Steam shovelware

[Mr Rob]

I don't suppose it's ever going to end, because Valve doesn't seem to
care that a sizeable percentage of its entire catalogue was released
in 2016 and most of it was utter garbage. I don't even bother with my
Discovery queue anymore. I quickly look through 'What's on Steam' to
see the new releases, and that's all I bother with these days.

http://www.whatsonsteam.com/index.htm



I have grown weary of wading through countless Anime abominations,
Unity asset flips, VR games that I can't play, and nondescript 'games'
that sell for under £2 and take an hour at best to complete.

This is worse than the 'popcap games era' and that was bad enough.

Some of the 'developers' can't even be bothered to translate their
adverts properly, choosing instead to use something like Google
Translate just so they can slap something on their store page.


This is from a 'game' called 'Caliper'

"All or something is preventing and helping, freezing and melting,
braking and slipping, glowing and fading. The devices are subordinated
with the common laws of a puzzle. That, that is melted that will not
be frozen and will not swim. But there is something unfired that
drowning and freezing. The Ice bridges "

http://store.steampowered.com/app/581840/



What we badly need is some real competition for Steam so that Valve is
forced to stop being the lazy, greedy, bloated corporation that it has
become.
--
Rob

[Xocyll]

Mr Rob <noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>
>
>I don't suppose it's ever going to end, because Valve doesn't seem to
>care that a sizeable percentage of its entire catalogue was released
>in 2016 and most of it was utter garbage. I don't even bother with my
>Discovery queue anymore. I quickly look through 'What's on Steam' to
>see the new releases, and that's all I bother with these days.
>
>http://www.whatsonsteam.com/index.htm

Thanks for this.

>I have grown weary of wading through countless Anime abominations,
>Unity asset flips, VR games that I can't play, and nondescript 'games'
>that sell for under £2 and take an hour at best to complete.
>
>This is worse than the 'popcap games era' and that was bad enough.
>
>Some of the 'developers' can't even be bothered to translate their
>adverts properly, choosing instead to use something like Google
>Translate just so they can slap something on their store page.
>
>
>This is from a 'game' called 'Caliper'
>
>"All or something is preventing and helping, freezing and melting,
>braking and slipping, glowing and fading. The devices are subordinated
>with the common laws of a puzzle. That, that is melted that will not
>be frozen and will not swim. But there is something unfired that
>drowning and freezing. The Ice bridges "
>
>http://store.steampowered.com/app/581840/
>
>What we badly need is some real competition for Steam so that Valve is
>forced to stop being the lazy, greedy, bloated corporation that it has
>become.

Need some less greedy game companies too.

Looking at the link you posted (the whatsonsteam one) I saw this game
First Impact: Rise of a Hero

A game with minimum requirements of
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i5-4590
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970
Storage: 3 GB available space
Additional Notes: Non-VR Version does not require as high of a
minimum specs in order to run well.

And yet has graphics that are noticeably worse than City of Heroes had
when it launched in 2004. More like System Shock2 level graphics from
1999.

I am not a graphics whore by any means, but this requires a video card
better than the one I have (that plays Fallout4 just fine) for a video
quality from the last millennia.

I guess this is what gaming has come to in the age of reality TV shows -
lowest common denominator ADHD target audience who only care about
what's trending right now.

"Yeah it's crap, but it's cheap, and you can play it on your phone or
whatever"
"All your friends have it and you don't want to be left out."
"It doesn't matter if it's crap with no replay value, it's trending now
and will be over by next week so replay isn't an issue."

Meh!

If I can't get a _minimum_ of 20 hours of play out of a game I won't
even consider buying it, no matter how cheap it is.

I have yet to see anything "suggested" by steam that was worth a
purchase.

STEAMing shovelware for the most part.

Honestly, what exactly is the attraction of VR - wear a headset, get
motion sickness AND get to experience 20 year old graphics again for new
game prices?

8bit VR edition, minecraft, hrm and lego

Hey, 8-bit LEGO Minecraft VR, no doubt coming soon.

I think I'll just stick to my monitor.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr

[Rin Stowleigh]

I don't see how the crap games that are on Steam is Valve's fault.

