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Trash, trash and more trash. That's how I would describe what has been gaining a foothold on Steam over the past year or so. Today it's time to rinse 'Noob Squad' [Steam], an indie FPS that normally costs £0.75.

I'm all for stores being a bit more open, but stuff like this takes the biscuit and then some. It's usually £0.75, but right now it's on sale for £0.37. I know what you're thinking, and I don't expect anything really for that amount of money, but damn this is a game that's actually being sold on Steam.

Their official description of the game on Steam is just full of pictures of random people, rather than actually giving a proper description of the game itself.

I purchased it to see if maybe, just maybe, the developers were acting like children on Steam to be "edgy", but no, the game is just junk. This is the kind of thing I would expect to see fail to gain enough votes even on Greenlight, which is supposed to be Valve's way of weeding out the crap. Valve are utterly failing at any form of quality control. Sadly Greenlight is often abused by developers, giving out free keys for votes, bot voting and so on.

To make it clear: This is not an Early Access game, this is a full and complete game suggesting it should have some level of quality to it.

I'm damn sure the developer simply slapped some low resolution stock Unity assets along with some kind of FPS tutorial and called it a day. It sounds like it even rips kill announcements from Unreal Tournament.

I'm not asking for GOG-level curation here where legitimate indie games get turned down all the time, but at least a little please Valve.

Games like this flooding Steam take away some of the valuable time other new games would usually get in the newly released section, which can be a real problem for other more deserving developers who need the visibility. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Nel Oct 9, 2016
Dude, be serious 2min, it's not about "knowing", it's about testing in real condition and providing support. You know, something professional. Releasing a game is not just "Hit the compile button and upload the result on Steam".

Tomb Raider runs well on Linux, even with hardware close to Windows minimum requirement.
Someone tested it with this config, and was surprised how good it works even on his crap hardware.
- OS: Linux Rosa 64 bits
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00Ghz
- GPU: NVIDIA G94 [Geforce 9600 GT]
- RAM: 4 GB

link


Last edited by Nel on 9 October 2016 at 7:22 pm UTC
Doc Angelo Oct 9, 2016
I don't actually know how this game would end up in anybody's steam game library. The only way would be to just buy some really cheap titles without looking at the store page. Just take a look at the store page. I think it is extremely clear that this is not "a polished full game". If you can't tell by the standard price, the store page should get the message across in less then 5 seconds. They even tried very hard to make it obvious that this game isn't meant seriously.

I don't understand why that would be a actual problem? Of course it's odd that those games are on steam, they don't serve any purpose except being silly. But hey, you really don't have to buy them.

Are there really that much people who are buying games without taking a look at the store page?
Nanobang Oct 10, 2016
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People sell crap because people buy crap.

Tl;dr: CAVEAT EMPTOR friends and neighbors. Caveat emptor.

Crap selling is universal. Wherever "goods" are being sold, "crap" is being sold nearby. Retail chains, grocery stores, online retailers, all of them sell crap. They sell good stuff too, but it's mixed in among all the crap.

I've never actually read [Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and The Bazaar](http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/index.html#catbmain), from cover to cover, but Steam's Greenlight system seems very much like it's trying to operate closer to the open-source "Bazaar" model than the closed-source "Cathedral" model.

Rather than have one person or even several people "curating" what is and is not acceptable to be sold on Steam (Cathedral), Valve is trying to apply Linus' Law:
Quote"Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone."
Greenlight "test"s whether a game will sell or not (selling games being Valve's business), and voters on Greenlight are akin, then, to "beta-testers" in this analogue. It's not "perfect," but it is human, and like any human-based system of discernment, it is inherently biased. Clearly crap can get through the process, but like I said, crap selling is universal.

Valve knows there will always be customers that hate this or that game no matter how well curated it might try to make the goods sold on Steam. As Aesop pointed out some 2,500 years ago, "You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."


