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: TheSHEEEPI 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.
Well, I followed the new releases filtered by OS for quite some time - and stopped doing so...
Quoting: noxWouldn't a company deciding what is good and bad for you also be troubling from a morale POV?
No, not per se. Eg., if they decide for themselves that they think content X is immoral and thus ban it from their store anr thus decide not to amke money with it, is not really immoral.
QuotePersonally I'd rather be disgusted by something, rather than knowing that someone got censored.
I think the impact of not-censoring is played too lightly here. Not-censoring does not just mean that some people feel disgusted. It can also mean, in the case of hate-crime related content or similar, that the discriminated against group feels even stronger oppressed because the oppression by some people gets a bigger platform. This will segregate the group even more from the non-oppressed. Additionally it somehow plays down such content, making it socially more acceptable to be immoral, and thus shapes our society, perhaps for the worse.
The impact of content we (even involuntarily) consume should not underestimated!
QuoteAnd, just like this discussion - people have different points of view. Different ideas, opinions. Censoring (more than required by law) would just be morally correct for the person deciding what's good and bad.
Well, kinda. But we can and should demand people to behave morally correct. This gives them a free-way to just ignore any morale-related issues.
Quoting: Smoke39Quoting: LeonardKAlso many people criticized Valve for their Greenlight project because it had not enough curation. This is another restriction gone, which will mean many low-quality games might try get on there and make it difficult to find anything.Content standards and quality standards are two completely different things. Banning anime tits isn't gonna do anything to stop asset flips.
It's just one additional point, also, while this is true, it makes managing a store like this much more difficult. Yes, they're different kinds of content, but if more content of some sorts is released, usually the barriers for others go down too, even if not intended so.
Quoting: liamdaweThere's always a downside in having a more open store, with that I agree, but what we saw from Valve's previous policy is legitimate games getting reviewed by actual humans and being sent notices of removal.
But just because it was really bad before shouldn't mean we should congratulate them for doing something that *might* not be much better. It's the most primitive solution they chose, and it's perhaps a too easy way to really solve the problem.
Before sucked, but it's not "naturally the best thing to get rid of it" as often claimed, even in articles.
Quoting: rkfgThis is really good. That's what real freedom of speech means.
No, not really. Freedom of Speech means that you cannot be taken by law or whatever for creating the content. It does not mean that we need to give such content a platform. It does not mean that the media have to cover something. That's *not* freedom of speech.
Freedom of speach/expression also means that people are allowed to attack you somewhat for distributing the content. It also means that people are allowed their own judgement and act after it. The same goes for Valve.
TheRiddick Jun 7, 2018
Of cause some parents give their kids full access to their credit cards for some reason. Credit/Debit in case of emergency? Either way you need to be careful who sees such content!
THINK OF THE CHILDREN, GOD forbid if they learn about the birds and bees from anything other then their perverted mates at school! (I learned about it from an Atari-2600 video game, HILARIOUS!)
Last edited by TheRiddick on 7 June 2018 at 7:10 am UTC
Quoting: EikeThat seems to be an extremely inefficient method of looking for games.Quoting: TheSHEEEPI 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.
Well, I followed the new releases filtered by OS for quite some time - and stopped doing so...
I mean... even if Valve filtered non-games like asset flips, there would still be a dozen or so new games per day, if not more.
There are simply too many new games - and proper games, too - coming out to be able to check them all out.
I really don't see an alternative to a filter based on curators you follow and games you already own and played.
You cannot seriously expect Valve to not allow those games just because most among them aren't YOUR taste.
Quoting: GuestTake the recent Active Shooter that was taken down, according to Valve they have done many asset flips on Steam in the past. These are not games, things like asset flips exist purely to grab money from the foolish.There are always two people to blame.
He, who rips off.
And he, who is stupid enough to be ripped off.
Both deserve each other.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 7 June 2018 at 7:51 am UTC
Quoting: ZeloxI wonder when we can expect adult games then. I know valve has mentioned this once before.
Exactly. Not that I mind a good porn flick. I'm no prude, nor am I particularly thin skinned. I do not get that easily offended, but everything has its place. And the Steam client is something I consider to be "main street" of gaming. A client I can install on my kids computer too. A client that can be up and running alongside my regular other software, at work for that matter. We all do during the holiday sales, don't we? :)
Cause that's the reality, the outcome for no curation: Speculative junk. Porn, shovelware, fraud attempts, hate mongering, racism, extremists political and religious agendas, and so forth.
And please note, This is content that I do not say should be BANNED - they just do not belong on the main street.
Also, I use steam since 2007 I think, and I have gathered a lot of game since then, I would love an option to delete a game if I don't want it anymore(not hide it, delete it).
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