'Fake Games' Problem in Steam: Valve Makes Changes, Recruits Explorers to Eliminate 'Fake Games'
While starting out as the game developer behind classic games that include "Half-Life" and "Portal," Valve now has settled down as a merchant that sells the games that other game developers produce. Their Steam online store is what supplies most of the business for the company, and with its growth comes a host of problems including issues with low-quality "fake" games.
The Steam online store caters to game developers regardless of size. In fact, initiatives such as the Steam Greenlight has been created to help along the smaller, independent game makers to promote and market their games among the multitude of titles that line up the virtual shelves of the Steam game store.
Some developers, however, have turned to exploiting these facilities by dumping cheap, defective and otherwise bad games for short-term profit, as reported by gaming news outlet Geek.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Valve has implemented measures to combat the growing tide of trash games, one of them the earlier Steam Direct program that will replace Steam Greenlight. The company has also turned to game critics to help with curating games, among them Jim Sterling and John "TotalBiscuit" Bain to start what the company calls the "Steam Explorers" drive.
The popular YouTube personalities were invited to the company's Bellevue office. There, they use their role as influencers in the field of video games to describe the Steam Explorers' objective of sifting through the huge pile of junk titles to dig out the worthwhile titles that may have been buried under all the trash, according to a feature by The Verge.
Along with initiatives like the Steam Explorers, the company is also beginning to implement measures that will hamper the profitability of cheap, mass-produced games. The recently launched Steam Direct will be "intended to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline," requiring more requirements in the way that makes it similar to opening a bank account, to curtail those who are not serious about publishing games to the store, according to BBC.
