Poll of the Day > Steam gives up trying to think for you.....

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.polygon.com/2018/6/6/17435324/valve-steam-policy-games

Todays blog post makes something explicit that many of us have seen for a while: The company doesnt really care about the content on its platform. It doesnt want to be put in the sticky situation of being responsible for the things being sold through Steam, so it wont anymore. Anyone can sell their game on Steam, with a few tiny exceptions.

...Weve decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling, Valves Erik Johnson said in a blog post. Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building those tools to give people control over what kinds of content they see.

The wording is important there, because youd think what is illegal is a question for laws and courts, and not Valve, but this allows them to wash their hands of most decisions while keeping the control to interpret which illegal games should be removed and to be the final arbiter of what is and isnt trolling. Its a way of making sure the peasants know that they, and only they, are responsible for themselves, but the king is still the king.

There are also no stated mechanisms with which Valve will find games that are illegal or trolling. Why pay to do something yourself when you can just tell the audience its their job, or responsibility, to do it for you?

You can say the thought process behind this decision is profits, since it costs Valve very little to allow a game on its service and the company takes a large percentage of everything thats sold on the platform, but the blog posts makes it clear that its also about cowardice.

The harsh reality of this space, that lies at the root of our dilemma, is that there is absolutely no way we can navigate it without making some of our players really mad, Johnson said.

Saying there are no rules is a good way to make sure no one gets mad, and if people get upset about the flood of abusive and hateful games that now, by policy, have a home on Steam ... well, tough shit. Its your responsibility to not look at them, if you dont like them. Valve doesnt want to have to think about this stuff, it gets in the way of counting the money.

This isnt a free speech issue, because Valve isnt a government entity. This isnt an issue of lack of resources, because Valve makes enormous profits from Steam and could easily afford to put more robust vetting in place. It isnt an issue of lack of people, because more people could be hired to work on the problem if it was something Valve actually cared about solving.

But this solution keeps things simple, and profitable. Anything goes, and Valve is going to make money on all of it. If you dont like it? Well, thats your issue. Theres plenty of money to be made selling games that seek to profit from hateful ideas and images, and it can only cost money to run your company with basic decency. This blog post isnt a statement, its an excuse. And in 2018, its a lazy excuse.

If youre a developer of offensive games, this isnt us siding with you against all the people youre offending, Johnson said. Valve isnt picking a side, because that would mean turning down money from someone. The argument is made that someone in Valve may even agree that some games shouldnt be on the service, but this policy means that no one at Valve ever has to feel responsible for how they make money. Its an open declaration of for-profit sociopathy. You cant give something a home, take a percentage of its sales, and say that the product doesnt reflect your beliefs. Your beliefs are being reflected perfectly in that situation, in fact.

This was probably a simple decision for Valve, and if youre upset, just remember that your anger isnt the anger that Valve cares about.

/discuss
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So porn is fine now?
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shadowsword87 posted...

So porn is fine now?

I think they're more less referencing "Hatred" or whatever that school shooting simulator game is...

...but yeah, I suppose porn/hentai games are going to come flooding in too.

Personally I think it's a "good" idea, but like most good ideas it's going to be exploited with agendas. Just like how some SJWs tend to call everything so offensive they need to be removed from public consumption which to a further degree tends to lead to "censorship" of other ideas.

...this change in policy tends to re-enforce "personal responsibility" upon the consumer, instead of letting fringe groups tell that consumer what is good/bad for them.....tl:dr: think for yourself and decide.

Then again, the down-side is putting up with games like "Hatred" and other edgelord crap you see in the store.
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Wouldnt people just complain about censorship and whatnot if valve did not allow stuff like porn games on steam
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THANK GOD! It was about time they'd drop that kind of attitude! Valve earned my respect now, I hope they stick to this decision! Let us decide what is the best for ourselves, they don't have the right to do so.

Last time I was on steam I was totally thinking "yeah there's not enough absolute trash on here"
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Blightzkrieg posted...

Last time I was on steam I was totally thinking "yeah there's not enough absolute trash on here"

on the other hand, yay porn.
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Its not like its hard to completely avoid the REAL trash games on there
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Nade Duck posted...

