It's fine to dislike Steam b ecause of it's DRM,but ridiculing them for adding games aimed at young kids to their offerings is stupid. They are trying to expand their market.
As for Steam selling bad games, I have to point out GOG offers a few stinkers also.

imho seeing couple of publisher trying to bribe user to vote using giveaway campaign rather than healty marketing campaing i'm glad it was getting rid off

Whatever might change the Terms Of Service of steamworks to bestt benefit free-market , is something i will leap in joy about. Fsck steamworks, and all who attempt to pwn. Arsehatz,. Fsck them. Die troll die.

It is not just the finding quality games I am concerned about - I am more concerned with a crash similar or worse to the 1983 video game crash.

Valve has allot of influence in the PC Gaming space and to see them just disappear due to a major boycott of their services would not only be bad for the PC gaming space but for all of gaming. Sony is

Investors would probably stop lending money out or worse back out of companies that have partnered with steam / want to partner with steam.

Now how is this bad for consoles as well?

Sony is literally bleeding money right now. They have a 78% Chance to go bankrupt in the next two years. Keep in mind if this happens at the same time as valve is having major financial issues then there will be major problems for games. As for Nintendo they have a 75% Chance thanks to the Wii U to go bankrupt in the next 2 years of operation.

With that said - Bad games are not helping us on either Steam, GOG.com, or wherever you purchase your games.

I have also included my sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash_of_1983

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2014/01/02/sony-has-78-chance-to-go-bankrupt-in-two-years-says-macroaxis/

http://www.macroaxis.com/invest/ratio/NTDOY.PK--Probability-Of-Bankruptcy

That was before the information age. People were buying those games off of store shelves with little knowledge as to the quality of the game, or their perceived quality of the game.

Now it's just a mouse click away. You can read all sorts of reviews, watch gameplay video, talk about it on forums, go to the devs/publishers web site, etc.

Right? GOG needs to loosen their belt a little, though at the same time they're still relatively small.

I feel like the biggest bump to GOG's growth is customer service... which happens to be one of their core attractions. Hopefully they get more experienced at juggling tech support for thousands of people (they do do a fairly good job compared to others).

Steam enjoys a level of dominance that gives them room to do/try something stupid and not get wiped out over it. So they piss a lot of people off, where are they going to go? In a lot of cases there is no alternative, so people will grumble and deal with it, because putting up with stuff is better than not playing Skyrim.

And if they do manage to foster enough ill will that people start seriously calling for the end of Steam exclusives or boycotts, well they are in a good position to correct the source of backlash and move on. Quality Control is a very fixable issue. If it slides totally out of hand, I don't see why they couldn't just tighten things up and say "sorry. We will do better from now on."

I think it would be somewhat fascinating to watch if Steam did implode, but I don't think worrying about it actually happening is worth any serious thought right now. Anyone that does naturally worry about long term access to their amassed gaming collection because it's tied to something as fickle and fleeting as a company, might consider thinking about just how badly they want to support that model.

Is it possible for a video game crash, similar to the one in 1983? Yes.

However the video game industry is going nowhere but up, crash or otherwise. The ubiquitous nature of video gaming in the modern age is the precept to thank for that. Combined with the growing indie movement, and platforms such as kickstarter, the industry on the macro spectrum is growing healthily.

All that will happen, is some big companies will potentially go out of business, which concerning the fact we should have a free market, and we should look at business from an evolutionary perspective, is only a good thing. Granted it's sad when someone looses a job, but concerning the market, their highly skilled and specialized knowledge... they should do just fine.

Can, and will, Steam inevitably fall? Yes, history teaches us that all empires eventually fall.

Are they going to this year or next? No. However, one must remember that Gabe Newell has stated on many occasions, that there are systems in place for such an eventuality.

I actually like the iOS marketplace. It doesn't have as much shovelware as Android and it's much easier to find the good games. I think Apple does get the quality control done right for the most part.

