What makes a "troll game"? Valve tries for a Steam-wide definition
Some of Valve's definitions of trolling seem relatively clear-cut. Most everyone would agree that Steam should remove developers that are "trying to scam folks out of their Steam inventory items" or those "looking for a way to generate a small amount of money off Steam through a series of schemes that revolve around how we let developers use Steam keys," for instance.
There's a little more subjectivity in determining if a Steam title is what Valve calls "a game shaped object." The company defines this category as "a crudely made piece of software that technically and just barely passes our bar as a functioning video game but isn't what 99.9% of folks would say is 'good.'" There may be some edge cases where a game some people consider "broken" is one that others consider brilliantly deconstructed "art." For the most part, though, a game that only 1 in 1,000 people would consider playable sets a good rule-of-thumb threshold for what deserves removal from Steam.
Where the "troll game" determination begins to get squishy is in games and developers that Valve says are "just trying to incite and sow discord." This is similar to the justification Valve used in June to remove Active Shooter, an unreleased game that planned to let players take on the role of a school shooter or the SWAT team trying to stop him. [...] The Active Shooter case gets into the one thing that Valve says unites all of these different troll developers: their malign motives. A troll developer is one that isn't "actually interested in good faith efforts to make and sell games to you or anyone," the company writes. While good-faith developer efforts can obviously lead to "crude or lower quality games" on Steam, Valve says that "it really does seem like bad games are made by bad people." And it's those bad games from bad people that Valve doesn't want on Steam.
Pool's closed, no AIDS Simulator for you.
Also at Motherboard.
Previously: "Active Shooter" Game on Steam Sparks Uproar
Valve Still Lives in the Waking Nightmare of Web 2.0
Related Stories
School Shooting Game Angers Steam Users, Developer 'Likely' Changing It
Earlier this week, a game called Active Shooter appeared on Steam. It'd be nothing more than another heap of hacked-together pre-purchased assets—or an "asset flip," as they're known on Steam—if not for its subject matter. It's about mass shootings.
The unreleased game's Steam store page describes it as a "dynamic S.W.A.T. simulator" in which you play as a shooter, a S.W.A.T. team member trying to neutralize them, or a civilian. Its trailer depicts a player running down school halls and through classrooms, indiscriminately murdering teachers until a S.W.A.T. team shows up.
Complaints about the game have been fierce, and yesterday the person behind the game said they'll probably remove the option to play as the mass shooter. Almost as soon as the game's store listing went up, Steam users took to the game's forums to voice their distaste.
The developer will send "press review" copies out on May 30.
The Hill mistakenly claimed that Active Shooter is "created by video game company Valve" (they have since corrected their article).
Recently, Valve made headlines when it demanded that developers remove "pornographic content" from visual novel games. Some developers/publishers have since received apologies and their games are under re-review.
You might say we're all living inside a ruinous waking nightmare that spawned from the dream of Web 2.0.
Don't get me wrong: It was a beautiful dream.
Web 2.0. We are all of us producers. With our blogs and our comments and our tweets and our YouTube channels we will democratise content and the algorithms -- those glorious algorithms -- will aid in the process. We will upvote and favourite and like and the wheat will be separated from the chaff.
Magic.
I think we can all agree that Web 2.0 didn't quite work as advertised.
It gave us Minecraft. It gave us Wikipedia, collaborative spaces, online tools. But it also gave us Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, Gamergate, incels, toxic communities, Logan Paul wandering into a suicide forest. It gave us Twitter bullying, Kelly Marie Tran harassment campaigns on Instagram.
It gave us terrible, opportunistic video games about school shootings.
Wednesday, after yanking Active Shooter, a video game where you play as a high school shooter, from its Steam store, Valve made an announcement. In a blog titled "Who gets to be on the Steam Store" Valve discussed the steps it's taking to prevent a video game like Active Shooter from making it to the Steam store in the future.
Its solution is about as Web 2.0 as it gets.
"[W]e've decided," wrote Valve, "that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling."
"Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building those tools to give people control over what kinds of content they see."
In 2018, at this current moment, it seems like a decision out of time. An old-fashioned solution to a problem that literally every single platform on the internet is currently trying to solve. We live in a world where Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are in the process of trying to actively take responsibility for the content produced and posted on their platforms.
Meanwhile, Valve is busy trying to abdicate that responsibility.
Valve says it won't publish game about raping women, after 'significant discussion'
Valve has at last responded to a mounting controversy concerning an indie game designed entirely around the violent sexual assault of women. The statement, posted to the Steam Blog earlier today, makes clear that Valve will in fact not distribute the visual novel, which was called Rape Day and scheduled for release in April through the company's Steam Direct distribution channel. The declaration marks a quizzical few days of silence from the video game developer and marketplace owner, which has taken varying, occasionally radical stances to moderation on Steam in the past few years.
In a policy change announced last year, Valve said it would let basically anything onto the platform so long as it was not illegal or very obviously trolling to illicit negative reactions from the general public. So far, the only category to meet that definition included visual novels and other games featuring the sexual exploitation of children, which Valve banned last December. In this case, Valve says Rape Day posed "unknown costs and risks," without clarifying which rule it broke.
Developer's website. Also at Ars Technica, Business Insider, and Kotaku.
Previously: "Active Shooter" Game on Steam Sparks Uproar
Valve Still Lives in the Waking Nightmare of Web 2.0
Valve Attempts to Define "Troll Games" in Order to Ban Them on Steam
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Friday September 07 2018, @06:30PM (2 children)
I can't define pornography but I'll know it when I see it.
Sometimes even professionaly developed games are crap, maybe not to you, but certainly to me. One example, I believe, is Myst which required (if memory serves me right) to match some musical notes and I'm tone deaf, so the game was a total waste to me.
YMMV
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Friday September 07 2018, @07:23PM
Most of its puzzles aren't based on tones, so if you're (tone)deaf you can always lookup a walkthrough to bypass a particular puzzle. It resorts to such gimmicks like musical puzzles to counteract its blatantly light and simple gameplay. Gamplay-wise Myst can most definitely be considered a game of adventure/puzzle genre.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday September 10 2018, @10:06AM
So you're saying if Myst had some porn-related puzzles, you'd have had no issues? Interesting.
(Score: 5, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @07:13PM (9 children)
What, you mean like Depression Quest?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday September 07 2018, @07:25PM (1 child)
What a classic! GG is over! The Browncoats lost!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @08:05PM
Well, duh. Shirts always beat coats.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @07:34PM (1 child)
Finally found a way to profit from your life story hih?
I kid, you dont seem depressed.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @07:51PM
Used to be fairly severely, which is how I can authoritatively say the game was shit. A bit of Adderall every morning to ease the ADHD that was inducing the depression and allow me breathing space to work up some coping mechanisms for a few years, then the realization that half an hour of exercise in the morning served just about as well with positive side effects instead of negative squared me away though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @07:49PM (4 children)
Only an incel doesn't see how it's different when it's somebody in possession of a womb trolling.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @07:52PM (3 children)
Fuck Betas!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @09:44PM (1 child)
So incels are just trying to rise above their station?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @10:01PM
Incels have no station. We should just let them die of AIDS. That's they choice they made when they decided to only have sex with men.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday September 09 2018, @03:15AM
Yes, please!
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday September 07 2018, @08:08PM
So the latest Assassins Creed game qualifies. A bad game by bad people.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday September 07 2018, @08:57PM (6 children)
So you can write and sell a game where you can have terrorists vs special forces and in team mode have humans running on both sides. You can have SWAT games where one team is SWAT and the other side is drug lords, gang bangers, etc. But SWAT vs a spree shooter is forbidden? Why? That scenario is actually closer to the classic "game" model of one player vs a horde of opponents. Ok, you are playing the villian and that is the problem? So what about Aliens vs Humans? WoW with Alliance vs Horde? Dungeons (i, 2 and 3) where you play as "The Ultimate Evil"? Grand Theft Auto? A thousand other examples spring readily to mind.
