http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/8753-Steam-Needs-Quality-Control
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762656

Discuss please

Meh don't care. You can expect any platform to have 100% all good games.

Very True but developers shouldn't be allowed to delete or censor negative criticism or boost their user scores.

Apparently Steam needs better lawyers more than quality control ;-p

First: the guy actually gets a MASSIVE +1 from me for acknowledging that GOG's releases generally work while many classic releases on Steam don't. Also makes you think about that *huge* advantage that Steam has with it's fantastic automatic update system that allows everyone, both the developers and gamers, to patch games so quickly and easily...

Anyway, as for the general attitude of this guy - true, Steam should take more responsibility for its releases. The games they sell should at least *work*. However...

For one, Steam is a distributor, not more than a digital shop. And you know, in retail stores there's also zillions of mediocre games that may or may not work, that are complete trash that nobody really caring about quality and reputation would offer. It's always been like that and still is - and neither did the industry crash due to these games nor did people stop buying at the stores where they may have acquired one or numerous of these abominations. The industry has educated gamers in a certain way, they started reading magazines for reviews, looking up opinions online, trusting in the really big publishers (who may also produce a lot of crap but at least crap after some QA). I've always felt that it's my responsibility to buy the right games, not the shops'/distributors' to exclusively offer worthwhile games, that's why I can't really complain about Steam offering "crap" - although it is insane that they provide publishers and developers with the means to silence criticism. That's just sick.

Another thing is that too much QA performed by Steam could kill off many quirky yet brilliant games. There's been quite a few broken and trashy games that still turned out to be fantastic - there's been games that no publisher or reviewer would have taken seriously but gamers appreciated. Heck, even here on GOG there's a few games that were initially refused by the staff but ultimately got a release because of outcries in the community (at least I'm pretty sure that that's been the case several times). Anyway, "openness" in distribution may give many of these games the only chance to get well-deserved success. People shouldn't forget about that when complaining about garbage sold on Steam and other distributors.

Exactly if I don't do any research on a game before I buy it and it happens to be shit, it's my fault rather than the platform.

I sort of agree that it's hard to filter through the number of games that come out on Steam nowadays, but I strongly disagree with the solution that seems to be implied.

I also disagree that we are really "oversaturated" with games. Sure, it can be hard to filter through all the stuff that comes out, but that also hold true for what I would call "healthy" entertainment mediums and art forms like books and music.
Heck, I can't think of many large attempts at "quality control" in video games, or any entertainment medium or form of artistic expression for that matter, that didn't also result in a significant portion of consumers being unable to get what they wanted.

If you think that games are "oversaturated" then maybe you haven't tried to shop for books or music that you want in a long while.
Those mediums are much more "oversaturated" than games are, but at least in those mediums I can be reasonably sure that I can find anything I want with enough digging. I still can't say the same for games, even though the "floodgates" are supposedly "open".

True but it some instances the developers/publishers were having negative reviews pulled from Steam forums as well as review sites and even video sites like Youtube while having employees put up positive reviews which is very deceptive and dishonest for those that do research.

Bah they don't care about QA anyway.... they have pretty much monopoly of the market, whats a few dozen shit games between friends? :P (im wondering whether they had any QA to begin with, the quality of offerings are pretty much similar quality to when they launched years ago).

There's always youtube or just waiting.

As I said some Developers/Publishers have successfully had poor reviews pulled from Youtube and other review sites plus if you are planning a Day 1 purchase waiting isn't an option (and there are those impulse buyers who do quick searches).

I don't think they want quality control in the first place. To be perfectly honest, I would not want quality control on Steam either - there's a good number of games that other considered terrible, yet I have loved

That's why I never do anything day 1. AAA or indie, doesn't matter.

I think it gets all messed up when greenlight and Early Access get involved. Yes definitely....one man's trash is another ones treasure...goes for any game really (even the universally putrid ones... there's some suckers out there who love them *looks at no Gog forumite in particular *whistling* hahaha*