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[Interfectum]

At the end of the day, there needs to be accountability somewhere. Valve doesn't have to go all dystopian dictator on the place, but the idea that a company can pass off an unfinished alpha build without worry is galling.

Every game has a forum and a potential metacritic rating. There are also top sellers lists, featured games on Steam, friend recommendations/reviews, an activity feed of what all your friends are playing, early access games are clearly labelled, search functionality, etc. I'm not sure what else you want them to do besides going back and policing releases again.

Personally I've had zero issues finding quality content even with the influx of new, shitty games. Stop focusing on the new releases list and you'll be fine.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Valve doesn't have to go all dystopian dictator on the place, but the idea that a company can pass off an unfinished alpha build without worry is galling.

Who is "passing off", though? Every early access title has a ton of media to demonstrate the state of development, a large statement nominally used to explain how far along dev is, a big banner reminding you it's in development and reminding you that you can't necessarily trust what you see, AND the user review section below showing what users think of the game. And if you personally tend to be someone who gets burned, just avoid early access altogether.

But again this seems sort of adjunct from your actual complaint, which was about bad games rather than new models of selling games during development.

 

[go_la_clips]

Maybe people actually like games that get bad reviews.

 

[KillerDark]

Steam doesn't need quality control, at all. If you think a game sucks the simple answer is not to buy it.

Agreed. Not sure why people think they need quality control.

 

[Jim Sterling]

Who is "passing off", though? Every early access title has a ton of media to demonstrate the state of development, a large statement nominally used to explain how far along dev is, a big banner reminding you it's in development and reminding you that you can't necessarily trust what you see, AND the user review section below showing what users think of the game. And if you personally tend to be someone who gets burned, just avoid early access altogether.

But again this seems sort of adjunct from your actual complaint, which was about bad games rather than new models of selling games during development.

Many of the games mentioned in my video today are not Early Access games.

 

[Derrick01]

While I don't like the insane flood of garbage that comes out of greenlight on a monthly basis it doesn't seem to really be affecting anything. When I casually glance at the top seller list or the most played list I see mostly titles I've heard about. During steam sales it's pretty much all notable titles that sell like crazy and gather the most attention. So who exactly is being hurt here?

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

I hate when Jim says something I agree with...
Glad someone else is saying it though, there are too many games on Steam for $10-$20 that are either near unplayable or are barely more than a flash game you might have played on Newgrounds in 2003.

 

[Zafir]

I'm not sure Steam needs more restrictions per se, but I think the Steam store could use more features to the user to allow them to filter and search through it better. Especially on the top sellers, new releases and coming soon lists. Sure you can go into the specific genre's and get the lists from there too, but why isn't there any other filters? Although I'm not much of a fan of Metacritic as a measure of quality, filters for scores over x, or filters for recommended review percentage over x% could be useful to weed out the not so great. That said, for the latter to work, the dev's being able to falsify the reviews needs to be sorted.

 

[Dario ff]

They should at least confirm if it actually runs, the release of Castle of Illusion HD was just a DirectX redistributable and an EULA for quite a few hours.

 

[Mrbob]

I do think the new release section of Steam needs to be heavily worked on. Sometimes when there are a flood of old ass games it pushes the new games out of the spotlight. Wouldn't mind if there was a separation in release lists in the future. For example, put all the old games under a 'Classics' heading, or whatever they want to call out.

 

[Ravensmash]

My video is not simply about selling bad games. Every store sells stinkers. Not every store makes it this easy for games like Rekoil to launch the way it launch, for alpha builds to be sold as finished products, and for Revelations 2012 to happen.

Have you checked out the forums for Cart Life on Steam?

This is a game that has game breaking bugs in abundance (cash register glitch occured on every attempt of a play though I made rendering the game useless) and yet it's still sitting there on Steam despite the clear annoyance of the consumers. Doesn't seem like the issues are going to be addressed either.

I wish Steam started coming down harder on technical disasters, the consumer should not have to play russian roulette with a purchasw especially when Valve are taking a cut!