Nope, this is why I never bought into Steam, that they would go PC was self evident.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @09:50PM (5 children)
Kinda like how we all knew Gab would become an alt-right pissing ground. I like the idea but SN is as close as ill come to associating with that ilk. Thankfully only a handful of those types round here, they just cry so much it seems like more.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @10:28PM (4 children)
Yeah, because only hearing stuff you agree with is totally the best way to make sure your critical thinking skills get engaged.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 08 2018, @10:41AM (3 children)
Yeah, because there's a serious lack of occasions to engage your critical thinking in today's real world.
Thanks God S/N is providing a ground for it, even if the variety of trolls is limited to the point of being predictable boring.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 08 2018, @02:06PM (2 children)
There absolutely is. Between our politicians and media constantly trying to polarize us for money and power, it's amazing rational discussion happens at all anymore.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday September 09 2018, @05:48AM (1 child)
Me thinks you are mixing up the opportunities (which abound) with the frequency these opportunities are taken (very low).
Ummm... maybe it's just a subjective impression, but it's not like S/N shows a high frequency of rational discussions (this is apropos yours "make sure your critical thinking skills get engaged.") Granted, car analogy and cocktailed metaphors, "one can drive the chevy to the levee, but can't make it drink" .
Cheers, mate, you can keep your rye and I can have me rum and still have a good time together.
Maybe we can get rational after washing away the real-world's insanity, eh?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday September 09 2018, @11:31AM
Opportunities aren't as common as you think. For there to be one the other party or parties must be receptive to ideas that conflict with their own, otherwise you've got multiple monologues not discussion.
Around here we like to do our part to make this available but, yeah, you can't make someone use their brain if they're dead set on a specific narrative. All you can do is give them chance after chance to until they forget one day and accidentally start acting like a sentient human being instead of a lesser animal.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday September 07 2018, @09:16PM (7 children)
I still don't understand the whole 'Inventory' thing: someone told me you could 'sell' them for real money (pennies).
Why would someone (read idiot here) give me money for something i got while just playing the game. I'll start steam and it will tell me i have 5 new items in inventory and my response is "Hmmm... so if i sell that for 7 cents.... yeah, not wasting my time".
Wassup with dat shit?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 07 2018, @09:25PM (6 children)
Virtual goodies/collectables cause the brain to release dopamine, helping to hook people onto the platform.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 07 2018, @09:46PM (5 children)
Collext ten more to become a Master Goober!
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @10:30PM (4 children)
So you're saying my huge collection of crappie jigs makes me a Master Baiter?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by slinches on Friday September 07 2018, @10:41PM (3 children)
Not necessarily. Jigs aren't bait. Although, you may still be a Master Baiter if you've practiced the art of baiting your jigs to the point of mastery.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 07 2018, @10:49PM (2 children)
Do the little pink/chartreuse/etc crappie cookies you put on the hook tip when jigging count?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday September 08 2018, @12:19AM (1 child)
We need Soylent Software game studio (or at least an APK repo), which publishes anything that ain't gonna get people in jail and/or on a registry. I'd volunteer for that bitch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 08 2018, @10:43AM
Which one you volunteer for: the jail or the registry?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 08 2018, @07:50AM
this coming from the developer that didn't deliver HL3, not even episode 3, and abandoned TF2 at the height of it's popularity despite ~decade of success, whose next great project is a fucking virtual card game... valve has taken troll dev to another level.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday September 09 2018, @10:02AM
or get one. One of the clauses in steam should be: if we don't like it, it's out, no matter what the law says.
Censorship is bad, but the theory of entitlement is worse.
The case of FB and others that censor some and only some opinions is different, because "game not found" is a clear message, while there isn't a "user wrote stuff we took down", so there is a propaganda bubble involved. Also, if a movement who proclaims superiority and the need to prevail is banned, islam and "chosen by god" people should be out too.
Account abandoned.