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[hariseldon]

https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/19/17959138/steam-valve-developer-support-pricing-reviews

Interesting article (I know, it's on Polygon) about how developers are treated under Valve's do-nothing-get-paid approach. Typical silicon valley money-printing arseholes imo.

PS Apologies for short crappy post - will flesh this out into a proper thing at a later date but I'm tired and I thought this was interesting. It does seem very Uber to me - that hands-off do-nothing minimum-effort approach that just doesn't do anything any good. The same laziness that stopped them making any more decent fucking games.

 

[Spukc]

Say sorry to Gaben you monster.

I hope the mods don't perm ban you talking shit about our lord and savior.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

They're not lazy: the desks roll.

This is a good summation:

“It seems like Valve are hoping the less popular games will just fail out of existence,” a developer told me. ”But they don’t mind collecting their share of those small profits as they fail.”

Yes, when you use someone else's store, they will likely get their money out of you even if you fail along the way.

I have absolutely no love for Valve. Their terrible handling of Steam over the years drove me away from their storefront. And I'm just an end-user. I can't imagine trying to make a living off that open-air bazaar. Steam itself has become a huge sponge on the creative energy of the PC market (especially the indie market). That said, I don't see how this is Valve's fault. They're just a shitty corporation trying to make a buck.

"Oh geez, my gluing-glass-beads-to-magnets craft business is really not doing well on Amazon. Why can't they take less of a cut when I do sell stuff?"

EDITED: for readability

 

[Blam]

Nah not even I read this entire article and it's a bunch of clickbait bullshit. The developer is blaming the regional pricing for "forcing discounts" lol I mean it is something he should be doing himself tbh.

Also here's the two developers they mentioned. One having launched Hand of Fate 1 and 2, and the other one who was being negative with steam.

There's a really valid reason why one is positive, and one isn't, and it's not steams fault lol.

 

[Vawn]

They're not working hard enough or enough hours. Let's boycott them!

 

[manfestival]

I read the article and it was a waste of time. What a trash article and fake news

 

[Tygeezy]

It's hard for me to criticize them. Why do they want to risk a lot of money and time to make games when they can make a fortune doing as little as possible? Sure, I love their games and id love to finally get half-life 3 and portal 3. Lucky for us there are tons of talented studios out there and we get new great things to play constantly.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

They're not working hard enough or enough hours. Let's boycott them!

and if they work too hard and too many hours we boycott them as well!

 

[ROMhack]

I mean the Steam review system is just them using user-generated content to promote quality control rather than doing it themselves so.. yeah.

Anyway, that's some decent journalism from Polygon. Here's my responses:

It turns out that you need to hold a surprisingly high minimum of 70 percent recommended reviews to get the positive rating. This makes it very easy for just a handful of negative reviews (“just three, four, maybe five” in the case of smaller games, some developers allege) to push you from blue into brown. That change comes with an almost instant drop in the number of sales, according to the developers I spoke with.

My experience of Steam suggests that positive reviews are not hard to achieve. It's rare to come across mixed/negative reviews and in reality it usually means there's something genuinely wrong with the game. I don't doubt it makes for a loss in sales when it does happen.

--

“I flag them. The ticket gets rejected,” they told me. “Then I mail my Steam rep with a list. The rep says ‘it’s your responsibility to maintain open communication and properly set expectations, and you won’t have a problem with negative reviews.’ Seriously? That’s the answer? This guy gave me a negative review because I wouldn’t let him have the word ‘FUCK’ in his name. How is this a failure of expectation management?”

This is true. Steam has no quality control system for its reviews, which is why individual reviews suck. The system tends to be alright as an aggregate score though.

--

There’s no way of telling Steam that you want your game to be sold at a flat one-to-one currency conversion, or that you want to sell at 60 percent of one currency and 80 percent of another. There’s no API that you can use to manage it. It’s Valve’s way, or the highway. For example, if you decide your $14.99 game is worth a direct one-to-one exchange of 945 Russian rubles and you manually set it at that price, then you better hope that the dollar/ruble exchange rate doesn’t fluctuate too much. Steam won’t notify you if it does, and you won’t know why your sales have dropped off in that region until you log back in and check the currency settings.