 

[LAA]

Never heard of this "Devs laughing at fans" in the steam forum. Pretty shocking and disgusting if true, more so for steam as they seemingly did nothing about it.

Maybe a solution to this would be just offer customers an option to refund after a certain time frame with the explanation being "Its unplayable" or they're not happy with performance or whatever then steam can go investigate it further, if they're not happy with the game or something. At the very least this should be the case with early access games.

Though it would be much easier/simpler if this stuff just wasnt allowed on steam until it was in a playable condition. I think on stuff like like early access, the very first build should at the very least be playable, just seems they're not ready to be on steam yet if it the game is not up to that stage.

 

[Interfectum]

Have you checked out the forums for Cart Life on Steam?

This is a game that has game breaking bugs in abundance (cash register glitch occured on every attempt of a play though I made rendering the game useless) and yet it's still sitting there on Steam despite the clear annoyance of the consumers. Doesn't seem like the issues are going to be addressed either.

I wish Steam started coming down harder on technical disasters, the consumer should not have to play russian roulette with a purchasw especially when Valve are taking a cut!

Have you checked out the forums on Battlefield 4? Should Sony and Microsoft remove it from their store? See what kind of road you can go down here?

 

[Jim Sterling]

While I've enjoyed the very divisive arguments in this thread, I have to go work on the rest of the week's content now, so I'll leave one last point for y'all.

One last point before I go do other work - Android store is all "self-regulated" like Steam. Now Dungeon Keeper Mobile is the norm. While I wouldn't necessarily say that'd definitely happen to Steam, the problem with a "wild west" business model is just that - once someone gets away with something, it can become a terrible new trend, and the current lack of accountability on anyone's end can make horrible new trends happen in a heartbeat.

Anyway, I gotta go put more trash on the Internet now. As ever, I appreciate y'all's support of my work.

 

[Kinthalis]

We know what hands on, meticulous curaiton looks like: consoles.

Cookie cutter, boring, "cinematic" experiences that attempt to appeal to everyone.

No thanks.

If there have to be 10 bad games for the next minecraft to appear or the next Dayz or the next Rust or the next League of Legends, so be it.

 

[Zafir]

We know what hands on, meticulous curaiton looks like: consoles.

Cookie cutter, boring, "cinematic" experiences that attempt to appeal to everyone.

No thanks.

If there have to be 10 bad games for the next minecraft to appear or the next Dayz or the next Rust or the next League of Legends, so be it.

Errr... I take it you aren't a console gamer.

 

[Interfectum]

While I've enjoyed the very divisive arguments in this thread, I have to go work on the rest of the week's content now, so I'll leave one last point for y'all.

One last point before I go do other work - Android store is all "self-regulated" like Steam. Now Dungeon Keeper Mobile is the norm. While I wouldn't necessarily say that'd definitely happen to Steam, the problem with a "wild west" business model is just that - once someone gets away with something, it can become a terrible new trend, and the current lack of accountability on anyone's end can make horrible new trends happen in a heartbeat.

Anyway, I gotta go put more trash on the Internet now. As ever, I appreciate y'all's support of my work.

Mainstream consumers looking for shit to play on their phone vs. informed PC gamers with a shitload of ways to leave feedback on Steam (forums, recommendations, activity feed, etc). Not really the same thing IMO.

 

[eznark]

Dropping the mic on a slipper slope argument?

Maybe internet content does need to be regulated for quality.

 

[Mr. Luchador]

The games that look little more than Browser/Flash games making it through baffle me. Also I now feel like there are TOO many Early Access games, to the point where I no longer buy any.

 

[Delusibeta]

One last point before I go do other work - Android store is all "self-regulated" like Steam. Now Dungeon Keeper Mobile is the norm. While I wouldn't necessarily say that'd definitely happen to Steam, the problem with a "wild west" business model is just that - once someone gets away with something, it can become a terrible new trend, and the current lack of accountability on anyone's end can make horrible new trends happen in a heartbeat.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope

cool argument bro.

