The Jimquisition: The Asset Flip


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He's right, once again.

There's so much garbage being developed these days, it's trluy a sad state of affairs. This is what happens when you give indies too much attention and thus power. Everybody who's nobody now wants a piece of the pie.

These practices will spread to consoles as well, it's ony a matter of time with AAA becomming less of a lucrative business and platform holders becomming desperate for content. It'll lead to a new gaming crash if it continues.

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These days I find myself drawn more to indie titles than AAA. The issue isn't with indies, it's with Valve forgoing any oversight. So long as you pony up the $100 Greenlight fee you can put literally anything up. Then just promise free Steam keys for people who upvote you on Greenlight and you'll make it to the storefront in no time. Throw in some trading cards for good measure and make more money off those as everyone goes "meh crap game but cards".

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These days I find myself drawn more to indie titles than AAA. The issue isn't with indies, it's with Valve forgoing any oversight. So long as you pony up the $100 Greenlight fee you can put literally anything up. Then just promise free Steam keys for people who upvote you on Greenlight and you'll make it to the storefront in no time. Throw in some trading cards for good measure and make more money off those as everyone goes "meh crap game but cards".

 

I think the issue is mostly with people not looking at what they are buying.

 

I mean i was never even close to buy one of those games. It's not like Steam doesn't give you the tools to know what you are buying. You got reviews, metacritics score, screenshots, videos and the forum. This weekend i was about to buy that remake of Carmageddon. Then i've read the reviews and decided not to.

 

All stores sell ****. I bought an USB2 enclosure last year on amazon and i would give this enclosure 1 out of 5 stars. It's ****. Wasted 20$.

 

I visited the Store page of all the games he covered and to be honest i'm laughing at anyone buying those.

 

It's not really realistic to expect Valve to test all the games published on the store. Maybe it should be easier to get a refund if a game is not what it should be but other than that as a buyer it's your duty to do your homework.

 

Like you these days i'm playing indie games 90% of the time. AAA games are not doing it for me anymore. They are not worth the 70$ + taxes asked (80$ total) and more often than never they are either 60-80 hours of boring repetitive content or are 6-10 hours of original content. Most of them are easy as **** to please the casual crowd. The indie market really brought me back to gaming. There's lot of gems people just need to do their homework before buying. Even if the game is 1$ do your homework. Before buying Tiny & Big : Grandpa's Leftovers for 1$ on Steam i watched 2-3 video reviews on youtube (nice little game btw).

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I think putting the blame on Steam here is a bit of a hypocritical point of view. They're not the ones making the garbage.

The indies are the ones taking advantage of a system with a lot of liberties, the primary blame is on them.

Yes, Steam needs to curate and with a bit of quality control things could get better, but like LaP says it's unrealistic for Valve to check everything.

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I think putting the blame on Steam here is a bit of a hypocritical point of view. They're not the ones making the garbage.

The indies are the ones taking advantage of a system with a lot of liberties, the primary blame is on them.

Yes, Steam needs to curate and with a bit of quality control things could get better, but like LaP says it's unrealistic for Valve to check everything.

Steam doesn't check anything unless it's some game threatening the life of its employees or there's some huge scandal. They might not be the only on the blame but they're sure offering a platform to all the "floaters". They sell abandoned games that don't work anymore ffs.

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It's not really realistic to expect Valve to test all the games published on the store.

 

Valve is a multi-billion dollar company. They certainly could afford to have a certification process to check basic functionality in games published on their store. They don't bother because more games = more profits with lower overhead so Gabe can make more money. It's as simple as that.

 

Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo - all have certification processes that check games rather thoroughly before being published. Valve could implement one far less strict, yet enough to filter 90% of the obvious junk. They don't because they only see customers as walking wallets.

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Steam doesn't check anything unless it's some game threatening the life of its employees or there's some huge scandal. They might not be the only on the blame but they're sure offering a platform to all the "floaters". They sell abandoned games that don't work anymore ffs.

 

True, Valve should be more assertive.

 

Valve is a multi-billion dollar company. They certainly could afford to have a certification process to check basic functionality in games published on their store. They don't bother because more games = more profits with lower overhead so Gabe can make more money. It's as simple as that.

 

Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo - all have certification processes that check games rather thoroughly before being published. Valve could implement one far less strict, yet enough to filter 90% of the obvious junk. They don't because they only see customers as walking wallets.

 

And yet, even with those certification processes, there are extremely poor games like Project Root, Infinity Runner and Rugby 15 that appear on the PlayStation Store.

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True, Valve should be more assertive.

 

 

And yet, even with those certification processes, there are extremely poor games like Project Root, Infinity Runner and Rugby 15 that appear on the PlayStation Store.

 

Rugby 15 is not an indie title. HB Studios have been around for 15 years, previously working for EA.

 

Further, all 3 titles are on Steam, PSN and XBL, so why single out PSN?

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Rugby 15 is not an indie title. HB Studios have been around for 15 years, previously working for EA.

 

Further, all 3 titles are on Steam, PSN and XBL, so why single out PSN?

 

Because I had a PlayStation and there are far many more examples on there too. It was to make a point that certification doesn't mean garbage doesn't launch on a platform.

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I think putting the blame on Steam here is a bit of a hypocritical point of view. They're not the ones making the garbage.

The indies are the ones taking advantage of a system with a lot of liberties, the primary blame is on them.

Yes, Steam needs to curate and with a bit of quality control things could get better, but like LaP says it's unrealistic for Valve to check everything.

These are not indy developers. These are idiots and con artists. Big difference.

Indy Devs have brought some of the finest games in recent years to PC and console. Don`t tar them with the same brush as its insulting and only highlights your own ignorance and indeed the wider problem shown above in the video.

