This is absolutely subjective. Assets flips could count, but I’ve played and enjoyed several of those. Flappy Bird style games kind of fall into this category.

This is subjective. Just because a full grown adult with different tastes doesn’t like something doesn’t mean it’s shovelware. A 5 year old kid might love it.

But, here’s a better question. How much does it cost to moderate a platform with that many games?

Because they do moderate the platform just not in a way you like.

Literally in this comments section there’s someone else talking about how they delist or de-prioritize games that don’t get good feedback. You just want them to not allow those games at all.

The game Horses was moderated off the platform. You just want moderation to fit your specific model that you made up in your head.

Would a decentralized version of Steam do that?

Is that 30% the bulk of Valve’s profit?

What do Indie developers get in exchange for Valve’s 30% cut on Steam that they don’t get elsewhere that charges 30% or charges less of a percentage?

So could physical retailers, so how’s that working out?

I’m not going to say they can’t do that. It’s not a bad suggestion but it seems to be suggested continually in a vacuum without considering other factors.

Ok. So what percentage of the games launched on steam are shovelware vs quality indie games. And where is that line? And who makes that decision?

The main problem I see with this is that game devs are trying to use capitalism to make money. So what you’re saying is, it’s alright for game devs, but not for store fronts.

That doesn’t make sense to me.

Additionally though, of the major gaming retailers, Valve has the least predatory model (I’m not counting smaller game retailers in this because we need to be honest about the fact that they aren’t competing in the market with Valve as far as what they offer devs).

Did you take into account the reasons that game devs choose Valve over other retailers like GOG? Or the fact that very often game devs will use Valve, GOG and other gaming retailers?

You didn’t give any specifics in your answer to me and honestly I have to wonder if you even know where the majority of Valves money comes from.

Follow-up question.

How does the consumer benefit from and why should they switch to a different retailer than Valve’s Steam? What is the benefit of a fediverse style retailer and how does it work?

I believe that this is as much about game quality, over saturation, and marketing/inertia as it is about Valve in general, but I’m trying to understand what they think (based on the contents of the article) can be done to fix this problem for game devs.

Hey op, I see a lot of your arguments in the comments.

I have a challenge.

Name 5 things Valve could implement to change this that would not be to the detriment of indie devs.

This is not a joke. You have opinions. I want to hear them.

I’m also curious (since I see you pushing a decentralized market place in the comments), how you think a decentralized marketplace would function and what would be better about it.

Then literally no indie games would ever get popular.