Google Store, on the other hand, is horrible in my opinion. It's filled with crap and some of the stuff there clearly violate IP laws (for example, games using assets from famous games to fool consumers). It's way too hard to find good stuff hidden in the pile of crap.

the greenlight and allowing indie games , early access are still in their infant stage , i am sure once valve has enough data on what the indie devs have done with the opportunity they had been given, they will tune.

steam is becoming much better each day , just got a beta update where you can disable individual dlc for a game if you don't like em, this means getting rid of those free high quality textures dlc in some games.

You can't universally claim a game is bad, it will be a good for someone thats what i have learnt from being on steam for so long, you have 90% hating the game but there will be a 10% who will love it and form a cult for the game.

What i am hoping in steam is a reporting a game or particular nasty dev to steam for removal consideration if they got overwhelming complaints they should take off the game.

for what it is, apart from a few bad apples , this year has been amazing return for some lost old classic and great new releases on both platforms , go play blackwell epiphany on steam or gog , there are plenty of quality releases

I completely agree.

All we will see in a crash in the foreseeable future, is one or two less traditional companies. However, we must remember that some mainstream titles in the market now, are lousy and suffering from problems. Both, lacking in quality and originality.

The Video Game market as a whole, can survive quite well without a Ubisoft, EA, and or etc...

And that's all that would occur during a crash in the present era, a few less titans.

yes steam is closing.
Everyone just run in panic like maniacs!

You know, i've seen people "predict" a crash many times already. It's popular to predict "doom" nowadays. Nintendo is doomed, Valve is doomed, Sony is doomed, Microsoft is doomed, EA is doomed, and the list of companies "doomed" goes on and on. A crash similar to 1983? That's extremely unlikely. Actually, i would say that it's impossible. The gaming industry today is MUCH, MUCH bigger and diverse than it was back in 1983. You can't compare the industry today to how it was 30 years ago.

Back then there was Atari, the king of gaming, and some small competitors that had meaningless a market share. Atari basically dominated the whole gaming market. Whatever happened to it would have taken the whole industry down with it, because, basically, Atari was the gaming industry.

Nowadays it's much different. We have 3 console companies with Sony being the biggest name right now. But even Sony is VERY far from having the majority of the console market share (for the current generation) like Atari did. And then there's the PC and tablets/phones as a viable gaming platforms. Not to mention alternative models like F2P, Early Access, Kickstarter. If one company scews up, it won't bring the entire industry down with it.

Also, let's not forget that gaming never generated as much money as it does today. There's a lot of money coming from the traditional retail market, from mobile gaming and F2P.

The gaming industry in the 80s was still at it's infancy, there were still some doubts about the wole thing. The gaming industry today is much more solid.
I'll quote the article you posted yourself:
"Macroaxis is little more than an algorithm-based prediction tool. They use stock numbers to predict the long term health of companies, something one would need future-telling powers to predict accurately."
Don't take these numbers as FACTS like you're doing there.

Look at this, for example, which isn't an "algorithm-base prediction tool":
http://www.gamesradar.com/nintendo-doomed-not-likely-just-take-look-how-much-money-its-got-bank/

And even if Sony goes bankrupt, someone will certainly pick the PS division up to keep it running. Sony's gaming division has been doing fine for years and the PS4 is already the console with the biggest market share of the current generation. Same goes for Nintendo, since it has the most valuable IPs in the gaming industry.

You know something?. Why even ask? This is a GOG forum.. a DRM free forum and u ask us here whether we are concerned if Steam goes belly up (or something equally bad happens) ?....i for one am not concerned. Anyone else? :D No. But Steam is becoming a lot like Android/iOS marketplaces.. lots and lots and lots of really crappy shovelware games......:)..I'd say thats a bigger concern than Steam tanking it anytime soon....
Just imagine the rage and hysteria it would cause on their forums...... :P...would be popcorn time...