Braid, Super Meat Boy. Fez, Hotline Miami 1+2, Olli Olli, Ori & The Blind Forest, Trine 1/2/3, Spelunky, Bro Force, Tiny Barbarian DX, Retro Rampage DX, Samuiri Gun, Starbound, Shovel Knight, Papers Please, Monacco, Bastion.... 

You get the picture.

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These are not indy developers. These are idiots and con artists. Big difference.

Indy Devs have brought some of the finest games in recent years to PC and console. Don`t tar them with the same brush as its insulting and only highlights your own ignorance and indeed the wider problem shown above in the video.

Braid, Super Meat Boy. Fez, Hotline Miami 1+2, Olli Olli, Ori & The Blind Forest, Trine 1/2/3, Spelunky, Bro Force, Tiny Barbarian DX, Retro Rampage DX, Samuiri Gun, Starbound, Shovel Knight, Papers Please, Monacco, Bastion.... 

You get the picture.

 

Not a big difference, they are still independent developers in name. The only big difference is that these are desperate "developers" wanting a piece of the cake that their brethren, who are better at their job, are eating.

 

What it comes down to is that we can't have nice things because there's always some douche that ruins it for everyone else.

 

Besides, for every good title you just mentioned there are dozens more that are way below average. You get the picture.

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Not a big difference, they are still independent developers in name. The only big difference is that these are desperate "developers" wanting a piece of the cake that their brethren, who are better at their job, are eating.

 

What it comes down to is that we can't have nice things because there's always some douche that ruins it for everyone else.

 

Besides, for every good title you just mentioned there are dozens more that are way below average. You get the picture.

I wouldnt even call them developers. An afternoon learning basic engine use, probably from a set of online tutorials. Bought assets, completely un-changed.

Nope wouldnt even give them that.

A true indy dev will seek to create something good and whilst it may end up a pile of mince. The very fact they`ve edited/created there own assets and coded something beyond a tutorial or two, should stand for something.

Unfair to group them with these charlatans.

And yes im aware of the plethora of crap that decent Indys have released. Much the same as your triple A devs and the large mountain of crud they also shovel out. 

Whats worse still is that many Indys dont even get greenlight or refuse to be part of it, due to these idiots.

I`d rather see an original game that was utter mince on Steam giving a student an income, than simply some money grabbing idiots re-hash done in an afternoon.

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And yes im aware of the plethora of crap that decent Indys have released. Much the same as your triple A devs and the large mountain of crud they also shovel out. 

Whats worse still is that many Indys dont even get greenlight or refuse to be part of it, due to these idiots.

I`d rather see an original game that was utter mince on Steam giving a student an income, than simply some money grabbing idiots re-hash done in an afternoon.

 

Exactly, proving exactly what I said. We can't have nice things because there's always some douche that ruins it for everyone else.

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True, Valve should be more assertive.

 

 

And yet, even with those certification processes, there are extremely poor games like Project Root, Infinity Runner and Rugby 15 that appear on the PlayStation Store.

 

Add Ultra Street Fighter 4 on PS4 to the list, just came out and it is a bad port. I was going to buy it but I am glad I read reviews first. Capcom let another developer (Other Ocean Interactive) port a game that is part of their biggest game franchise... Neowin needs a mind blown emoticon

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Be wary of cheap, impulse buys. Avoid all day one nonsense;,there is no scarcity with digital. Read reviews to get a sense of what the game is like before you part with you rmoney.

 

The system does suck, but it is not as if it is impossible to avoid the crap out there.

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Be wary of cheap, impulse buys. Avoid all day one nonsense;,there is no scarcity with digital. Read reviews to get a sense of what the game is like before you part with you rmoney.

The system does suck, but it is not as if it is impossible to avoid the crap out there.

It's strange but dunno i think the system is okay. I think it's better than some other online stores where the only thing you get is a rating and reviews.

I'm not saying Valve should not do more. Of course all companies should try to improve their products.

But i do think there's no excuse. There's more than enough tools in Steam to spot the bad games.

- For one you have the metacritic score linked directly into Steam. Not a fan of metacritic but usually when a game has a very bad metacritic score or no metacritic score at all it should be a clue.

- Then you have the reviews (the trending mostly-positive and such is useless there's almost all positive and this is a thing Valve should improve). You can esily spot the thumb down reviews and read them to see the game shortcomings. If there's lot of them and the same negative comments come back often then it should be a clue.

- Then you have the videos and screenshots. If there's few of them it should be clue.

- Then you have the forum. Very helpful.

- The curator system is kind of nice too. Is it abused? yes. But it's kind of easy to know which curators are legit and which ones are not.

- You also have the section listing the awards the game won. BY itself it's not much but with the other tools it can help.

For example anyone who bought Dirt 3 before the GFWL removal was ready have no excuse. There was lot of negative reviews about it and the forum was filled with negative posts about the game not properly working under windows 8.1.

I have 85 games in my steam library i think and they are all good game worthy to be played (i played all of them at least 1+ hour). I have yet to finish most of them and will likely never finish them all but i played them and they are worthy purchases at the price i paid. I would not rate all of them 7+/10 but there's no ****** fake game in my library.

Valve could do more but i think they are doing enough and people should look at what they are buying before buying it. In the end no system is bullet proof and you can't prevent stupid. While i like Jim Sterling he looks like a guy on a vendetta to be honest. Lately it's easy to know which subject Sterling will talk about in his next video. It will be either a rant against Steam or Konami. I understand him i mean yeah Valve could improve the system and yes they try to make lot of money but there's other problem in this industry. At least he is supposed to talk about the good indie games next video i think.

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