Steam is a marketplace, it's up to the game authors and publishers to
decide what they want to offer and it's up to the buyers to vote with
their wallets.

Steam provides a system of rating and reviews to help buyers make
informed choices, and provides the option to refund games if they turn
out to be crap. I don't know what else they could do.

Blaming Valve for crap games on Steam is like blaming a city
government for the bad quality of food being sold from food trucks on
the street.

If the crap games aren't sold on Steam, they'll be sold elsewhere.
They've been a problem in PC gaming since PC gaming was invented.

Thankfully Valve has given us better ways of deciding what to buy, and
to reverse our decision when we make an unfortunate one.

[Ross Ridge]

Mr Rob <noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> wrote:
>I don't suppose it's ever going to end, because Valve doesn't seem to
>care that a sizeable percentage of its entire catalogue was released
>in 2016 and most of it was utter garbage. I don't even bother with my
>Discovery queue anymore.

Eh... I don't have a problem with that. The more the merrier, as far as
I'm concerned. I'm viewed 7,534 games in the discovery queue so far,
as I find it actually pretty interesting to see what games are being
released on Steam even most of them are crap. Most games were crap even
before Valve opened the doors wide open.

About the only problem with it is that there are undoubtably gems that are
going to be overlooked. Games that might not have AAA production values,
but are still well made games that do something new and innovative to
distinguish themselves. But while they may be lost in all the crap,
it's still better than the old system were they would've never even made
it on to Steam.

Steam, with their discovery queue, is at least trying to do something to
bring greater awareness to these games. It's even easier to get a gsme
on Apple's App Store or Google Play, but it not something you'd notice
because they really only try to show you their "top" games.

Ross Ridge

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

[Mike S.]

On Sun, 05 Feb 2017 10:41:46 +0000, Mr Rob
<noemail...@jsjsaiiowppw.com> wrote:

>This is from a 'game' called 'Caliper'
>
>"All or something is preventing and helping, freezing and melting,
>braking and slipping, glowing and fading. The devices are subordinated
>with the common laws of a puzzle. That, that is melted that will not
>be frozen and will not swim. But there is something unfired that
>drowning and freezing. The Ice bridges "
>
>http://store.steampowered.com/app/581840/

That description and the one review the game currently has is all I
need to know to stay away from this game. Thank you Steam.

I don't see a problem here. I will decide if a game is good or bad. I
don't want or need Valve deciding that for me. Let the games flow.
Even the obviously bad ones.

>What we badly need is some real competition for Steam so that Valve is
>forced to stop being the lazy, greedy, bloated corporation that it has
>become.

Competition won't fix crap games from being released. Nothing will
ever fix that. The only thing competition might fix is Valve's lousy
response time for open support tickets. Meanwhile, you now have yet
another online digital store to sign up for and keep track of.

[Mr Rob]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2017 05:54:02 +0000 (UTC), rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
(Ross Ridge) wrote:


>Eh... I don't have a problem with that. The more the merrier, as far as
>I'm concerned. I'm viewed 7,534 games in the discovery queue so far,
>as I find it actually pretty interesting to see what games are being
>released on Steam even most of them are crap. Most games were crap even
>before Valve opened the doors wide open.

It's probably just a personal thing, but I used to enjoy Steam as a
platform and looked forward to checking my discovery queue every day.
Now I don't even bother starting Steam unless I want to play a game.

There's so much dross to wade through now. Steam is like the Walmart
of digital games stores these days.

I'm with these guys on this
https://www.vg247.com/2016/12/01/around-40-of-games-on-steam-were-released-in-2016/


"There’s no doubt the platform continues to see growth, but 2015 and
2016 in particular saw a deluge of releases that only exist as a means
to profit from the trading cards economy. A lot of these games are
essentially made with nothing more than stock assets found on the
Unity store."




More is not always better. In my humble opinion of course.
--
Rob

[Mr Rob]

On Sun, 05 Feb 2017 07:06:26 -0500, Xocyll <Xoc...@gmx.com> wrote:

>M

>If I can't get a _minimum_ of 20 hours of play out of a game I won't
>even consider buying it, no matter how cheap it is.

