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Mutant Overlord 3 Sep, 2017 @ 4:43am
It took me 5 minutes to came up with "solution" for flooding thrash
After watching this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsHSMQGZ4qI&t=1s

I did came up with this solution. Ok, maybe not a solution but still better than nothing.

1.Monthly fee around 20-40 $ per game on Store (it would make kinda hard for new good indie devs but after few sales they would get over it and pretty sure it would be the biggest nail to the coffin of 1 $ games for trading card)

2. Every next entry to Steam direct cost more (first game 100$ or more , every next one is "+100$", so lets say second game will be 200, third one 300 etc)

3. Very elaborate registration system on Steam direct so it would made nearly impossible for one person to have more than one account for Steam direct with showing off ID, email, adress, bank. (so there will be no multiple accounts with same adress, email or bank account)
and account requirement to be 18 years old (to counter one person uploading games under multiple different accounts/names also lets face it, there is no place for kids uploading their "games" here, kids should stay in school ).
I do belive that most of asset flippers are done by people with under 25 years, mostly students.

4. Limit on number of games that one person can upload on Steam, lets say 2 months betwen games because why Valve even allows for one person to upload 20 games in 2 weeks is beyond my thinking.

5. Some in game inspection by special Valve team of minimum 6 people both before being even released to Store and for next few weeks after it got released to store. They would check for possible asset flip, forums, copyright materials and overall quality of game. If quality would be low (like filled with glitches) it would be send warning to fix the game or gets removed after few weeks.

6. Over all limit on number of indie games released per month from Direct to Steam, let's say 200 of good, promising (that one is veeery important) games selected by said team.
Asset flips, similiar looking games, copy paste shooters and crappy 2 hour long games will have hard time being released. If legit developer want to be notice by this team, well, make a good unique game that doesn't last for 2 hours.

7. (And the last thing is something that I believe would help a lot but I am afraid most of people would get mad for suggesting it)
Minimum price on indie games of 2-4$, even on sale. Ergo: indie games will never be on lower price tag than 2 $. Why? So buying games for trading cards will be less common. Especially during sales.
I do belive it would even benefit greatly good indie games that people want to spend money on. I will prefer to spend more money for good indie while bad indies would suffer.
Wouldn't you want the same?

8. Some easier way to report abusive developers, forum mods (especially when you are banned from forum), report unfair ban, reporting possible paid review with less than a hour etc


It would counter way better flooding of garbage fake games on Steam than what we have now
because limit for money before generating trading cards and 100 $ for Direct is not enough right now. If nothing will change this Store will have thousands of games in 2010 and 75% of it will be thrash.

Why Valve can't do any of this? Idk, but what do you guys think about that.
Last edited by Mutant Overlord; 3 Sep, 2017 @ 4:57am
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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments
ThreeLeggedFeline 3 Sep, 2017 @ 5:13am 
I think the idea of a monthly fee might well drive developers away - your game could be good but only have a niche audience. You'd have to sell even more to make a profit and then it'd be kinda like a leech. You'd get to a point surely where the amount you'd spent in tax was greater than the amount you'd gained in profit? Also, wouldn't this make it difficult to keep a game on steam? You can't guarantee that so-and-so many people will buy your game each month - sales will trail off eventually. Or have I missed your point?

As for the ascending fee, again, it would make it difficult. Also what classes as indie? What about people releasing through a distributor?

Elaborate forms, I can agree with. It seems strange that people are able to get away with making multiple accounts with no sort of vetting...

What if you're a developer with a few games already made and released elsewhere, and you come to steam and find you have to wait ages to upload your catalogue? Seems like a measure created specifically with asset flippers in mind, but which potentially messes with legitimate devs as well.

Ah. Yes. The crux of the matter. Human oversight...I think you could combine a lot of your other ideas into this one. Basically I think valve needs to have a human sit down and play some of this shite.

I could get behind that. I feel sometimes like they would struggle to find 200 games each month, so it's not like a bottleneck. It would be kind of a balance between the old ways and the new. Valve excuse of 'oh, we can't judge our customers taste' can be worked around. Most people don't want to play a buggy mess slapped together in an afternoon, regardless of what they like.