Suspect. It doesn't take much time to work out exchange rates and it's a big thing that developers should think about. There might be some massive financial changes somewhere but just keep abreast of global finances by looking at Reuters once a week, or get a friend (or college student looking for experience) to do it.

--

Essentially, Valve offers developers an almost unworkable choice, and then tells them they have the freedom to do whatever they like. If they don’t want their games to be massively discounted in other territories, they do technically have the freedom to spend hours of their time every week checking 40 different exchange rates and manually adjusting 40 different prices. Or they can leave it alone, trust Valve to handle it for them and deal with the consequences.

This I have sympathy for. It would absolutely suck to have Steam regularly discount your games in certain territories making it unprofitable to sell on other stores which don't regularly do the same. Especially with how Steam works in, say, Russia to attract buyers rather than pirates.

--

“There are people making quality titles that are getting the same level of support as troll games that were made in three days,” Michael Hicks, developer of Pillar, Path of Motus and other indie titles told me. “Then Valve takes a 30 percent cut for doing next to nothing. That’s my main issue with their whole system.”

This is my biggest peave as a user. Steam doesn't do anything to inform me about newly released games. It could be as easy as a 'New releases this week' editorial feature written by a human bean but they seem reluctant to offer that approach.

--

Tim Colwill is an Australian trade union officer and organizer with the Australian chapter of Game Workers Unite. He is also the founder and editor of satirical gaming outlet Point & Clickbait. You must not, under any circumstances, @ him on Twitter.

Oh I like this guy and he's doing some serious journalism. Win win.

 

[Zewp]

Please don't like directly to Polygon. Throw that shit in Archive or something.

 

[ROMhack]

It's hard for me to criticize them. Why do they want to risk a lot of money and time to make games when they can make a fortune doing as little as possible? Sure, I love their games and id love to finally get half-life 3 and portal 3. Lucky for us there are tons of talented studios out there and we get new great things to play constantly.

Yo dog - and I'm saying this because you are actually a dog - that's not what the article is about.

Please don't like directly to Polygon. Throw that shit in Archive or something.

It's okay, it's actual journalism. Like they did research, spoke to people, etc. It's not just an opinion piece nor does it mention identity politics or anything like that. You should actually give them clicks this time so they know this type of thing popular. Who knows, they might do it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Tygeezy]

Yo dog (and I'm saying this because you are actually a dog) that's not what the article is about.



This is actual journalism. Like they did research, spoke to people, etc. It's not just an opinion piece.

I'm replying to the op, not the article. I don't have much interest in reading a polygon article due to the extreme likelihood of it being a flaming dumpster.

 

[ROMhack]

I'm replying to the op, not the article. I don't have much interest in reading a polygon article due to the extreme likelihood of it being a flaming dumpster.

Yo that's lazy, dog. I get it though.

 

[Tygeezy]

Yo that's lazy, dog.

Just like valve apparently. I'm in good company.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Yo that's lazy, dog. I get it though.

Leave dog along! He's a good boy! And good boys are correct!

Spoiler

I mean, it's Lolygon.

 

[MayauMiao]

Please summarize what they said as I don't want to give Polycrap clicks

 

[SonGoku]

Im not even a valve/steam fan but these devs attitude is very entitled
Its a free market, valve doesn't owe this guys shit and nobody is forcing them to publish in steam

if steam its really so shitty it will self destruct in due time and a competitor will take its place

 

[Lightsbane]

How do I go about reading that article without giving Polygon a click?

 

[Imtjnotu]

How do I go about reading that article without giving Polygon a click?

Just imagine the most ridiculous bullshit article you can think of. No need to click. And boom. You have the article

 

[SonGoku]

How do I go about reading that article without giving Polygon a click?

you don't lol
but if you cant help it there's always websites screenshot generators like this https://web-capture.net/

 

[Fuz]

if steam its really so shitty it will self destruct in due time

We can only hope.

and a competitor will take its place

Can we, instead, have a "no competitor"? As in, you install and play the games without another fucking useless client?

