Nathan Grayson, Zoe Quinn, TotalBiscuit, Kotaku…what is this, October 2014? Sometimes, it feels as if I’ve fallen into a time-warp. Either that, or these SJW goons just keep repeating the same old script because they can’t get by on talent…since they have none. Still, I’m happy people like Zoe keep whining about their plight, because it gives me an easy post before I head out for the afternoon.
Here’s what Kotaku’s Grayson, a notoriously unethical hack, had to say about the new initiatives by Valve/Steam…
Recently, Valve had two popular YouTubers, John “TotalBiscuit” Bain and Jim “Jim Sterling” Sterling, visit their offices. Over the course of a day-long series of meetings, the company laid out a roadmap for the future of Steam.
Both Bane and Sterling posted lengthy videos about their descent into GabeN’s mystery dungeon…
For those who don’t have the time to watch a cumulative hour and 24 minutes of video, here’s a blow-by-blow (bear in mind that this information is secondhand from people who, while generally trustworthy, are not Valve):
- Valve is about to overhaul Steam in order to ensure that good games are visible and lazily developed games created for the purpose of making a quick buck—which Valve apparently calls “fake games”—sink beneath a sea of algorithms. They’ve already laid the groundwork, which is why they recently announced Steam Direct.
- The problem with this system, of course, is that it risks burying a handful of good games, as well. To combat this issue, Valve is going to introduce a program called Steam Explorers. Explorers will play through queues of games that haven’t been selling super well. If they dig a game, they can flag it. The more games get flagged, the more the algorithmic gods will smile upon them.
- Anybody will be able to be an Explorer, much like Steam Curators. They’ll also get their own forum, so they can do things like arrange multiplayer matches in games that nobody else is playing.
- Speaking of Curators, that system is getting overhauled too. Valve will be adding functionality like embedded videos, top ten lists, and different types of sorting. Developers will also be able to give game keys directly to curators within Steam, as opposed to doing so via email or other means outside Steam (which has led to confusion, attempted fraud, and other issues).
- Curators will also be given more info about how their curations affect games’ sales.
- Valve admitted that so-called “fake games” make the bulk of their money off Steam trading cards, something that’s been long theorized but never confirmed. As a result, Valve will be changing the trading card system so that doing so is no longer an option.
- Regular Steam users will soon have access to a lot more data on games. They’ll be told why a particular game is being shown to them, how many impressions that page gets, where those impressions come from, and more. Valve apparently wants to show people that crappy games are not, as many have speculated, clogging up the service.
- Valve believes that once Steam Direct launches, fewer (though probably not drastically fewer) games will be admitted onto the service, and quality will generally be higher.
I don’t know about you guys, but that all sounds pretty good to me. As a side note, I know it had to wound the soul of Grayson to admit that TotalBiscuit is “generally trustworthy.” Anyway, you guys are probably wondering where Zoe Quinn comes in. Well, like a bad case of the clap, she’s hard to get rid of and always finds a way to rear her health hazardous head into any situation. Apparently, this push against “fake games” is going to negatively impact her ability to make a living off, well, fake games.
Actually, this is one case where she’s absolutely correct! Taking fake games out of circulation would definitely do her in…which would be a great thing, needless to say.
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After Zoe realized how whiny, pathetic, and entitled this whole rant sounded, she memory holed the entire thing (thanks to an enterprising TRR reader, we still have it). Oh, wait. I’m not supposed to call her a “she” now. My bad. Back to the subject at hand…if Zoe is against the push to kill fake games, then you know it’s a good thing. The sooner she disappears from gaming, the better, and if this helps that outcome, then I support it 100%.