 

[la flama blanca]

Have you checked out the forums on Battlefield 4? Should Sony and Microsoft remove it from their store? See what kind of road you can go down here?

I laughed and then got immediately sad.

 

[Vigilant Gambit]

We know what hands on, meticulous curaiton looks like: consoles.

Cookie cutter, boring, "cinematic" experiences that attempt to appeal to everyone.

No thanks.

If there have to be 10 bad games for the next minecraft to appear or the next Dayz or the next Rust or the next League of Legends, so be it.

This.

I resent the idea that walled gardens necessarily make good games. Let the market decide what works and what doesn't.

It's not like just because Dungeon Keeper Mobile was released and is a hit that we will never get a game like Ridiculous Fishing or Republique again.

 

[RedSwirl]

What about Gabe's idea of simply turning Steam into an API of games with Steam features sold through other stores? What if the Steam store by itself is too narrow a channel for all the games that are on Steam?

 

[Ravensmash]

Have you checked out the forums on Battlefield 4? Should Sony and Microsoft remove it from their store? See what kind of road you can go down here?

Sure, if the developers and publishers are making absolutely no effort to address issues (like in my example).

I don't know about the BF4 situation but I presume EA are still working on it?

A knowingly broken product shouldn't be on sale full stop.

I think the industry as a whole is way too complacent about stuff like this, it simply wouldn't fly in other industries and is probably contravening numerous consumer laws anyway.

 

[DerZuhälter]

Seems to me like this is more of a transparency issue.

I am baffled that although Early Access titles (EAt) have been already on sale for months even performing quite well in some cases and had certainly everybody in the press talking about them, nobody is reviewing them.

Why?

Why exactly, are they being completely ignored and taken out of the equation? Why can't I find Metacritic scores, to these games that are being advertised on the Steam storefront, next to seemingly identically priced reviewed software, for weeks now? I can find user scores, but they usually are all over the place scoring wise.

I can't for the life of me understand why they aren't being reviewed. Is this some sort of "fair play" because it's not "finished"? Because they are constantly changing and a review score today might not reflect it's state tomorrow? Well tough titties to both reviewers and developers. Review'em and keep on reviewing them.
Because the dollars, euros, and pound sterling they are taking are certainly "finished" and unrefundable.

For all I know EAt are running away with easy money considering the competitive advantage they have now, to similarly priced and "finished" products with bad reviews, thanks to the lack of transparency that is in the worst cases even enforced by shitty developers silencing disgruntled customers, as you say.

Even the threat of reviewing these Early Access products alone would put enough pressure on the "stinkers" to put more effort in.
And reviewers should keep tabs on the games they reviewed in general. If the game gets worse, adjust the score: case and point Battle-fucking review event went perfect-Field 4.

Yes, with the flood of games on a multitude of devices and plattform, reviewing every game out there, is an impossible job for one person alone. And keeping tabs on them after reviewing them sounds too much, but although the market space in gaming keeps on evolving and getting more and more dynamic, gaming press seems reluctant at least in terms of reviews to change other than switching from papermagazines in the 80s/90s to going fully digital. It seriously needs to catch-up to the market in this point.

And if you say it's financially impossible to gather enough staff: Charge for EAt reviews. The way I see it it caters to the, (I hate this expression, sorry) hardest of the core gamers, willing to spend money on highly experimental/early stuff. A few dollars for more transparency won't bother them.

 

[chrominance]

Visibility will always be a problem. Before, it was about getting someone at Valve to notice you. Now, at least it's more democratic.

Absolutely, but the democratic approach (Greenlight) has also led to weird distortions. Games that are years off from being released "stole" spots from games that were already out but deemed undeserving because their promotional campaign wasn't good enough. People would judge games not based on whether they thought Steam should sell them (answer: probably yes most of the time) but whether they would buy it (answer: often no) or whether they thought it was appropriate (answer: KOREAN DATING SIM? I'M NOT ALLOWING THAT TRASH).