 

[SonGoku]

We can only hope.

Can we, instead, have a "no competitor"? As in, you install and play the games without another fucking useless client?

supposedly people are tired of that and want a unified client similar to consoles

 

[Hudo]

They're not lazy: the desks roll.

Some say 30% of their desks were updated with electric motors since their move to a new office.

...After that, they just stopped and never spoke of that endeavour again.

 

[Codes 208]

How do I go about reading that article without giving Polygon a click?

I dont understand why when some people make threads they leave the op as vague as possible with just a link with no actual quotes (or summaries in tech/video threads)

If this keeps happening, Im going to start throwing squirrels at people.

 

[Fuz]

supposedly people are tired of that and want a unified client similar to consoles

Which is even fucking worse.

 

[Blam]

It's okay, it's actual journalism. Like they did research, spoke to people, etc. It's not just an opinion piece nor does it mention identity politics or anything like that. You should actually give them clicks this time so they know this type of thing popular. Who knows, they might do it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It is semi-actual journalism they still cherry picked developers to make their topic seem accurate and correct but there's a lot of shit they left out. I'd only click and give it to them if they did it right.

 

[Mr Nash]

About the only thing I'd like is a few tweaks to how I can filter reviews. First, I'd like the option to filter out reviews from people who have played a game for 5 hours or less. These reviews are mostly useful when a game launches and is super buggy. I can quickly see what's going on and know that I should just wait and see how well the game is patched. The rest of the time, the reviews are not helpful. I expect a minimal amount of time invested from a review before I'm inclined to care about a person's opinion of a game.

Second, I'd like to filter out reviews less than 10 words long. These are of no value to me whatsoever. They're either a simple "no" or "yes" or "Insert crappy meme hurr hurr hurr, rate my review as 'Funny' please". I want reviews with actual context that will give me an idea of how the game is. These are useless, though.

Finally, I'd like to be able to filter out reviews from specific countries if possible. Sometimes, I'll see a game that looks interesting and see that it is at "Mostly Positive". Curious what's wrong with the game, I'll check the reviews and see that they're all positive. When I go to the main page with all user reviews, then remove language filters, I'll see that it got review bombed in a non-English country. Usually, it'll turn out that the port to that region was garbage, but it appears that this is enough to skew the score. Fair enough that a place like Taiwan or wherever got a terrible port and they should rate something like that down. However, if the overall Steam score is being impacted, it's not helpful to me, as the game may be great for its Western release, but I would never know it from the Mostly Positive that it would up with due to a bad port. Giving me a filter to get past this would be very helpful.

 

[hariseldon]

I dont understand why when some people make threads they leave the op as vague as possible with just a link with no actual quotes (or summaries in tech/video threads)

If this keeps happening, Im going to start throwing squirrels at people.

Apologies, I was in a bit of a hurry, I do plan to go back in and edit it to be a bit more useful when I get time. Those who are familiar with my posts will be aware that I don't do short posts ordinarily.

 

[ROMhack]

It is semi-actual journalism they still cherry picked developers to make their topic seem accurate and correct but there's a lot of shit they left out. I'd only click and give it to them if they did it right.

That's true but I enjoyed that it taught me new things. For instance, I had no idea how the pricing structure worked from the developers side. Nor that Steam has no open procedure for assisting developers flag tickets for bugs.

 

[Stuart360]

To be fair, if Valve actually stopped all the asset flips and scam 'games' releasing on Steam, proper Indie games would have a better chance.

 

[ROMhack]

To be fair, if Valve actually stopped all the asset flips and scam 'games' releasing on Steam, proper Indie games would have a better chance.

Steam used to be really good at promoting indie games through discounting. VVVVVV, Cave Story, Limbo, Bastion, Cthulu vs. The World. You know, those games everybody bought because they were cheap in every Steam sale. I don't actually know how developers felt about that but as a buyer I liked it. I don't even want to go looking for hidden gems anymore. I trust Humble Bundle to do a better job at promoting them.

 

[Blam]

To be fair, if Valve actually stopped all the asset flips and scam 'games' releasing on Steam, proper Indie games would have a better chance.

