Valve Wants to Redesign Steam to Get Rid of "Fake Games"
We can all agree that Steam, in its current state, leaves a lot to be desired. This especially goes for Steam Greenlight, a noble idea that got completely destroyed by asset flippers and other scam artists looking to make a quick buck. Fortunately, it seems that’s all going away, thanks to the new Steam Explorers system that Valve wants to implement.
Recently, two very influential gaming journalists and champions of Steam, Jim Sterling and John Bain, aka TotalBiscuit went over to Seattle in order to confer with Valve employees. The reason for that is that Valve wanted their input on the new system that they want to use to clean up Steam of “fake games”. It’s called Steam Explorers, and here’s a quick breakdown of how it should work.
Since Steam has become completely buried with awful games and even worse asset flips, Valve finally stepped up to clean house. That’s why they’re retiring Steam Greenlight and replacing it with Steam Direct. This way, they’re removing a lot of control from the community in order to curb some of the system abuse.
However, the new issue that presents itself is that this might take audiences away from potentially good game that don’t get attention. To get around this, Valve is introducing Steam Explorers. Anybody can become a Steam Explorer, much like the Curators. Their job will be to play games that aren’t selling well. If they like them, they can flag them, and the more flags a game gets, they’ll presumably start popping up more often in the Recommended section. Explorers will get a forum of their own, so that they can coordinate more easily.
The Curators system, meanwhile, is also getting revamped. They’ll be able to form top ten lists, embed videos, and sort their lists in several ways. If you’re a developer, you’ll be able to send your game via Steam to the curator. Curators will also get more information about how their actions affect sales.
Valve is also cracking down on Steam trading cards, since it’s been confirmed that “fake game” developers have been abusing the system for making money. So, they’re re-hauling how trading cards work.
They also want to provide more information to regular users. We’ll be able to see, for example, the impressions that the game’s page is getting. All of these changes serve to try and tip the scales in favor of quality over quantity on Steam. The entire system is still in development, but I really hope it works.
What do you think of the proposed changes to Steam? Share your opinion in the comments!