I absolutely agree that finding good ways to highlight games people actually want to play and aren't complete trash is the best solution, not a new gatekeeper. Any sort of quality control will inevitably lead to bias creeping into the decision process, whether that's denying publishers with no previous record (cutting out indie devs) or denying games of certain genres (cutting out pinball games, as an example) or something else entirely. But while I think Jim Sterling's diving into hyperbole when he says Steam might be worse now than the PC industry was before Steam revived it, he does have a good point: what do we do with games like The War Z?

Maybe Steam creating a robust user review system will help with that, but I'm not totally confident that will solve the problem completely, especially since whatever The War Z turned into still got into Steam sales, with prominent front-page placement, and it was easy to buy the game without even seeing the reviews or the Metacritic score (which I think Steam has since removed in any case). GOG's strategy of the 30-day money back guarantee for games that straight-up don't work is a decent one, especially since it's reserved for games that just plain don't work (versus games you buy and then decide are crap, or "decide" are crap after you've played the whole thing). If Steam adopted that policy, that would make the issue of getting burned by a bad game a lot better.

But I don't know how we solve the problem of what's happening on mobile app stores, where the shitstorm of content is so bad that SEO strategies often dictate how you name your game. If we're not careful, that could happen to Steam too. The War Z (a shoddy rip-off of DayZ that no one should buy, in case anyone happens across this post from a Google search and is unaware of its provenance) could just be one of the first of a crowd of pretenders. The most obvious answer is for someone to go through all the pretender games and go "nope, you're not allowed on the store." This will never happen because Valve has an allergy to hiring more than two customer service people at any given time, which is the same reason we got Greenlight. I think that's what Sterling latched onto as well. If we don't take that approach, there might be other solutions but they're murkier, less obvious. What seems clear to me is that any method that relies on algorithms as opposed to manual curation of ANY sort, staff-based or user-based, hard curation (i.e. no more selling on Steam) or soft (you get downvoted so your visibility decreases on Steam), is likely to fail.

 

[Interfectum]

Sure, if the developers and publishers are making absolutely no effort to address issues (like in my example).

I don't know about the BF4 situation but I presume EA are still working on it?

A knowingly broken product shouldn't be on sale full stop.

I think the industry as a whole is way too complacent about stuff like this, it simply wouldn't fly in other industries and is probably contravening numerous consumer laws anyway.

I bought and played through Cart Life with no issue. I've had tons of problems with Battlefield 4. You are going down a slippery slope here. Should we have a community vote a game off Steam? Should Valve remove a game that works for some but not all?

 

[Ravensmash]

I bought and played through Cart Life with no issue. I've had tons of problems with Battlefield 4. You are going down a slippery slope here. Should we have a community vote a game off Steam? Should Valve remove a game that works for some but not all?

A slippery slope? Because I'm demanding greater consumer protection for broken games and storefronts to respect that?

If a game clearly has issues on a large scale (regardless of whether it's AAA or indie) according to valid community feedback, why can't Steam contact the publisher and enquire as to whether the team are aware of issues and are they planning to address them in a timely manner?

If not, steam can refuse to stock the product. A physical store recalls an item or offers no hassle refunds when it's clearly faulty, why can't the digital equivalent?

Im not talking about minor issues or glitches here, but full widescale game breaking bugs that render the purchased product useless.

 

[LTWood12]

North American video game crash of 1983

"There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality and a lot of copied games that were sold at cheaper prices, which resulted in the loss of consumer and retailer confidence. The full effects of the industry crash would not be felt until 1985"

from wikipedia via:

http://www.archive.org/stream/elect...Issue_35_Vol_03_11_1985_Jan#page/n29/mode/2up

 

[Ravensmash]

Every game has a forum and a potential metacritic rating. There are also top sellers lists, featured games on Steam, friend recommendations/reviews, an activity feed of what all your friends are playing, early access games are clearly labelled, search functionality, etc. I'm not sure what else you want them to do besides going back and policing releases again.