Not really then you would see a bunch of unplayed indie games.

A fuck load of these games just aren't marketing, and are not good so there's really not much you can do other then as a dev make better games. It's not steams fault your getting bad reviews or your game isn't being promoted. They as a developer need to branch out and properly promote their games.

There's a bunch of good PR branches who do just that.

 

[Codes 208]

Apologies, I was in a bit of a hurry, I do plan to go back in and edit it to be a bit more useful when I get time. Those who are familiar with my posts will be aware that I don't do short posts ordinarily.

Oh take no offense, im only half serious, your op atleast gave off an opinion. My attitude of chucking squirrels at people mainly involves a certain someone who posts four-five threads a day

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

“It seems like Valve are hoping the less popular games will just fail out of existence,” a developer told me. ”But they don’t mind collecting their share of those small profits as they fail.”

Polygon:
We need strictly curated Steam again, even more than before, to keep that problematic filth and problematic developers out. Bring back Greenlight.
Here's some developer interviews complaining about how their games can't be discovered through the new releases tab (that has dozens of games per day) and that's bad for poor developers who have absolutely no other discoverability channels than the equivalent of a Nintendo Direct live chat thread.
Steam should fix it and impose draconian curation that would put launch Switch window Nintendo and GOG to shame. By undoing their recent policy changes, of course.

Polygon, Too:
We need our friend's walking simulator scams that end in under 45 minutes but are all about political preaching, and bug fests, to sell.
Here's some developer interviews complaining how Steam's refund policy (2 hours window) is KILLING the adventure and point-and-click genre, those same poor developers who go full psychotic meltdowns on twitter.
Steam should cancel the refund policy, sucker users should not effectively PIRATE the enriching visual experience by playing through it all in under two hours. (also please cancel Leisure Suit Larry and shitty VNs, but not otome and daddy simulator pls)

Also Polygon:
We need our shitty games by our clique's friends to sell, and are doing our best to give them all the inflated scores they need, but nobody is actually taking our seal of approval seriously (more the counter-seal of approval) and instead they read steam reviews. FILTHY USER reviews, in the security of their steam account away from overmoderated comment sections talking openly about how this game has bugs and glitches and the "positive political talk" in it doesn't save it as a game.
Here's some developer interviews about how bad user reviews are harming poor developers because 70% is unrealistic, and I can't hire a competent PR manager who's not a power-tripping asshole more on twitter discussing day-to-day news feeds than doing his job, so he answers those comments and track down prices overseas.
Steam should fix it and make the positive reviews mark already abused by big corporations even easier for smaller ones to abuse and inflate a game with probable major flaws.

Ah Polygon, always so transparent and predictable.

 

[michaelius]

Looks like Polygon is still not happy that Valve doesn't want game journalists being able to enforce what people can play on steam.

 

[DeliciousDoc]

zero sympathies with price adjustment whining. Canadian prices are sometimes 50% higher than the american price. Canadian salaries can easily be compared to american salaries. We don't make 50% higher salaries to make up for a weak dollar so you can have the same amount of money from a canadian sale as an american sale.

 

[Grimmrobe]

They're not lazy: the desks roll.

This is a good summation:



Yes, when you use someone else's store, they will likely get their money out of you even if you fail along the way.

I have absolutely no love for Valve. Their terrible handling of Steam over the years drove me away from their storefront. And I'm just an end-user. I can't imagine trying to make a living off that open-air bazaar. Steam itself has become a huge sponge on the creative energy of the PC market (especially the indie market). That said, I don't see how this is Valve's fault. They're just a shitty corporation trying to make a buck.

"Oh geez, my gluing-glass-beads-to-magnets craft business is really not doing well on Amazon. Why can't they take less of a cut when I do sell stuff?"

EDITED: for readability

Are you for real

 

[MayauMiao]

Why should Valve listen to Polygon staffed by people who can't even shoot properly in Doom.

 

[Grimmrobe]

Why should Valve listen to Polygon staffed by people who can't even shoot properly in Doom.