>I have yet to see anything "suggested" by steam that was worth a
>purchase.

>STEAMing shovelware for the most part.

>Honestly, what exactly is the attraction of VR - wear a headset, get
>motion sickness AND get to experience 20 year old graphics again for new
>game prices?

>8bit VR edition, minecraft, hrm and lego

>Hey, 8-bit LEGO Minecraft VR, no doubt coming soon.

>I think I'll just stick to my monitor.

>Xocyll

Amen to that

Jim Sterling sums it up nicely for me


***WARNING - NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK OR FAMILY VIEWING***

https://youtu.be/jNLemHpDQ60?t=36
--
Rob

[Justisaur]

On 2/5/2017 2:41 AM, Mr Rob wrote:
>
>
> I don't suppose it's ever going to end, because Valve doesn't seem to
> care that a sizeable percentage of its entire catalogue was released
> in 2016 and most of it was utter garbage. I don't even bother with my
> Discovery queue anymore. I quickly look through 'What's on Steam' to
> see the new releases, and that's all I bother with these days.
>

I usually browse sale games by user reviews, and pop things in my
wishlist, and buy one game at a time, then check my wishlist and double
check the reviews as often something that initially appears high will
drop quickly if it's crap. I've got a few that I thought were utter
crap and wondered what the hell people were thinking rating a game high
(Ubermosh, I'm looking at you). For the most part, if I pay attention
to games that are the kind I like (immediately ignore puzzle & story &
anime) they turn out fine. Even if I have fun playing a $2 game for a
couple hours, that's a win, and once in awhile I end up playing a $2 or
$5 game for far longer, and once in a long while I end up finding
something that's vying for game of the year for me (Cosmochoria).

- Justisaur

[Mr Rob]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2017 08:54:45 -0800, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>I usually browse sale games by user reviews, and pop things in my
>wishlist, and buy one game at a time, then check my wishlist and double
>check the reviews as often something that initially appears high will
>drop quickly if it's crap. I've got a few that I thought were utter
>crap and wondered what the hell people were thinking rating a game high
>(Ubermosh, I'm looking at you).

I'm pretty much the polar opposite to that when it comes to
considering reviews. If I like the look of a game I am prepared to
ignore reviews, unless they overwhelmingly negative, but even then I
would consider buying a game at sale price.

To be fair though, I used to deliberately buy 'crap' games because
sometimes they made me laugh through their sheer crapness, and also
because occasionally I would find a real gem that I really did enjoy
playing (such as You Are Empty - which made me laugh out loud at its
crapness but still managed to entertain me as a game - double win!)

Those days are pretty much gone. The recession a few years ago put
paid to most of the small independent Eastern European studios that
made low budget games that I managed to enjoy playing to varying
degrees. All I see now are minimal effort 'me too' Unity flips that
don't even make me laugh


>for the most part, if I pay attention

>to games that are the kind I like (immediately ignore puzzle & story &
>anime) they turn out fine.

I hate anime with a passion. This is good example of what I hate about
it

http://store.steampowered.com/app/585890

>Even if I have fun playing a $2 game for a
>couple hours, that's a win, and once in awhile I end up playing a $2 or
>$5 game for far longer, and once in a long while I end up finding
>something that's vying for game of the year for me (Cosmochoria).

I like quantity personally. If a game is less than 4 hours long I
won't even consider buying it even in a sale. I am a frequent visitor
to howlongtobeat.com

Different strokes for different folks I guess.
--
Rob

[Rudi]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2017 08:54:45 -0800, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>I usually browse sale games by user reviews, and pop things in my
>wishlist, and buy one game at a time, then check my wishlist and double
>check the reviews as often something that initially appears high will
>drop quickly if it's crap.

User reviews at online retailers' pages can be a double-edged sword.

Good example of this was GOG page of "Vanishing of Ethan Carter",
which I had huge interest in because it had one of the most gorgeus
graphics I had ever seen in a game - but when I out of curiosity took
a glance at reviews, the whole twist ending was spoiled right there in
the first few reviews of the first page.
Ended up not purchasing the game, but instead drooled on the
graphics via youtube playthrough...