Personally I've had zero issues finding quality content even with the influx of new, shitty games. Stop focusing on the new releases list and you'll be fine.

No, the responsibility should not be on the consumer to ensure that they're buying a working product. That should be on the store selling it.

 

[eznark]

No, the responsibility should not be on the consumer to ensure that they're buying a working product. That should be on the store selling it.

I wonder what the price of games and release schedules would be like if Valve took it upon themselves (both in terms of labor and liability) to QA every single game.

 

[Htown]

So here's the problem, Jim. Valve is basically doing what consumers and developers asked for.

Back before Greenlight, Valve used to have a couple people just looking at games and going "you get in, you don't," and that was it. People hated it. "Why isn't this game on Steam, that other game is on Steam, why is Valve so stupid?" Eventually Valve said, "okay then, you know what? YOU pick what games are on Steam."

So Greenlight came out, and people hated it because not enough games got through Greenlight. Then Valve started letting a few more games get through, and people still hated it because not enough games got through Greenlight. Just look through the history of GAF Greenlight threads. It's a consistent outcry of "this is stupid, stop putting barriers in front of people that want to get their games on Steam." It's not just here. Developers wrote open letters to Valve about how it should be easier to get games on the service.

And it kept going, because every time a consumer or developer saw literally one game they wanted on Steam that was still sitting on Greenlight, they would complain that Steam was too strict and Greenlight was broken, etc. Valve isn't making these decisions in a vacuum. Google search "Steam Greenlight site:neogaf.com" and you'll see.

Now all of a sudden it's "Why is there no quality control?" Well the answer is that the people who wanted to buy games and the people who wanted to sell games whined and bitched and complained about how much of a barrier the submission process was, until the submission process was barely a barrier. So here we are.

This isn't Valve's fault.

It's ours.

 

[Derrick01]

North American video game crash of 1983

"There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality and a lot of copied games that were sold at cheaper prices, which resulted in the loss of consumer and retailer confidence. The full effects of the industry crash would not be felt until 1985"

from wikipedia via:

http://www.archive.org/stream/elect...Issue_35_Vol_03_11_1985_Jan#page/n29/mode/2up

I don't see what that has to do with today's situation. 1983 didn't have the internet and the instantaneous word of mouth (err..fingers?) for good games. That kind of power does wonders with the PC community and it's why games keep selling over time. After all how did games like DayZ and Rust catch on? It was through people playing it and telling everyone else about it.

If we're worried about most of these crappy games that get greenlit bombing because of no exposure...well that's a good thing no? It may hit a good game every now and then but that's life in every market.

 

[Ravensmash]

I wonder what the price of games and release schedules would be like if Valve took it upon themselves (both in terms of labor and liability) to QA every single game.

Do you honestly believe that the responsibility relies on the consumer to do it for them?

At the very least there should be a complete overhaul of the refund policy, no one should have to gamble their money on a broken product and then jump through hoops to be reimbursed.

 

[Interfectum]

No, the responsibility should not be on the consumer to ensure that they're buying a working product. That should be on the store selling it.

It's up to the consumer to spend their money on quality products. You don't know the quality unless you do research. Steam gives you easy avenues to do said research. User reviews, forums, screenshots, movies, guides, etc. If the game is truly broken then you will find out very quickly. Hell all you would have to do is scroll down on the store page and read the first couple of recommendations.

If after all of that you still decide to buy the game then it's on you, not Valve.

 

[Kintaro]

How quickly we have forgotten all the bitching and moaning from developers, the press and gamers alike when Steam was more strict with what games would appear on the platform. Not to mention how strict it was on the consoles and it held back the great ones. Guess what? Garbage still got through.

Do you want Wal Mart and GameStop to determine which games get through? What if they stopped selling Dynasty Warriors because they believed they suck and isn't worth their customers time? You'd be a bit pissed off.