Doom is problematic

 

[Zewp]

It's okay, it's actual journalism. Like they did research, spoke to people, etc. It's not just an opinion piece nor does it mention identity politics or anything like that. You should actually give them clicks this time so they know this type of thing popular. Who knows, they might do it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be honest, I wouldn't mind giving them clicks if they just got rid of Kuchera. I can't take seriously a media outlet who employs (and thus enables) one of the legitimately worst human beings in the media industry. I really think the only difference between Kuchera and Devin Faraci, is that Kuchera hasn't been caught. Yet. I have no doubt a person that awful has many skeletons in his closet.

He recently deleted all his tweets again and did a whole writeup about how horrible he it is that people dig up stuff from his past because he grew. Same dude who recently said you shouldn't give people second chances if they have said controversial things in their past.

It's disgusting how the games industry tolerates him.

 

[DiscoJer]

I think there are some reviews that are unfair. Like there's one guy that seemingly buys every single player strategy game, write a review complaining how all games should have multiplayer, and refunds.

There should also be a "maybe". Some games are fun, but flawed.

Also, having once tried to throw a squirrel (who kept sneaking inside), it's surprisingly difficult because they scratch the hell out of you. Finally used one of those grabber sticks.

 

[hariseldon]

To be honest, I wouldn't mind giving them clicks if they just got rid of Kuchera. I can't take seriously a media outlet who employs (and thus enables) one of the legitimately worst human beings in the media industry. I really think the only difference between Kuchera and Devin Faraci, is that Kuchera hasn't been caught. Yet. I have no doubt a person that awful has many skeletons in his closet.

He recently deleted all his tweets again and did a whole writeup about how horrible he it is that people dig up stuff from his past because he grew. Same dude who recently said you shouldn't give people second chances if they have said controversial things in their past.

It's disgusting how the games industry tolerates him.

Any links to info on this? It's not something I've been following.

 

[Mokus]

The Steam review system it's more reliable than the Polygon reviews sponsored by... Ohhh... Now I understand why this article exist! Sneaky.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

Looks like Polygon is still not happy that Valve doesn't want game journalists being able to enforce what people can play on steam.

I actually gave this article a click instead of just reading the excerpts like usual, and I'm already feeling dirty even with the polygon no ad script.
It exceeded my expectations. It's like an anime recap episode with the top 10 best of hit piece talking points from earlier times they attacked Valve (or Nintendo, for that matter).
Even the political stuff made an appearance in the article ("free speech is m'kay but" blabla "and if you take a cut from that content you endorse its message" which really doesn't seem to be about asset flips) They really can't help themselves with the freudian slips even in the middle of a deflecting parallel construction argument to attack the same thing from a different angle.

It's particularly disingenuous from gaming journalists. Just look at the Nintendo situation.
They called for strict curation because the Wii U and 3DS were "too open", then Nintendo applied a very strict curation system for the Switch's first year. Then Cosmic Star Heroine, by a like-minded friendly developer to them didn't get through that curation process.
Game journalist answer? Run articles for weeks about their select indie darlings from their social circle and how shameful of Nintendo not to allow them in, and how callous to deem their games not big enough, complete with very negative comments by the developer about Nintendo. Expecting Nintendo to give a VIP pass to this developer, of course.
Nintendo then drops curation, completely. That developer got in as a side effect. Some other developers were highlighted on a direct of their own. Then guess what, game journalists are calling AGAIN for curation to be reinstated.

Remember curation lead to situations where Treasure had to cancel a release, and the Chinese company who did Steam releases for Falcom games could not even get in. Because they were not "established enough". This Polygon article is actually lamenting the steam greenlight days explicitly at one point.

Game journalists, it's almost as if they want curation systems designed to work based on how much outrage is drummed for specific games to be approved or retroactively retracted, so that they hold more power over not only developer's sales and review coverage, but their ability to release the game at all. (neat survival tactic?)
The itch.io platform already made it clear they will "BAN" developers from their platforms in cases of journalism outrages, but it's clear how much it is supported (coincidentally? it's promoted in this Polygon article as "actually doing something with their 10% cut" as opposed to "Valve not doing anything (sic) to be worth their 30% cut"), so let the players and the developers decide how attractive that offer is.

