LogFAQs > #902724692

dioxxys posted...

I would have more options then less

When "more options" is "we're not even going to bother checking that this game has a working .exe file included," though, that "more options" stops being even remotely beneficial. Hypothetically, saying that they aren't going to police content and will allow controversial stuff through instead of censoring it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the vast, vast majority of stuff that will take advantage of this will be shameless asset flip cash grabs, possibly capitalizing on the "I'm so edgy that I'm gonna buy a game about lynching black people even though it's literally unplayable take that SJW's" attitude that a disturbing number of idiots are adopting. It's not going to be legitimately controversial stuff, it's going to be stuff that everyone hates that only sells to people who get off on doing stuff that everyone hates.

More options is only a good thing if some of those options will actually be useful, and if the quantity of options doesn't become so inflated that it's impossible to find the ones you can make use of.

dioxxys posted...

I'm capable of ignoring games I don't want, it's not that hard. And if youre a true fan of a certain genre, it's easy to find the most well received recent games in that genre just by doing a little research.

Here's the thing, though: Somebody else has to find those games first in order for them to be well-received. The harder it is to find good stuff, the fewer games are going to end up being well-received, and the less data you'll have to research. As it stands, Steam's utter lack of quality control means you can't find good stuff by simply going into the Steam storefront and looking at new releases.

And that's without even getting into the effects this has on the ability of legitimate indie developers to make profitable games. Indie developers are already finding that their games are selling better in other stores than on Steam, simply because there's some degree of vetting going into those catalogues so every quality new game doesn't release alongside a hundred asset flips, brainless memes, and sub-functional products that barely qualify as "games." That's not a sustainable marketplace. Steam was once the prime market for indie games, but abandoning all pretense of quality control is going to kill that. Nobody's going to shop on Steam anymore.

It's also worth noting that offending people shouldn't be discounted, as tempting as that might be. The ESRB was created in response to people being offended and concerned about content in video games, as a way to let the industry regulate itself without government oversight. When games like Active Shooter and Hatred attract media attention, that attention is turned toward the store that's endorsing the products. Steam gets blamed for selling these, as well it should. If Steam isn't going to regulate itself and continues attracting this kind of offended attention, somebody else will do it, and that's not a good thing.
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