Blightzkrieg posted...

Last time I was on steam I was totally thinking "yeah there's not enough absolute trash on here"

on the other hand, yay porn.

One of the biggest issues with porn is that there's such a wide breadth when it comes to quality and nobody is really dedicated to reviewing content and educating consumers.
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Greenfox111 posted...

Its not like its hard to completely avoid the REAL trash games on there

The storefront literally displays them front and center. And god help you if you do one little thing to piss off the discovery queue like play an RPG of any kind, because hey you just might like these several thousand RPG maker abominations ^_^
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click past em
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Veedrock- posted...

And god help you if you do one little thing to piss off the discovery queue like play an RPG of any kind, because hey you just might like these several thousand RPG maker abominations ^_^

A lot of those are fun!
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Sounds good to me. I'd prefer it if more companies stopped enforcing their morality onto me.

Though, I don't really trust Valve to show me games that I'm interested in. They currently seem to think I like survival games even though I hate them.
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hey, illusion soft, time to port your games oversea.
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Because who really needs quality control anyways?
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VixYW posted...

Let us decide what is the best for ourselves, they don't have the right to do so

Uh, yeah they do

PyroBlade1985 posted...

This isnt a free speech issue, because Valve isnt a government entity.

Why do people keep using that bullshit excuse?

Because it's true.

Valve is a private corporation. They have no legal or moral obligation to publish anything they do not want to publish, for any reason.
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darkknight109 posted...

PyroBlade1985 posted...

This isnt a free speech issue, because Valve isnt a government entity.

Why do people keep using that bullshit excuse?

Because it's true.

Valve is a private corporation. They have no legal or moral obligation to publish anything they do not want to publish, for any reason.

This.

Valve is a private platform where they write the rules on what can be said. It's not a government entity, that serves the people.

...but again, the whole point of this article is basically saying, "they don't care what is being said anymore". It's a lot of work to police and missed profits to 'censor' art based on unpopular opinions (depending on what side of the opinion you are on).

So Valve is well within their right to censor,...the point is they won't bother.

Which is what true freedom is.
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green dragon posted...

VixYW posted...

Let us decide what is the best for ourselves, they don't have the right to do so

Uh, yeah they do

Okay, let me rephrase it: they shouldn't have.

PyroBlade1985 posted...

Zangulus posted...

PyroBlade1985 posted...

Zangulus posted...

What do you even think the first amendment is? Because by the sounds of it, you have no clue what it actually is.

Why don't you tell me smart guy?

Thats definitely one way of saying you have no idea what youre talking about.

Next you'll say "It's not my job to educate you." Am I right?

It isn't his job to tell you something you should've learned in grade school

Ha! Everyone above is using obtuse I know what it means! just look it up because its so simple instead of explaining it in like half a sentence. But do they really know....

Any way this ben kucha sounds like a tool, valves right. This is better for everyone. Case closed.

PyroBlade1985 posted...

Zangulus posted...

What do you even think the first amendment is? Because by the sounds of it, you have no clue what it actually is.

Why don't you tell me smart guy?

Oh, fine, I'll bite.

First Amendment covers freedom of speech. To make a long story short it means that the government cannot fine, charge, imprison, or otherwise punish you for expressions of opinion (subject to several restrictions regarding safety). It also means that the government cannot compel you to make statements you do not believe in.

Notably, these restrictions apply to the government and absolutely no one else. A private employer, for instance, can punish you for making speech that it disagrees with or finds embarrassing. Using a service - like, say, an online forum like this one - may require you to agree to terms limiting what speech you can make while using that service (which is why offensive or hateful speech will get you banned on this website).

As Valve is a private corporation, they are protected by the First Amendment and, therefore, cannot be compelled to host, support, or promote games that do not align with their corporate views. Valve, as a private entity, is free to remove games from their service at any time, for any reason. Your right to free speech does not include a right to use Valve (or Youtube or Facebook or Twitter or GameFAQs) as a host for airing those views.
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PyroBlade1985 posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Your right to free speech does not include a right to use Valve (or Youtube or Facebook or Twitter or GameFAQs) as a host for airing those views.