 

[Hudo]

Why should Valve listen to Polygon staffed by people who can't even shoot properly in Doom.

Doom is problematic

Well, someone made a "Polygon Plays Doom™" gif compilation.

 

[Dunki]

Nah not even I read this entire article and it's a bunch of clickbait bullshit. The developer is blaming the regional pricing for "forcing discounts" lol I mean it is something he should be doing himself tbh.

Also here's the two developers they mentioned. One having launched Hand of Fate 1 and 2, and the other one who was being negative with steam.

There's a really valid reason why one is positive, and one isn't, and it's not steams fault lol.

geezi wondr why one is selling gets great reviews and the other one is not

 

[ROMhack]

To be honest, I wouldn't mind giving them clicks if they just got rid of Kuchera. I can't take seriously a media outlet who employs (and thus enables) one of the legitimately worst human beings in the media industry. I really think the only difference between Kuchera and Devin Faraci, is that Kuchera hasn't been caught. Yet. I have no doubt a person that awful has many skeletons in his closet.

He recently deleted all his tweets again and did a whole writeup about how horrible he it is that people dig up stuff from his past because he grew. Same dude who recently said you shouldn't give people second chances if they have said controversial things in their past.

It's disgusting how the games industry tolerates him.

I don't know much about that but he sounds like a loser if true.

 

[Shai-Tan]

Some of this smacks of blaming Valve for what is really anxiety about a very competitive market. Valve acknowledged there being a problem with discoverability ages ago and made some gestures in the direction of there being different store fronts that could better market to one or other niche but I haven't heard anything about that since then. Keeping in mind this problem affects not only every app store but also every large online retailer like Amazon.

I am really into arena/robotron style/roguelike shooters, get recommended them often on Steam and yet I never knew about the game SYNTHETIK until I read an article about it on Rock Paper Shotgun. The curator system doesn't quite work when I still rely on youtube videos titled like "top 10 strategy games of 2018". Seems like the curator search needs a lot of work and incentives to encourage its use if they aren't going to follow through on the multiple store fronts (which presumably would have affiliate revenue)

 

[ROMhack]

Some of this smacks of blaming Valve for what is really anxiety about a very competitive market. Valve acknowledged there being a problem with discoverability ages ago and made some gestures in the direction of there being different store fronts that could better market to one or other niche but I haven't heard anything about that since then. Keeping in mind this problem affects not only every app store but also every large online retailer like Amazon.

I am really into arena/robotron style/roguelike shooters, get recommended them often on Steam and yet I never knew about the game SYNTHETIK until I read an article about it on Rock Paper Shotgun. The curator system doesn't quite work when I still rely on youtube videos titled like "top 10 strategy games of 2018". Seems like the curator search needs a lot of work and incentives to encourage its use if they aren't going to follow through on the multiple store fronts (which presumably would have affiliate revenue)

This is true but the problem also comes down to Steam's insistence on using algorithms that don't quite work perfectly to filter its content. I suggested above that they could write an editorial feature (or video) every week to inform us about games that have come out in the past week, focusing on both big and small ones. Hell, make two lists and let us subscribe to whichever one we prefer. All it takes is a team of them to play and pass comment, which would do really well to highlight hidden gems. Even Apple's App Store boasts recommendations from its editor (who used to write for 1Up.com IIRC). Steam don't seem to like the human touch and it really comes across to me as a user, and also developers too judging from what they said in that article.

 

[Shai-Tan]

The review bomb and review as support problem isn't easy to solve and hasn't been solved in any other app store or review site so it's a bit curious that it's a point of contention beyond Valve thinking about what they could do to flag reviews that focus on support issues (which from the customer perspective often keep them from playing the game). Instead of going with the "Valve are lazy bastards" theme they could have been more constructive about the need for a fully features support system. But again - the same issue exists on both Apple and Google app stores where developers are always looking at reviews for current client bugs. I doubt an inline support system will stop customers who just want to use the program now without issue from registering their protest in a review.