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[Reelya]

I think you're missing out how much that would completely kill indie devs. For that, they'd have to have a Nintendo-like approvals process so only the largest say 70% of projects would even get into the pipeline. The occasional Active Shooter is worth it to allow hundreds of other small devs to make stuff that's not offensive.

Sure, the cost might not be too much higher than the $100, but reviewers are finite in number and ability, so they'd need to set marketing pricing for applications, to throttle the amount of applicants down to a level that they can cope with. So, even if the "actual" cost of approvals becomes only $300, they'd need to charge maybe $1000 per game, just to whittle down the applicants in the pipeline to a manageable level. And that's not the cost to launch the game, it's only the cost to have Steam's censors go over it and give it a yes/no approval. You won't get that money back if they don't like your game, because that would unfairly push the costs of checking your game out onto all other games.

Active Shooter didn't even make it to the point at which it could be sold remember, so ... system working fine.

And think what you're asking for there ... corporate censorship so that "problematic" things disappear before we the public can hear about them. That's a very dangerous route to advocate.

EDIT: Especially when Active Shooter's main fault is that it's conceptually problematic. Do we ban games in which you can choose to play the Arab side like Battlefield, because people could use that as a "terrorist simulator" or games where you can play a Nazi? How about Postal? Grand Theft Auto? What's even the criteria here? Then, remember that people would start petitioning Steam to remove or block things because they disagree with their sexual mores - the entire gamut of sexual mores. So Steam would turn into the World Police for sexuality in games, trying to balance the Christian Right on one side vs SJWs on the other side, both wanting to change the rules on how games are approved so that ones with too much gay/straight/cisgender/transgender/loli/big-boobs etc etc etc are blocked, depending on who's doing the asking.

[Kagus]

Actually, Active Shooter's main fault is that it's a steaming pile of asset-ripped shit in a mostly unplayable and completely unenjoyable packaging.

[Reelya]

That's really it, the game's been pulled because the guy making it is a known troll.

The idea that it should have been blocked immediately because people don't like the concept is in fact scary when you actually consider the broader ramifications of that. All games would be subject to that scrutiny, and if Steam is vigilant-enough to block Active Shooter for being "insensitive" then let's just say lots of very popular games wouldn't be on Steam to start with.

I got Neko Neko Paradise in a humble bundle, and if Steam had a "remove anything questionable" approvals policy, that game flat out wouldn't be on Steam to start with. Such a policy always ends with the company being more sensitive to potential controversy than any actual living human, because they're always going to be assuming that someone will get offended.

And who decides? Imagine a hypothetical game starring a gay character that 40% of America (Conservatives Christians) find "insensitive". Then, how about some game starring a stereotyped female character that 20% of Americans say they find "insensitive"? Do we tell both groups, or neither, just to "get over it" or do we kowtow to one group and not the other, and if so, on what basis?

[Jopax]

Ok, I think the issue here is that I'm talking about quality control, not content control which seems to be your sticking point. A dev can do whatever controversial subject they want as far as I'm concerned since games imo are an art medium, as such the only limitations on content would probably be age gating the shit or removing bits if you want to sell it in certain countries (for example nazis being an issue in germany).

In the case of what I'm advocating is a Q&A team running trough a game in short order to verify that it is in fact a playable piece of software that delivers the features its selling to people. That it's not an achievement or card farming asset flip that took no effort to make or an outright scam that's selling itself as a full title when it has a single functional level. And the volume of work would be large at first, but that's again on valve because they allowed this to happen in the first place, once people realise they're throwing money at valve only to get their turd of code rejected I'm fairly certain most of them will stop. At which point you'll be left mostly with serious applicants with actual games that they're trying to sell.

Another thing, what exactly is the current 100$ entry fee for? Buying a spot on the storefront? Doesn't the 30-ish % cut valve takes from every sale cover that part already? It's clearly not working as a deterrent against shit games flooding the marketplace, so what exactly is its purpose?

[TD1]

Em... they get more money? Seems like all the purpose they'd need.

[Reelya]

Another thing, what exactly is the current 100$ entry fee for? Buying a spot on the storefront? Doesn't the 30-ish % cut valve takes from every sale cover that part already? It's clearly not working as a deterrent against shit games flooding the marketplace, so what exactly is its purpose?

It is a deterrent, you just can't see that because you can't prove a negative.

If it was $1, then the same troll dev could upload 100 variations of the same thing for his $100, with different names and cover-art, on the hope that one of them "sticks" or that some people are suckered into buying more than one version of the same thing (e.g. people who buy a lot of games then don't get around to playing them all). The economic risk of it would be lessened, since you'd only need to make back $1 per version, not $100.