I even took the effort to complain about it to GOG feedback address,
but at least back then they didn't react in any way.
Can't tell if it is still there, check for yourself if you have the
time.

Cheers !

[Justisaur]

On 2/8/2017 9:26 AM, Mr Rob wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Feb 2017 08:54:45 -0800, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I usually browse sale games by user reviews, and pop things in my
>> wishlist, and buy one game at a time, then check my wishlist and double
>> check the reviews as often something that initially appears high will
>> drop quickly if it's crap. I've got a few that I thought were utter
>> crap and wondered what the hell people were thinking rating a game high
>> (Ubermosh, I'm looking at you).
>
> I'm pretty much the polar opposite to that when it comes to
> considering reviews. If I like the look of a game I am prepared to
> ignore reviews, unless they overwhelmingly negative, but even then I
> would consider buying a game at sale price.
>
> To be fair though, I used to deliberately buy 'crap' games because
> sometimes they made me laugh through their sheer crapness, and also
> because occasionally I would find a real gem that I really did enjoy
> playing (such as You Are Empty - which made me laugh out loud at its
> crapness but still managed to entertain me as a game - double win!)
>
> Those days are pretty much gone. The recession a few years ago put
> paid to most of the small independent Eastern European studios that
> made low budget games that I managed to enjoy playing to varying
> degrees. All I see now are minimal effort 'me too' Unity flips that
> don't even make me laugh

The crappy yet funny games tend to get really good reviews on Steam.

I don't necessarily put a game off becasue of bad reviews, but if it's
getting below about 65% I'm pretty wary and carefully read bad reviews.
I just find it's good to look at the high review (90%+) games first when
looking for new games, it's easier to find gems that way. I have to
somewhat filter through things I like and don't, and of course end up
picking things that both catch my eye, are cheap, and are highly
reviewed. Even then I've probably got about a 20% batting average.

I'll occasionally pick up more mainstream games with lower reviews and
higher cost as I'm fairly sure I'll like them, like DSII. I've actually
got a higher batting average doing that.

If a game catches my eye I'll look through the bad reviews to see if I
think whatever people are complaining about will bother me. Less than
half the time it is.

>> for the most part, if I pay attention
>> to games that are the kind I like (immediately ignore puzzle & story &
>> anime) they turn out fine.
>
> I hate anime with a passion. This is good example of what I hate about
> it
>
> http://store.steampowered.com/app/585890
>
>
>> Even if I have fun playing a $2 game for a
>> couple hours, that's a win, and once in awhile I end up playing a $2 or
>> $5 game for far longer, and once in a long while I end up finding
>> something that's vying for game of the year for me (Cosmochoria).
>
> I like quantity personally. If a game is less than 4 hours long I
> won't even consider buying it even in a sale. I am a frequent visitor
> to howlongtobeat.com
>

I wouldn't pay much attention to that. I've seen there's speedruns of
games - you can complete DSII which I am playing now in about one and a
quarter hours... yet I have over a hundred in the game and have not
completed it.

[Mr Rob]

Goodbye (and good riddance) Steam Greenlight, hello Steam Direct

Hopefully it will help to rid Steam of at least some of the garbage
and dodgy practices that Greenlight was riddled with.


***WARNING***

***NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK OR FAMILY VIEWING***


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTfxrH9R1yc
--
Rob

[Rin Stowleigh]

I think my shovelware radar must have become fine-tuned. I guess
I've just learned to ignore most of the early access, green light,
recommended for me, etc. crap and zero in on the games I'm really
interested in, doing adequate research before purchasing. I mostly
ignore all the marketing noise. Not including a few indie or older
games in the $2-5, I went through my list of Steam purchases, and I
only bought four games in the past year over Steam:

(in no particular order)
- Doom
- Watch_Dogs 2
- The Following DLC for Dying Light (yes its DLC but kind of like a
new game)
- Shadow Warrior 2

Then outside of Steam of course Battlefield One on Origin, and
Overwatch directly from Blizzards store.

All of these were winners really.