Last edited by Nanobang on 10 October 2016 at 1:52 pm UTC
orochi_kyo Oct 11, 2016
Quoting: liamdawe
Quoting: kalinStop crying like a baby.
Really? You're going to bring it down to that level?
Quoting: kalinWithout valve and steam we probably will have nothing. Steam is very good serves and the only one I have know to have refund.
I think you will find GOG do refunds and have done so long before Steam.
Quoting: kalinAlso it is not possible for valve to manage all indi entries and for that they create steam greenlight and if something bad pass the greenlight its users fault.
It's not as simple as that, Greenlight is often abused quite badly by developers. Bot votes, free keys for votes and so on.
Quoting: kalinNext time bofero buy somethin watch the reviews and videos attach to the game
You missed the entire point of the article. I did not go into it blindly expecting a miracle, I am highlighting it because it is bad.

You know, somehow I dont know why you make this article anyways, aside from the assets stolen from other games, this game is just bad, no reason to blame Valve for not doing their job on "quality control", since we know Valve have never done such a thing as QA. If people wants to have a store with QA, play on consoles, still you will miss good games like Unturned or No more room in Hell because those games would never pass Sony or M$ QA.

Then this become a dislike thread, dislike towards Steam and most of the games available on Linux in the Steam store, with people claiming that 70% of the games for linux are "crap". Thats a lie, and you know it but people likes to exaggerate the facts to sound more convincing. Comparing GOG to Steam is kinda ridiculous, you better know that it doesnt matter if GOG did support linux first, without Steam, Linux game list would be pretty short, and games like Rocket League would never come to the platform.

Valve said last year Greenlight devs offering keys for votes will be banned, here we have to face a sad reality, people like to vote for sh!t on Greenlight, just for trolling, thats the problem when you give people too much power, same happens on the review system.

Like it or not Valve has push Linux gaming, not good enough for many, I can agree with that, but at least we have games to play now and not only that old abandonware GOG used to sell in their store.

Dont take me wrong, nothing personal, I really enjoy reading your articles, but this time this seems to be out of place.
Cheeseness Oct 14, 2016
Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: NelOh please stop this bullshit, this has been explained til death...

Are you trying to sell me that porters do not know how much RAM or how recent GPU their port will need?
Sorry, but I do not buy this piece of... smooth talking.

I ported Day of the Tentacle Remastered to Linux and I couldn't tell you what graphics cards it does and doesn't run on or even what the theoretical minimum for RAM usage might be.

I removed the hard coded minimum GL check to allow people on way old hardware to at least try if they want, but like Nel says, the published system requirements we ended up going with more comes down to what we're willing to support (this is also true for the Windows system requirements - they're just what matches the lowest spec machines that happened to be laying around). If somebody has problems and it turns out that those are caused by obscure hardware that I can't get ahold of, then my options for reproducing, diagnosing and fixing those problems are significantly reduced.

That's not smooth talking. That's me being realistic about how I want to spend my own time and how much of other people's time I'm willing to waste.


Quoting: GuestI meant 'don't buy it' in response to the idea that stuff like this shouldn't be on steam. I think their user-curated Greenlight system is a good idea. Clearly some people want to pay money for this shit - let them have it I say!

This is how I feel about it. Plus, those that are pushing their way through Greenlight by means other than demonstrating an enthusiastic userbase are only making surviving on Steam harder for themselves and will wallow in obscurity, so it's not like they're getting free success.

There was an interview from a while back where Gabe had talked about his vision for Steam as an open platform where he wanted to give people the ability to create their own Steam "storefronts" (I feel like the Steam curator stuff is the first step along this path). Steam as a single monolithic storefront is becoming less and less relevant, and that's the only context where the signal to noise ratio of the quality of games really matters.

I'd much rather see individual communities highlight games that they find interesting (whether that be assessed through quality, production values, or more valuable subjective means) than have storefronts cull out ones that they think aren't.
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