And yet they decided to "open the flood gates". Guess everyone wins..well everyone except the game journalists. :)

That has nothing to do with freedom of speech.
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This could actually be the nail in the coffin for Steam as an indie platform. Not because of people being offended, but because it's already nigh-impossible to get noticed among the sea of garbage thanks to how pitiful their quality control "efforts" have been since Greenlight launched. If they're giving up on even that ineffective pretense, it's only going to get much, much worse. Here's hoping "give people more control over the content they see" means improving the discovery queue to actually be useful, otherwise I see developers giving up on Steam entirely.
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i could see origin getting slightly more use if they

lol origin
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PyroBlade1985 posted...

And yet they decided to "open the flood gates".

Sure, but the point is that's their decision to make. They are in no way obligated to allow everything and if they had chosen to implement minimum quality standards and guidelines - as they used to do - they would have been completely within their rights to do so.

PyroBlade1985 posted...

Guess everyone wins..well everyone except the game journalists. :)

And people who prefer quality games over dross, but who cares about them, right?

Steam has been flooded with horrible, low-quality games for years now and this decision seems to affirm that they've completely given up any pretense of quality control on their product.
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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.

I would have more options then less

darkknight109 posted...

And people who prefer quality games over dross, but who cares about them, right?

Steam has been flooded with horrible, low-quality games for years now and this decision seems to affirm that they've completely given up any pretense of quality control on their product.

Its never been hard to ignore them before this. And it should be that hard afterwards... It may take a little more research, though...
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darkknight109 posted...

Steam has been flooded with horrible, low-quality games for years now and this decision seems to affirm that they've completely given up any pretense of quality control on their product.

You can always look for the good games on the internet and only going to Steam to actually buy them. That's what I always did anyway.

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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Basically, steam will become nothing more than a launcher. There's no reason to look at it as a storefront with the thousands of garbage flooding in. Go buy your games from 3rd party sites like gmg or humble.
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VeeVees posted...

Basically, steam will become nothing more than a launcher. There's no reason to look at it as a storefront with the thousands of garbage flooding in. Go buy your games from 3rd party sites like gmg or humble.

Pretty much. This is only a good thing for Valve because it means they can lay off everyone who was trying to develop quality control algorithms (since they already laid off any actual people doing that job), and even that's debatable in the long run because it's going to drive people away from Steam as a storefront. Though I guess Valve makes plenty of money off of trading card sales even if the game generating those cards is utter garbage that the player paid 5 cents for, so maybe they'll do alright with nothing but those sales. I personally don't see that being very sustainable, though.
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adjl posted...

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.

Worth noting that this was the exact situation that led up to the Video Game Crash of '83. Tons of developers flooded the market with poorly made trash that didn't sell; retailers marked it down to bargain-bin prices to try and move what product they could; legitimate developers couldn't get their products seen as they were competing against underpriced trash; consumers quickly lost faith and interest in the system and left.

The system isn't wholly analogous, but the historical precedent for this sort of thing isn't a good one.
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Okay, I re-read the blog post and it seems people are misunderstanding some things (either that or I am right now). Their decisions is mostly regarding the content of the games, not exactly the quality. Quality is mentioned there, but just lightly, so I assume no changes are being made on that end. Also, it is mentioned that their process to admit games into the store still exists - which involves contact between devs and Valve, so Valve will be seeing the game and running it at the very least, the only difference is that as long as the devs are clear about what kind of content they have, they won't be rejected FOR THAT REASON alone. This whole thing is more about individual morals than anything else.

darkknight109 posted...

Worth noting that this was the exact situation that led up to the Video Game Crash of '83. Tons of developers flooded the market with poorly made trash that didn't sell; retailers marked it down to bargain-bin prices to try and move what product they could; legitimate developers couldn't get their products seen as they were competing against underpriced trash; consumers quickly lost faith and interest in the system and left.

The system isn't wholly analogous, but the historical precedent for this sort of thing isn't a good one.