Plus ... for every $100 troll there are hundreds of wanna-be trolls who just aren't willing to shell out the $100.

With the $100 limit, Valve needs to stamp out the occasional brushfire like Active Shooter, but with a lower limit, or being able to upload games for free, such things would be cropping up much more frequently.

[heydude6]

I got Neko Neko Paradise in a humble bundle, and if Steam had a "remove anything questionable" approvals policy, that game flat out wouldn't be on Steam to start with. Such a policy always ends with the company being more sensitive to potential controversy than any actual living human, because they're always going to be assuming that someone will get offended.

Ironically, they already tried to remove that

Another thing, what exactly is the current 100$ entry fee for? Buying a spot on the storefront? Doesn't the 30-ish % cut valve takes from every sale cover that part already? It's clearly not working as a deterrent against shit games flooding the marketplace, so what exactly is its purpose?

It is a deterrent, you just can't see that because you can't prove a negative.

If it was $1, then the same troll dev could upload 100 variations of the same thing for his $100. Plus ... for every $100 troll there are hundreds of wanna-be trolls who just aren't willing to shell out the $100.

Thing is, before there was steam direct there was a fee plus greenlight. This system resulted in a lot of shitty games appearing on steam. Now it's just the fee, and because of this the problem is now getting worse.


Truthfully, I think Valve is trying to have their cake and eat it too. Someone earlier in this thread said that 7000 new games appear on steam every year. 7000x100 = $700,000 dollars per year. That's a lot of money. If Valve decided to implement actual working policies that prevented scammers from paying the $100 to get on steam, they would lose a huge(I'm talking more than %60) chunk of that revenue. So they let them do it. Valve will do the occasional bit of moral posturing and pretend they're doing something about it, while ultimately doing nothing.

[Reelya]

Truthfully, I think Valve is trying to have their cake and eat it too. Someone earlier in this thread said that 7000 new games appear on steam every year. 7000x100 = $700,000 dollars per year. That's a lot of money.

$700,000 is not a lot of money. It's fuck-all money. $700k per year doesn't in fact pay that many wages especially when you account for overheads. e.g. it's only 20 times $35k or 7 times $100k. So those are the theoretical limits of how many people you could pay at the entry level / specialist level for that money.

If they really only did this for money then the amount would be much higher. e.g. with many multi-million dollar budget games out there they could have demanded $10,000 per listing and they'd only need 70 projects to trump up that money.

Also, however, remember that if your game makes $1000 or more, you get your $100 back. And what percentage of games that paid the $100 don't hit the $1000? Maybe 1000 are bogus, so won't make $1000, so won't get their money back, meaning Steam pockets $100,000. Enough to pay for 1-2, at most, additional employees for a year. No, it doesn't make any sense that this rule is there as a money-maker since it doesn't really make much money for Steam at all.

[pisskop]

listening to atlas shrugged.

so far im 4-5 chapters in, they just finished reardon's family life.  I see 2 polar extremes of thought.  its tongue in cheek for me.

[heydude6]

Also, however, remember that if your game makes $1000 or more, you get your $100 back. And what percentage of games that paid the $100 don't hit the $1000? Maybe 1000 are bogus, so won't make $1000, so won't get their money back, meaning Steam pockets $100,000. Enough to pay for 1-2, at most, additional employees for a year. The economics works out that the retained fee pays for 1 guy to check out all 1000 of those games.

Oh, forgot about that detail. Ignore what I said then.

[TamerVirus]

Bah, there are already many games on steam that are just as violent as the asset flipped garbage that was active shooter

Postal 1 is all about active shooting, hell, it ends at an elementary school.
Postal 2 is a lot more wacky, but still violent and super offensive.
Hatred, which is basically a modern successor to Postal 1. Was briefly removed from Steam before being reinstated by gaben himself

All I'm saying is you gotta put effort into your murder simulator if you want it to sell

[JoshuaFH]

I'm at the point of thinking that we only pretend to have taboos at this point. That really nothing shocks us anymore, but we pretend that it does because, like, what else is left for the debased lowest common denominator consumer? Besides ramping up the offensiveness to newer, previously unheard of vistas, until all games and movies that are aiming for this particular form of exploitation become moving, interactive Francisco Goya-wannabes?

[Frumple]

It's the way of the future

The way of the past

Deybuse
Is the way of the ass!

Push past the sphincter

It's the greatness of old

Deybuse
Is greater than gold!

why do you do this brain
why

[ChairmanPoo]

What do you have against Goya? He's one of my favourite painters, along with Caspar David Friedrich

[JoshuaFH]

I just can't look at Saturn Devouring His Son without feeling nauseous.