[promo title=”A message from disgruntled PC gamers to Valve’s digital distribution outlet”][/promo]
Something is very, very wrong in the land of PC gaming. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the fact that Valve’s distribution client, Steam, has over 75 million users. By way of comparison, EA’s Origin client (sole digital proprietor of PC bestsellers like Battlefield 4 and Titanfall) has clocked over 30 million users. The fact that Steam has been so successful and is widely regarded by independent and major firms in the games industry to be THE platform to sell through is something to be celebrated…Or is it?
Let’s examine some of the other things about Steam that are less appreciated: the nonexistent quality assurance (QA), the lack of a decent refunds system, an all but defunct independent developer service – Greenlight – and bad user interface management. This article is intended to outline some serious concerns on behalf of the most important thing in this industry: the consumer. In short, you. This is not an attack so much as it is a statement declaring that Things Should Change as soon as humanly possible and for very good reasons, too.
[promo title=”The Nonexistent Quality Assurance”][/promo]
Valve used to be restrictive when it came to putting content on Steam, to the point when it was virtually impossible for independent developers to get their games on a notable PC client. Then Microsoft showed that it was possible to do independent games on a major platform without compromising on quality with Xbox Live Arcade. Not only that; the chaps at Microsoft demonstrated that there was a great deal of money to be made from indie games. Gamers were more than willing to pay a few quid for a quirky little experience.
Where the money goes, the hearts and minds of business practices follow. Soon Steam were the biggest name on the PC for indie titles and, if we’re speaking frankly, they still are. So much so, in fact, that the nature of what it means to be an independent developer has changed. No longer do you need to have a finished product in order to sell it to the masses. No longer do you need to jump hoops through carefully orchestrated QA testing. Steam will publish just about ANYTHING you can give them without so much as batting an eyelash and asking, “Sorry…You want to sell that?!” Unfortunately, this includes games that are well over a decade old and have had next to no optimisation for modern machines.
Many of the older games Steam is selling are downright broken. And I don’t mean ‘broken’ in the sense of all they need is a little fan-made patch and they’ll run perfectly fine on modern systems. I mean actually broken. This isn’t even taking into account the dross most gamers would pass up in favour of having their genitals poked with a barbeque fork. Deus Ex: The Fall is one of the more recent examples that springs to mind.
Is Steam responsible for QA? One could argue that’s a matter of perspective, seeing as they don’t actually make the products they’re selling most of the time. Still, they are making money from them and that leads nicely into the next big problem…
[promo title=”No Decent Refunds Policy”][/promo]
Once you’ve purchased something on Steam it’s very hard to give it back for a full refund, unless it’s a pre-purchase that hasn’t been launched. A lot of PC gamers may still be in shock over the fact that EA – every gamer’s favourite incarnation of satanic business practices – has a full refund policy on Origin for any game they make. If you buy Battlefield 4 on Origin, for instance, and decide that it isn’t the game you wanted, you can turn it in for a full refund. EA are ahead of Valve on customer service. Doesn’t that just say it all?
The problem is compounded by the things I’ve listed above, chief among them that Valve are more and more involved in the business of selling duff or incomplete products to consumers, a practice that would see just about any high street retailer chased from their shop by an angry mob wielding pitch forks and torches.
[promo title=”The Greenlight Service”][/promo]
Come on, Valve. It’s time to own up.
Greenlight was a nice idea and it’s a pity that it wasn’t better implemented with that all-important QA, but it’s plain to see that a number of titles have inexplicably bypassed the Greenlight process altogether and landed on the store front. Are we supposed to believe that My Pet Hotel received all the votes necessary from the Steam community, along with the other My Pet… titles that came out on exactly the same day? Meanwhile, perfectly feasible game ideas sit on the Greenlight pages rotting away in obscurity.
Greenlight was basically an attempt by Valve to let the community manage the selection process for indie developers, a process that has failed with the emergence of the Early Access program (where incomplete products like Day Z and Rust are sold to thousands of users). Valve are not alone in the blame there, though. It’s just as much our fault as it is theirs, because we put our money on the table and screamed, “Take it, we want early access to your games so we can see them in action!”. Well, we got what we wanted.
Now we face the tricky prospect of having to do an about-turn with a crowd of eager idiots pushing up behind us.
[promo title=”Bad User Interface Management”][/promo]
Steam’s goal is to be the biggest online games distributor for PC – and that’s fine. It’s understandable that Valve want to have as complete a library of products as they possibly can and that this will, naturally, mean older games get uploaded to the Steam Store from time to time. What is highly objectionable, fraudulent and demonstrative of poor UI management is to let these older games push the newer titles off the front of the Steam Store page.
Games that were made over ten years ago have suddenly got release dates of ‘3rd April, 2014’. Irrespective of whether or not these titles are any good, this is just unacceptable. The internet has changed a lot about purchasing goods, but it hasn’t changed our shopping habits. Go and look at the site of any retailer, be it Amazon or GAME or whoever, and take note of what you see on the home page. You will see new products and upcoming products, maybe a couple of special offers, in a front and centre location of the screen.
High street retailers work in much the same way. Shop windows don’t have products that are ten years old, at least not unless they’re a charity shop. What they do have is bargain bins – and that’s where games like some of the ones on the front page of Steam belong.
If you’ve ever downloaded anything from Xbox Live or PlayStation Network, you’ll know that the front pages of their online marketplace do not accommodate games that were made years ago and are now masquerading as new releases. Steam needs to get a grip on its archives and sort out its UI to the point where only the actual New Releases make it to the front page of the Steam Store. Older games have no business being there.
That’s more or less it. Some words to the wise and some suggestions to the chaps who work at Valve on how they can clean up this unsightly mess, and get the PC games marketplace back to a respectable state. If you have some ideas of your own or thoughts on any of the above, let yourselves be heard in the comments.