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Steam Curators

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Since Steam is such a maze of games with only keywords, a search and reviews, they've now implemented 'Curators.' People to show you around, to tell you what is and is not garbage or what is. Different than reviewers, because they can be followed. They show up on game pages in Steam saying this curator approves (even if they don't, since there is no way to determine a curator that only likes crap)!

What are your thoughts?

Is this bringing youtubers and pro game sites to Steam? Is this just people working for free to sell games on Steam? Is this unneeded when people already review games and they could have just added a follow button to a profile that reviews? Will this help people find good games when keywords and reviews wouldn't?

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This new store page annoys me.

"Recommended for you." "Explore your queue". "Tags recommended for you". I don't need that nonsense. Having suggestions tucked in a window after buying a game was fine, but smack dab in the middle of the main store, and in multiple locations? This is like cutting an editorial piece in two with several ads.

I also notice they've changed New Releases into Popular New Releases. Some people will see it as a welcome change against publishers dumping their old catalog on Steam. I think it's going to hurt the chances of small indies who aren't part of a clique.

As for curators, whatever. I can see the use on an individual level, but it's another move from Steam to centralize traffic. It's going to promote groupthink and celebrities over community discourse, too. Personally I'd rather read multiple reviews from random individuals than follow specific people.

They're essentially the Amazon of video games now. Probably the right time for them to do that, too; it's a whole lot of anticonsumer changes wrapped together in a nice little package of "convenience", or what people accept as such after such "improvements" were forced on them so many times these last few years. Valve people are a shrewd bunch when it comes to business, no doubt about that.

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This entire thing is a solution to a problem that has no business existing. The drop in quality control was the result of this greenlight nonsense, and Valve dragged their feet on fixing the problem. After two or three scam / broken games made it through greenlight and having it all reach a peak with the Depression Quest / Gamersgate scandal, now we're going to turn over the process of quality control to some of the people who were directly involved with Gamersgate?

What does it take for people to realize that Steam was a hideous mistake right from the word go? First we had the world's most broken piece of always online DRM, (implying it still isn't, heh) then it became the world's slowest broken piece of DRM, then we had the world's slowest broken and badly curated piece of DRM with greenlight, and now we're about to have the world's slowest broken badly curated and corrupt piece of DRM.

Also, I can manage the search function just fine, thanks Valve. I don't need some halfwit like Yahtzee or Jim Sterling having their faces shoved in front of my monitor 24 / 7 to pick out a game. In fact, I don't need or want their opinions at all.

Edit: By the way, this update has now driven down the "About this Game" field even lower. Gotta love how trying to find out details about a game dumps a thousand pounds of updates, curator opinions, and reviews in your face before you can even reach the description of the game.

Edit edit: Also, "Popular New Releases" is now the default as opposed to "New Releases". So, uh, what happens to a decent, newly released game that gets overlooked and does not immediately draw any attention?

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Clonehunter said:

Well, time to find out how to be a curator because I don't fucking know why.


You need to start a group then recommend stuff. So you can have a magazine and have your staff recommend things. I started one, but then I saw it doesn't take snippets of your reviews. You need to write a sentence and enter a URL to your real review. I thought it was more work for free than it was worth. I don't have a review channel that I need to publicize. Valve isn't paying me.

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geo said:

You need to start a group then recommend stuff. So you can have a magazine and have your staff recommend things. I started one, but then I saw it doesn't take snippets of your reviews. You need to write a sentence and enter a URL to your real review. I thought it was more work for free than it was worth. I don't have a review channel that I need to publicize. Valve isn't paying me.


this is only going to give more power to those already big in "reviewing", gaming media, prominent youtubers and such.

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geo said:

You need to start a group then recommend stuff. So you can have a magazine and have your staff recommend things. I started one, but then I saw it doesn't take snippets of your reviews. You need to write a sentence and enter a URL to your real review. I thought it was more work for free than it was worth. I don't have a review channel that I need to publicize. Valve isn't paying me.


It appears you can also be a mod or admin for an existing group.

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BlueFeena said:

halfwit like...Jim Sterling

lol. So on one hand you hate Steam for giving a platform where your darling corrupt magazines can promote themselves more, and on the other you hate Steam for doing the same for one of the most prominent anti-corporation, pro-consumer gaming personalities out there. Good goings.

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Jodwin said:

lol. So on one hand you hate Steam for giving a platform where your darling corrupt magazines can promote themselves more, and on the other you hate Steam for doing the same for one of the most prominent anti-corporation, pro-consumer gaming personalities out there. Good goings.


