One of the efforts to free up work on Valve's part was the way its multitude of forums work, as rather than being moderated and individually monitored by a third party, each is directly controlled by the developer personally. It only takes a brief look into gaming history to see how this power turns into censorship; Piranha Games Inc. (the aforementioned Hammerpoint Interactive), Wild Games Studio and countless others have proven just how readily certain companies are willing to censor and delete negative opinions wherever possible - and this is rife among certain releases on Steam. These include the likes of FUN Creators, developers of the infamously bad Guise of the Wolf. They used their power to delete statements and ban members under the excuse of making "useless paintbrush posts" - usually when some customers had opted to complain about the unfinished graphics, poor AI and the problematic stealth system. A more extreme example can be found in the form of Earth: Year 2066, which featured the developer Killing Day Studios (AKA Muxwell) censoring, editing and destroying any comment which he felt affronted him. Usually the ones which pointed out certain questionable design choices, such as the fact the screen on the game's menu had been taken from Google Images and used without crediting the artists. After declaring that all critics were "spammers, trolls and provokers" the developer went on to nuke the entire forum and renamed the game's community forum "The Troll Tavern." Neither of these examples involved Steam stepping in to stop this at any point, at least until very widespread and public protest forced them to remove Earth: Year 2066 from the store. While it would be an almost impossible task to devote a group of Valve employees to patrol each and every forum for the thousands of games on Steam, the sheer lack of oversight is inexcusable. With this hands off approach by the Valve, developers are free to censor any threads or comments they view as potentially harming their sales. With no obvious moderation, there is no threat of retribution to prevent this sort of thing happening before it truly starts. The forums as a whole need some kind of oversight, with a small staff devoted to investigating the worst cases or performing random sweeps throughout certain forums to check on their state. To put it simply: Valve needs some kind of Sword of Damocles-style repercussion to keep the worst of these developers in line.
A gamer who has played everything from Daikatana to Dwarf Fortress. An obsessive film fanatic valuing everything from The Third Man to Flash Gordon. An addict to tabletop titles, comics and the classics of science fiction, whatever media they are a part of.