About the minimum price...well. I don't really see it's a problem to let developers name their own price and discounted price. If all the asset flippers have already been weeded out then there's no reason to raise prices. Personally, if I see a game heavily discounted, with trading cards, and decent reviews I'll usually go for it. If the price was higher, I'm less likely to take the risk.

I kinda feel like, if Valve didn't bother to Jim Sterling when they invited him in for his opinion, then nothing's going to change until they find themselves obsolete in the game market. Which sucks for me cus I've only been here for a year...
#1
talgaby 3 Sep, 2017 @ 5:35am 
1. No game in existence, not even Skyrim, GTA 5, or even CS:GO managed to have a steady stream of income. That would mean older games that ran their largest course on Steam would have to be constantly removed from the store just to minimise loss.

2. That would not dissuade but encourage creating shell companies even more.

3. if you have a small studio with more than 3-4 people, you can use each individual as a registrant, with separate accounts that also link up tot he main company one. It is cheap to create a bank account in most any parts of the world, so it would more like add another 30 minutes of administration, nothing more.

4. There are indie publishers that are not big enough to circumvent the Direct system and they can actually upload more than two games per month. For example, I am not sure if Artifex Mundi or Big Fish Games are exempt from Direct fees, and the latter is putting up its sizeable catalogue on Steam around a 5-10 games/month pace.

5. That should be the standard route. But how big of a chance would you wager on that Valve will hire people to do valve's job, when they still have 10-year-old bugs in the client known and documented, or still cannot show us who are the supposed new support people they hired a year ago.
No, anything that would mean Valve has to do something or even worse, hire people (which would mean more cost, which leads to a drop in their world-leading profit/employee record) is an idea DOA.

6. See above. Also, considering they are an American company and this would be really near to the point where they could be hit with an anti-monopoly or even anti-trust libel, I doubt they would dare to do that. The only thing we know Valve spends an assload of money on, is lawyers, and they know their trade.

7. Again, free market. The idea is again sound, but they could only do that with a fix 2 USD+percentage Steam fee, and that would mean every competing platform would have the biggest ammunition yet to tear them down not by targeting their users but their business partners. Only the console manufacturers get away with fees like that (actually, a LOT higher), but because they are in an unspoken yet widely-known cartel with console fees, so none of them dare to lower or increase the prices, feling the repercussions.

8. Best idea yet. Still, who would evaluate them? The non-existing Steam global mods? The non-existing quality assurrance team? Some trusted users, which would end up the same as the translation projects (where a handful of individual took over and created a tyranny), with the added bonus of possible bribes? I mean, imagine if it was a voting system and SalzStag would be elected to be one of the people who decides on which games can be distributed. He has enough followers for that and he already was caught blackmailing once.
#2
lbalt 3 Sep, 2017 @ 4:36pm 
I would personally have someone at Valve sit down and ask the developer if the game they sent in is a prototype or the game they want to submit. If the answer is “What's a prototype?” the developer goes bye-bye. If the answer is “It's a prototype” or “It's the finished game,” that person at Valve would then play it, and then, up to three scenarios happen, depending on what the answer to the question was.
If it was a prototype that's fully playable and launches on Valve's computers fine, Valve sends it back and asks them to put in some extra polish and release it in Early Access. If it's a prototype that seems like it's had work barely started on it (like After Reset RPG, for instance), Valve sends it back and asks them to submit it again for free after a lot more work is done. If the developer refuses to put in more polish or won't work on a “barely started work” further, the developer goes bye-bye.
If it's a finished game, and it actually works the way it should, it goes on to the store front. If it's a finished game with some key features missing, big bugs to iron out or assets clearly meant as placeholders, the game will go into Early Access. If the game is clearly in a state that needs more work, or, despite the developer's assertions, is still in the prototype stages, Valve then asks them to give the game more polish. If the developer refuses to give the latter game any polish, that developer (you guessed it) goes bye-bye.
Making a prototype of a game is a big part of game development, and Valve, of all businesses, should know that.
#3
stylez 13 Sep, 2017 @ 8:04pm 
Originally posted by lbalt:
...big wall of text describing a lot of work on Valve's part...
That's why none of it will ever happen.
#4
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