I would rather it be this way than before. The cream rises to the top. Word gets out. The good stuff will be found in more abundance than you can possibly find time enough to enjoy. We're big boys and girls in PC land. If we buy a bad game, we can eat a measly $10 we may have paid for it. Certainly better than the $60 ones.

Then again...

I hate when there are too many options. If only we had websites that would give us some idea which games were good, and which weren't...

If only...

 

[Ravensmash]

It's up to the consumer to spend their money on quality products. You don't know the quality unless you do research. Steam gives you easy avenues to do said research. User reviews, forums, screenshots, movies, guides, etc. If the game is truly broken then you will find out very quickly. Hell all you would have to do is scroll down on the store page and read the first couple of recommendations.

If after all of that you still decide to buy the game then it's on you, not Valve.

Rubbish, can't agree with that. Do you feel the same way with regards to stores in the physical world or in other industries? Why are we so complacent when it comes to video games?

Why is the consumer held responsible when the storefront is the one facilitating the sale? If it's that easy for me to find out a game's broken, then I'm sure it's not too much hard work for them either.

If the store can't uphold their part of the contract in providing me with a working product then that's their issue.

 

[Whompa]

I wonder what the price of games and release schedules would be like if Valve took it upon themselves (both in terms of labor and liability) to QA every single game.

Is that a serious question?

I think the whole point of Steam allowing people to release these games in these unfinished states is for the community to decide. Not Valve. Unfortunately they decide by buying into alpha/beta.

I kinda agree that this shit needs better filtering. Maybe not to the extremes, calling Steam a garbage dump, but I think it definitely needs to have some restructuring to put this early access buzz shit into the back catalogs. Unfinished games should not get advertisement.

 

[BLunted]

I just wish they would give me filters so that I don't have to display indies or early access. My storefront would look much better.

 

[erpg]

I said it in the early access video and I'll say it again, people can try to sell whatever others will buy.

Stinkers will sink, and gems will hit the top players or sale charts. Whether I like it or not, Steam is the representative marketplace of an open platform. It has no place curating beyond filtering the obscene.

I'd also like to think that the people on Steam are knowledgeable enough to use the tools available to them (the game forums on Steam, Steam recommendation lists, reviews, videos, etc) to gauge a purchase.

 

[Opiate]

Errr... I take it you aren't a console gamer.

He's surely overstating the case, but the general principle is correct; the openness of PCs is a direct cause of its disproportionate number of "surprise hits."

The console space has become increasingly hostile to failure (such that single bombs can tank a large developer), and the consequence of that is that less risks are taken. The ability to fail -- repeatedly -- is an essential component to the flourishing of new ideas. It is not a coincidence that a disproportionate amount of the break out hits have occurred on the PC over the last gen (examples already listed like League of Legends, Minecraft, and DayZ).

 

[LTWood12]

I don't see what that has to do with today's situation. 1983 didn't have the internet and the instantaneous word of mouth (err..fingers?) for good games. That kind of power does wonders with the PC community and it's why games keep selling over time. After all how did games like DayZ and Rust catch on? It was through people playing it and telling everyone else about it.

If we're worried about most of these crappy games that get greenlit bombing because of no exposure...well that's a good thing no? It may hit a good game every now and then but that's life in every market.

Here are the top reviewed games of all time on the app store:

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/ios?view=condensed&sort=desc

How many of these have you never heard of?

 

[SapientWolf]

How dare he ask for quality control and better business practices.

Let the people decide, not Valve.

 

[Odrion]

Here are the top reviewed games of all time on the app store:

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/ios?view=condensed&sort=desc

How many of these have you never heard of?

Here's the thing: Mobile gamers are not PC Gamers.

 

[Ravensmash]

Let the people decide, not Valve.

If Valve aren't going to stop selling completely broken games, will they at least provide me with an easy hassle free way of getting refunded?

See the problem with this? Heck, if a game is broken then it shouldn't be a decision, it shouldn't be on sale full stop.

