9 Huge Failings Slowly Killing Steam

2. Quality Control

Of all of Valve's failings, their sheer lack of quality control or ability to keep check on games uploaded to the platform is what harms the system the most. It would be one thing for bad games to be released on Steam, but quite frequently bug-ridden, badly programmed titles which hardly even count as finished can be found up for sale. Forget Ride To Hell: Retribution, these include the sorts of titles which look as if they have yet to reach alpha testing, or worse prove to be outright unplayable at the best of times. It seems that with the right publisher backing up a game or the right pitch, any title is permitted onto Steam without objections, no matter their state or whether they were actually playable. Daylight was allowed onto the platform despite severe graphical issues which made prevented countless buyers from even starting the game. Deus Ex: The Fall was so badly ported to the PC that fighting was a near impossibility thanks to a bug which zoomed into the screen every time the player fired a weapon. Revelations 2012 is another stellar example; a game with less strategic depth than Pac-Man that was little more than a Half-Life 2 mod, yet was given the okay for full price purchase nonetheless. Then we have the really bad ones such as Killjoy Games' Air Control. Little more than a poorly put together Flappy Bird clone with the graphical quality of a child's crayon scribble. This is a game which explains to the player how to overcome game crashes, graphical glitches and the like in the tutorial - because the programmers could not be bothered to personally correct them. While some of these games were fixed in later patches, the fact they were sold despite retaining such massive programming errors and shoddy quality speaks volumes about how little Valve will curate its own stock. Well, that and Steam's report system. Updated back in March of this year, clicking on the report button brings up a variety of catagories such as Hate Speech, Fraud, Legal Violation, Harmful (Viruses and Malware), and Child Exploitation. While any extensive reporting system is naturally appreciated, it's very hard not to raise an eyebrow at just how specific many of these categories are. Or, more to the point, why Valve itself is requiring users to single out and report these elements rather than staff discover these problems before allowing them on the service. As more and more games find their way onto Steam, the more titles broken to the point of being unplayable will show up on the store page. With each one, Valve loses more credibility as a publisher and the community are given more reasons to start looking elsewhere for a more reliable platform. It may even take years for this to have serious effect, but gradually players will lose their patience with the company.