But aren’t we all? Steam is a pretty decent online store. At least Smash Bros. creator, Masahiro Sakurai, thinks so. Maybe he could, you know, make a game to sell there?
“It’s become mandatory that each platform has its own built-in [digital] shop.” Sakurai reflected in his semi-weekly column in Weekly Famitsu. “So among those, which online shop is superior and offers the most incentive to buy from it? I would answer, ‘Steam.’”
Despite being ostensibly a creator of games for Nintendo systems, Sakurai overtly praised Valve’s marketing system from multiple angles. “When someone opens Steam, depending their purchase and viewing history, suggested titles pop up. And there are sales almost every day with massive deals.” Sakura observed. “The changes vary, making me check in frequently.”
In terms of ratings and feedback, Sakurai emphasised the Steam format which discourages flaming and malicious low score spamming by only allowing ratings from people who purchased the game they were rating, as well as showing the play time of the rater, and ratings for ratings.
From genre and theme tags for easy organised searching, online rankings, Steam achievements, wish lists, the ability to purchase bundle packs with the games and all available DLC, automatic updating, to sharing with social network services, Sakurai gushed over the Steam service. “I write this because on varying levels, I have complaints with every other online shopping format.” Sakurai said in conclusion. “While there are limitations for each platform, perhaps those in development of shopping apps could take a page from Steam’s playbook?”
None of the games that Sakurai has worked on are available on Steam, and he did not say that he would like to put any of his games there. But coming away from his outpouring of enthusiasm for the system, I wouldn’t be surprised if the urge was there. Not to fall back on the old, “if you love such-and-such so much, why don’t you marry it?” but, I wouldn’t be against seeing an all-new Sakurai game on Steam. If he’s feeling up to it, at least.
Comments
14 responses to “Smash Bros. Creator Is Totally Impressed With Steam”
Yeah pretty much. Steam has developed a reputation for cheap games and become the way to buy games on PC. The other platforms just don’t have the same good reputation, even with XBL, PSPlus and Origin literally giving you games for free just for being there I’d always prefer Steam.
I would say Steam’s reputation recently has taken a hit with the way it has allowed crappy, unfinished and blatant cash grab games onto the store itself.
Valve needs to bring back some Quality Control to the store in y opinion.
I just tend to stick with what I know when buying games on steam.
– have I heard about this game?
– are the reviews mostly positive?
– is the meta rating above 60?
– Is the game in early alpha?
If I’m unsure about buying a game using the above questions I’ll most likely watch a gameplay video on youtube or just wait until a steam sale is happening
Yeah, the only thing that impresses me with Steam nowadays is the terrible games up on offer
Think of all the terrible games you bypass in dedicated game shops. Consider Steam to be equal opportunity game sellers.
If the game is shit, don’t buy it. I don’t want Valve deciding what I should and shouldn’t buy. When Valve used to enforce QC everyone complained that “X” game wasn’t on Steam, now almost every new PC game is on Steam and you’re complaining still. YOU DON’T GET IT BOTH WAYS.
Games people wanted were being denied on Steam because of QC issues..?
Sorry, correction to that, they were being denied because of “unknown selection criteria”, Steam has never had QC, but they have made it a lot easier to get games on Steam recently, and now we have a lot more shit games on Steam, we also have a lot more good games on Steam though, i.e. Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers, Project Zomboid, etc. None of these would have gotten on Steam in the old days.
A few years ago Steam was very locked down, getting on Steam was a big deal, indies needed to try VERY hard to get on Steam, and people often complained about why games weren’t on Steam. Now everything is on Steam, there isn’t a new game that doesn’t have a VERY good chance of appearing on Steam. It seems that the reason a game isn’t on Steam these days is because the developer doesn’t want it to be. If Steam starts enforcing QC we will end up in a situation like we were before.
I would rather have access to shit I don’t buy then no access to the shit I do buy.
The problem is that the current trajectory leads toward something horrifying and abominable, like a mobile app store where the only way to find anything in the torrent of shit is to rely on brave pearl-diving individuals.
The same developers who were complaining about not getting onto Steam so they could get their big payday are now complaining that there’s no more big payday because of the sheer number of offerings on there and how little time in the sun they get, now that someone new gets on every few minutes.
Basically developers complaining that they are stuck in traffic instead of realizing that they ARE traffic.
Good games still sell on Steam like hot cakes, but you need to actually be good not just show up. As for brave pearl-diving individuals, they already exists, they are on youtube.
That’s exactly the problem. You can get by without them, but with the curator program and youtubers picking up the slack, Valve’s basically resigning Steam to its de-evolution to app-store levels of waste.
I agree but consoles are not escaping this either. Considering they have a single hardware config for each).
DOA shipped bugged. Many other with day 0 patches.
I find it interesting that the author’s focus is on getting a Nintendo-dev’s games on Steam and not on having every other digital shopfront lift their fucking game to match what Steam’s bringing to the table.
It amazes me that in this day and age a lot of digital storefronts, especially those from very big names in the business, are incredibly horrible to use and lack many core features that have been standard for many years now. Steam has only just started to become good in the past half year or so but still has a very long way to go. With the torrential influx of games, including those that are in Early Access, discovery and quality control are absolutely vital and Steam isn’t really stepping up on that front in my experience.