As a store, Steam should absolutely have a responsibility to protect the consumer - from themselves or others.

 

[BrLvgThrChmstry]

Early Access is one of the worst concepts to ever happen. Don't agree? that's fine.

 

[Zafir]

He's surely overstating the case, but the general principle is correct; the openness of PCs is a direct cause of its disproportionate number of "surprise hits."

The console space has become increasingly hostile to failure (such that single bombs can tank a large developer), and the consequence of that is that less risks are taken. The ability to fail -- repeatedly -- is an essential component to the flourishing of new ideas. It is not a coincidence that a disproportionate amount of the break out hits have occurred on the PC over the last gen (examples already listed like League of Legends, Minecraft, and DayZ).

That's what XBLA/PSN Games are for though. I don't disagree that it mean's there's overall less choice, but I'd hardly call it just for Cinematic AAA experiences. That's an absolutely ridiculous sentiment. Sony and Microsoft have put a lot of effort into making their systems more welcoming for Indie developers coming into the next gen.

I believe there is a place for store fronts containing endless freedom, and store fronts with a bit more regulation. I don't think it's fair to dismiss either, because each have their positives and downsides.

 

[Stumpokapow]

Many of the games mentioned in my video today are not Early Access games.

Well I already responded to your actual argument in the video the first time I responded to the thread. You're simultaneously complaining about publisher-backed bad games; amateur hour independent titles; pre-release titles being sold while still in development; and glitchy games.

Publisher-backed bad games:
Takedown is also releasing on XBLA and I believe it's already out on PSN. Rekoil is either on or coming to XBLA. Rogue Warrior was on Steam and Xbox 360 and PSN. Leisure Suit Larry Butt Patrol was as well. As was Aliens: Colonial Marines. Bad games backed by publishes have always been released on many platforms. No platform has ever blocked a game for being a bad game.

Amateur hour independent titles:
Probably fewer than 1000 people bought Revelations 2012, most of those who bought it only played it to make videos making fun of how bad it was. It's not clear there's a problem with people getting swindled. People aren't buying the vast majority of bad games, and they aren't buying the vast majority of the Desura cruft floating upwards to Steam. Infestation: Survivor Stories (which you note was called The War Z) is probably the only bad independent game I can think of that appears to have duped a large number of people. In response to that, Valve offered refunds to purchasers and momentarily pulled the game from the store. Now that it's back, it's still a bad game. However, despite being a consensus terrible game, a lot of people like it and it is still actively played by an engaged and enjoying player base.

Early Access games:
Early access games are very clearly labeled and absent a specific case of someone lying about the labeling, I don't see the point here.

Buggy or glitchy games:
I agree that a weakness of PC gaming is the potential for this to happen. I can't play the first STALKER game because it won't boot on my Windows computer because my Windows username has a space in it. Walking Dead won't work for me either. It sucks. It sucks to be burnt by this. Valve should do more. But this isn't a recent problem, it's also not a problem that's got worse recently. Most of the Greenlit titles have been using pre-existing middleware and perform well and aren't notably buggy. So this is an issue, but it's not connected to the other issues.

When you take a bunch of issues, some of which are more valid and some less, none of which are connected, and you stitch them together into one video, what you get is basically a rant. That's where the negative feedback is coming from. It doesn't feel like you actually examined the issues and came to a sort of more holistic opinion on them. It doesn't seem like you looked at the way Steam has expanded, how players in general feel about the expansion, which kinds of games that's opened the door to, how we deal with reduced front-page visibility... instead, it looks like you identified some games you knew were bad and blamed Valve for them.

 

[CoffeeJanitor]

Steam doesn't need quality control, at all. If you think a game sucks the simple answer is not to buy it.

.

Control your wallets!

 

[Derrick01]

Here are the top reviewed games of all time on the app store:

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/ios?view=condensed&sort=desc

How many of these have you never heard of?

We're talking about Steam though. The PC gaming community is entirely different than the mobile and console crowds.