In an interesting blog post written up today, Valve's Erik Johnson has said how Valve will be relaxing their rules for what will be acceptable on Steam.
You might have seen the discussion recently about how Valve sent word to a few developers, giving them notice that their games are going to be removed from Steam. Even we picked up on this, as it didn't really feel right.
There were people suggesting that payment processors were to blame, or outside groups like we had linked in our previous article's comments. Valve said this is not the case at all. It's also not an automated process, Johnson said they have "groups of people looking at the contents of every controversial title submitted to us".
Now, Valve will allow pretty much anything "except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling". The blog post read as a surprisingly personal insight into how Valve operate, something Valve has been starting to do a little more often lately (which is great to see).
This bit got me:
So what does this mean? It means that the Steam Store is going to contain something that you hate, and don't think should exist. Unless you don't have any opinions, that's guaranteed to happen. But you're also going to see something on the Store that you believe should be there, and some other people will hate it and want it not to exist.
Naturally, Johnson made it clear that being allowed on Steam doesn't mean Valve agree with the content themselves. However, it now means a human at Valve can no longer just send out warnings of a game being removed from Steam. The fact that they're making this step, this real progress towards being more open is a good thing for developers and for gamers.
They continue to be my favourite store and I'm personally happy they will so openly admit when they're wrong and they didn't have a good handle on the situation. Their previous rules seemed to be okay for some, not okay for others—just too vague. Let's just hope the words turn into a reality.
Additionally though, a valid complaint will be that with even less curation finding games you want to see could end up being a bigger problem, one they will need to solve. Obviously this is where the likes of us come in, to let you know about good games, but an improved way to filter the Steam store itself will help. No matter what though, someone won't be happy.
Post updated after publishing.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: chuzzle44I wonder if the original notices were the work of a rouge employee.You mean like a commie subversive?! ;)
Quoting: rkfgThis is really good. That's what real freedom of speech means. Not creating echo chambers full of people searching for a reason to be offended but a truly open place with something for everyone. Hell, I WANT to have things I hate there because that would exactly mean that something I love and somebody else hates is also welcome.That does not necessarily follow, but in this case I'd agree chances are decent.
As a general rule, it seems quite common for authorities (government or corporate) to allow one kind of offensive content in the name of free speech while forbidding pretty comparable kinds of content without acknowledging any contradiction. For instance, near the height of the "Charlie Hebdo" thing, when everyone was waxing incredibly sanctimonious about Charlie Hebdo's free speech (which, just to be clear, is fine by me as far as it goes), some Muslim kid took a Charlie Hebdo page, substituted a few words so it seemed to be saying bad things about a different religion instead of about Islam, and put it up on the internet. The French "Free Speech R Us" authorities put him in jail. So you gotta watch people who claim to support allowing offensive stuff in the name of freedom--often turns out that some freedom is more equal than other freedom.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 7 June 2018 at 1:47 am UTC
Quoting: 14At the end of the day, I barely rely on the Steam store page to find new games that I might be interested in. The avenues that make me curios of new games: GoL, Twitch, GOG, Co-Optimus.I basically use GamingOnLinux. When a game is talked about here that seems like my kind of thing, I put it on my Steam wishlist. Never end up with Windows-only games that way!
slaapliedje Jun 7, 2018
Quoting: GuestGood. I'm all for a liberal attitude to what games are published on Steam. It is, after all, a content delivery platform and not a content curator. You know, it's funny, I would never have heard of the school shooter game that had people all in a lather had certain elements of the media not lost their shit over it.
Reminds me of two things.
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03nkvqS4Oc
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdVDIUsBWs
Kimyrielle Jun 7, 2018
Quoting: GuestShouldn't Valve be doing the opposite? the amount of shovelware and asset flips that appear on steam, they just have no Quality Assurance at all in that regard, thank god for places like GOG where they don't let any P.O.S software onto their storeGOG is far from perfect (BTW do they have finally a Linux client?). I saw several legitimate (even rewarded) games, best in their genre, to be reject without giving any explanation. I would rather have more freedom for me to choose, than having some (many) choices being denied because of arbitrary randomly applied rules.
chris.echoz Jun 7, 2018
TheRiddick Jun 7, 2018
Quoting: TheRiddickThe only thing that bothers me is the cheap ass asset flip games that have no enjoyable characteristics or game-play at all. I guess its not terrible if they sell them for $1, but they are kinda deceiving.
Quoting: BeamboomThat store needs more curation, not less. And I don't give a flying F if I miss out on one speculative piece of junk in that process. Let the junk be published in shacks outside the main stores.
I don't get this problem.
Whenever I go to Steam, I simply don't see any of these shovelware games outside of the "new releases" tab. I rarely to never have them suggested to me in the queue, they do not appear in my front page suggestions and they certainly aren't recommended by curators I follow.
Even if Valve WOULD control what goes to the store, my experience would be pretty much identical.
If you're browsing deals of <5$, you obviously get what you asked for.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 7 June 2018 at 6:45 am UTC
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