The key difference there is that Steam is just one storefront, and developers have other places they can go. This may be Steam's downfall, but I don't see this hurting the industry at large (unless Steam's unwillingness to have any sort of standards for their storefront results in enough public outcry to attract government intervention, since that intervention isn't likely to be limited to Steam). They just aren't the market juggernaut they used to be.

VixYW posted...

Okay, I re-read the blog post and it seems people are misunderstanding some things (either that or I am right now). Their decisions is mostly regarding the content of the games, not exactly the quality. Quality is mentioned there, but just lightly, so I assume no changes are being made on that end. Also, it is mentioned that their process to admit games into the store still exists - which involves contact between devs and Valve, so Valve will be seeing the game and running it at the very least, the only difference is that as long as the devs are clear about what kind of content they have, they won't be rejected FOR THAT REASON alone. This whole thing is more about individual morals than anything else.

Even if they maintain their current quality control standards (and I have higher standards for what I flush down the toilet than Valve has for what they'll sell), this idea of not censoring content anymore is only going to attract more deliberate efforts to be flagrantly offensive, especially until the novelty of "take that SJW's you can't censor me" wears off. Bear in mind that the current content standards didn't prevent this from getting on there:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/875280/AIDS_Simulator/

And it's only going to get worse with this news. Selling bad, offensive games on Steam is rapidly approaching meme status, and Valve just gave that carte blanche to continue at a point when they ought to be cracking down and doing some real quality control.
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so what does valve actually do

they don't take care of their store

they don't make games
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They maintain a download server and collect 40% of revenue from sales and they update DotA 2 every 5 minutes.
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darkknight109 posted...

Worth noting that this was the exact situation that led up to the Video Game Crash of '83.

If another crash were to happen, it'll probably have more to do with too many AAA games pushing micro-transactions as the only way to play. There was a lot of financial backlash with EA's Star Wars: Battlefront 2. And Red Dead Redemption 2 is already seeing controversy with it's pay2win features in their deluxe editions of the game. Crap like that will crash the market.

The "Crash of '83" used up too much plastic and packaging for the hardware, which had always jacked up the retail price to begin with. Today, the impending crash in the near future would probably leave all the indy developers jobless, or living in their parents basement trying to peddle their a Peggle clone as another cheap mobile app.

adjl posted...

Selling bad, offensive games on Steam is rapidly approaching meme status, and Valve just gave that carte blanche to continue at a point when they ought to be cracking down and doing some real quality control.

Vote with your wallet,....that's the best you can do.
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Joker_X_II posted...

If another crash were to happen, it'll probably have more to do with too many AAA games pushing micro-transactions as the only way to play. There was a lot of financial backlash with EA's Star Wars: Battlefront 2. And Red Dead Redemption 2 is already seeing controversy with it's pay2win features in their deluxe editions of the game. Crap like that will crash the market.

The "Crash of '83" used up too much plastic and packaging for the hardware, which had always jacked up the retail price to begin with. Today, the impending crash in the near future would probably leave all the indy developers jobless, or living in their parents basement trying to peddle their a Peggle clone as another cheap mobile app.

Realistically, I don't see another crash happening. Certain major publishers may go under if some of their more questionable practices get taken too far (in particular, the "live service" model several publishers are pushing doesn't seem overly sustainable), but the industry's too big to see any sort of major collapse. If any one part of it does collapse, there are plenty of others waiting to fill whatever vacuum they leave behind.

Joker_X_II posted...

Vote with your wallet,....that's the best you can do.

That's not going to do much. Most people don't buy the genuine garbage; it's just people who get a key for a cent through some bundle somewhere, sell the 3-5 free trading cards for 10 cents each to turn a profit, and move on to the next game. The problem is, that's a large enough market to sustain this, at least as long as Steam sells enough other games for Steam Wallet money to have any value.
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adjl posted...

The key difference there is that Steam is just one storefront, and developers have other places they can go.

Sure, which is why I say the situation isn't completely analogous. Obviously this won't crash the market or even just the PC market... but it might crash Steam and they should be worried about that.
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Valve should. The rest of us? Maybe it's time to start making backups of our Steam games, but otherwise, life will go on.
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People still use steam?
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