wheels with no one interested in being on helldesk.

I'd be on HellChat 10 hours a day if Valve paid me six figures.

Wesp5 wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 15:57:
How would it be that instead of just getting more money from their monopoly while doing nothing, which is how Steam Direct translates to me, if Valve would actually check whatever they sell on Steam for quality or at least make sure it runs how intended to weed out the trash?

Whoa whoa whoa man! Didn't you read the original greenlight press release? Valve said they were doing it because the checking was too much work and they wanted to shift that to the community instead.
Not joking.
So you can't expect them to want to wheel their desks to do that.
Valve is hoping to weed out "noise" with the fee, but sadly, a failure to review the titles will mean they stand more risk of filtering all the good indie titles right now.
Especially because steam has played a HUGE part in how the indie scene for PC has exploded in the past decade.

HorrorScope wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 17:46:
What is funny the whipping boy ORIGIN does!!! You can chat with them within minutes and get shit resolved. lol

That would be because they have managers and people hired for support (even if they are probably out of India).
Valve has desks on wheels with no one interested in being on helldesk.

jdreyer wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 16:59:

eRe4s3r wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 14:20:

Bundy wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 14:03:
$100 hasn't reduced the amount of trash you see in the iOS app store. But I imagine $5,000 will almost entirely eliminate the one-man-part-time indie dev from publishing anything.

There must be a middle ground that'll work for devs and gamers alike.

With 5000$, games like Star Ruler or indeed any Indy game (including the ones from Japan) would not be on Steam whatsoever. That'd be like 20% of the budget...

So those games did less than $5000 in sales thus not recouping the money? I'd argue such niche games need not be on Steam in that case.

Having insight in how budgets in at least 3 games worked, I can assure you that no indy developer can throw $5000 at steam and still make a game to begin with. Since to get on this program you need to have an already made game, which means you don't have 5000$ left over to magically pay a bridge troll. You want to sell it, and you call it complete, because you ran out of money to work on it and polish what is there. And then when you get good sales, you maybe make a superior sequel or the game you really wanted to make. Or you used greenlight to get EA sales to even finish developing your game.

Not to mention that if this gate fee would really be 5000$ you would not see a single indy game on there, steam sales for indy devs are already absolutely disastrous ever since the flash sales have been removed. The problem of indy devs on Steam is to even be noticed nowadays, and just because a game doesn't make sales on steam doesn't mean it's good, it means steam decided to fuck you over 3 times in a row and put your release notification on page 6.

No cost, secondary search status. Sell enough go on main. Earn a name, next time you bypass secondary.

Sepharo wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 19:02:
Am I the only person on earth who doesn't care that there are garbage games on Steam?

Do people really just buy games like they're renting a video in the 90s, aimlessly wandering around?

Nope, there's 2 of us.

I know what games I want to buy, the storefront has little to do with it.
I either see them here in bluesnews or the blues forums.

Sepharo wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 19:02:
Am I the only person on earth who doesn't care that there are garbage games on Steam?

Do people really just buy games like they're renting a video in the 90s, aimlessly wandering around?

Not anymore, no, because now it's just endless rows of garbage. It used to be fun to browse through indie games.

Bundy wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 18:43:

jdreyer wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 17:09:

Kxmode wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 15:58:

Bundy wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 14:03:
$100 hasn't reduced the amount of trash you see in the iOS app store. But I imagine $5,000 will almost entirely eliminate the one-man-part-time indie dev from publishing anything.

There must be a middle ground that'll work for devs and gamers alike.

The downside is that might eliminate the Eric Barones and Stardew Valleys indie projects.

So, Stardew Valley has an estimated revenue of $25M. He would have made back his $5K easily, like within the first 10 minutes his game was on sale.

It's unlikely he would have ever put it in the store if he was asked to pay 5K in the first place. He had no idea he struck gold until the hype started, after it was in the store.

100% this. Charging $5,000 is a barrier to entry for most indie devs. SDV was a huge exception. It only became a hit because it found life on a platform like Steam. A $5,000 fee, when there's no guarantee of success, would make someone like Eric Barone think twice about releasing on Steam. Scratch that. If indie devs know it costs $5,000 upfront to get their project on Steam, they may not put forth the effort to make the game in the first place. I don't mind Steam making changes; I just don't want them to stifle new developers and their projects and ultimately never allow gems like SDV to exist. As much as I hate crowdfunding and early access, conversely I love well made indie games.

Am I the only person on earth who doesn't care that there are garbage games on Steam?

Do people really just buy games like they're renting a video in the 90s, aimlessly wandering around?

jdreyer wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 17:09:

Kxmode wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 15:58:

Bundy wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 14:03:
$100 hasn't reduced the amount of trash you see in the iOS app store. But I imagine $5,000 will almost entirely eliminate the one-man-part-time indie dev from publishing anything.

There must be a middle ground that'll work for devs and gamers alike.

The downside is that might eliminate the Eric Barones and Stardew Valleys indie projects.

So, Stardew Valley has an estimated revenue of $25M. He would have made back his $5K easily, like within the first 10 minutes his game was on sale.

It's unlikely he would have ever put it in the store if he was asked to pay 5K in the first place. He had no idea he struck gold until the hype started, after it was in the store.

I agree with this change, I just think 5K is too high.

RedEye9 wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 16:11:

Slick wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 16:02:

Wesp5 wrote on Feb 10, 2017, 15:57:
How would it be that instead of just getting more money from their monopoly while doing nothing, which is how Steam Direct translates to me, if Valve would actually check whatever they sell on Steam for quality or at least make sure it runs how intended to weed out the trash?

Let's start with basic chat support for the products that they sell, then phone support, then maybe they'll have enough money to get some eyeballs on the exact quality of all the shovelware. Steam might be a multi-billion dollar monopolistic business, but they still operate like they're a startup "greenlight" project.

And I fully understand why they don't do this, because any issue with any game they sell they'd have to field those questions, the system would be swamped by a billion "this random game doesn't work" things. Which as a retailer, they SHOULD have to deal with, but they've found this ingenious way to avoid this fundamental retailer responsibility altogether, and force their customers to deal directly with the "manufacturer".

Neither newegg, amazon, dell, walmart, target etc helps customers who have problems with computers, software, hardware or other items purchased from them.

Why should Steam be any different?

What is funny the whipping boy ORIGIN does!!! You can chat with them within minutes and get shit resolved. lol

It just seems to make business sense for Valve to ensure a basic level of quality rather than have a pile of shit for sale. It's their store, after all.