He gets free games to review and works for the Escapist and formerly Destructiod. I'm not sure his anti corporation is real or an act. He's part of the system. Or he's just a guy that loves to pick fights so he feels important with netters rallying behind him when he's just some powerless schmuck in Mississippi.

Sorry to poop on Jim. I'm just tired of hearing about him :-( I've been getting tired of Youtube lately and haven't been on it for 2 weeks. I unsubscribe and yet Youtube still tells me to watch Jim. I didn't even know who he was until 6 months ago. I had heard of him. He seems really self important, but I think that's his gimmick. He's a living, breathing Eric Cartman.

Now I log into Steam and bam there's all of the Youtubers I'm trying to avoid and sites I've never gone to.

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geo said:

He gets free games to review and works for the Escapist and formerly Destructiod. I'm not sure his anti corporation is real or an act. He's part of the system. Or he's just a guy that loves to pick fights so he feels important with netters rallying behind him when he's just some powerless schmuck in Mississippi.

Every professional reviewer gets review copies, regardless of whether they're reviewing games, music, movies or books. The things they review are necessary for their job, and all the kids on the internet who get jealous about that need a reality check. Review copies are bad only if they come with a subclause requiring a certain tone from the review - which is fairly rare. Oh and I thought it was mostly IGN, Gamespot and Kotaku that were evil, apparently now all gaming sites are bad regardless of what they do? Sure, if that's the black and white world you want to live in...


As for Jim, checking out his Jimquisition would be a good place to start. I'm not sure who could seriously believe he's pro-corporation after watching his episodes on EA, Square Enix or Ubisoft. Sure he employs gimmicky speech and mannerism, but the message preached is more often than not spot on.

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Sterling is still part of the circle jerk, check out his video about gamersgate, I just had to unsubscribe due to his appeasing the SJWs and (deliberately?) missing the point. He is "brave" enough to go after big faceless corporations but not against his corrupt journo friends.

And if you think the Escapist is dependable then read their Dragon Age 2 review, the most vile and putrid review I've read in my life.

Right now I only follow and trust Totalbiscuit, he is truly independent imo . And honest to a fault.

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Sure, if that's the black and white world you want to live in...


You're the one going on about corporations like they're automatically evil *and* the sole source of evil. It's pretty obvious there's at least two tiers of bad people in video games, and that second group rose to power largely thanks to outrage porn.

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VGA said:

Sterling is still part of the circle jerk, check out his video about gamersgate, I just had to unsubscribe due to his appeasing the SJWs and (deliberately?) missing the point. He is "brave" enough to go after big faceless corporations but not against his corrupt journo friends.

And if you think the Escapist is dependable then read their Dragon Age 2 review, the most vile and putrid review I've read in my life.

Right now I only follow and trust Totalbiscuit, he is truly independent imo . And honest to a fault.


I couldn't care less what these internet opinion figures/personalities say. This piece of shit steam update is only giving them even more mouthpieces to sound off.

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Phml said:

You're the one going on about corporations like they're automatically evil *and* the sole source of evil. It's pretty obvious there's at least two tiers of bad people in video games, and that second group rose to power largely thanks to outrage porn.

You're free to point out where I made any personal claims about where "corporations" as a whole fall on the good-or-evil axis. Rather, I simply pointed out the flawed logic BlueFeena had and corrected geo on his views on Sterling.

VGA said:

Sterling is still part of the circle jerk, check out his video about gamersgate, I just had to unsubscribe due to his appeasing the SJWs and (deliberately?) missing the point.

If that's what you got out of it maybe you should watch the videos again yourself. His video on SJWs could be summed as both sides are idiots and reasonable people stand in the middle, and the video on gamersgate concludes that any industry-wide conspiracy is likely a bunch of bull, but more transparency and honesty is also required from writers. Then again, maybe you should stop following TB as well since he's very good friends with Sterling...

As for Escapist or any other site, they tend to employ both hired writers and freelancers. A sensible person would blame the author for bad articles, not the site, unless there's a proven issue with all the authors spewing out shit.

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Jodwin said:

You're free to point out where I made any personal claims about where "corporations" as a whole fall on the good-or-evil axis. Rather, I simply pointed out the flawed logic BlueFeena had and corrected geo on his views on Sterling.


If that's what you got out of it maybe you should watch the videos again yourself. His video on SJWs could be summed as both sides are idiots and reasonable people stand in the middle, and the video on gamersgate concludes that any industry-wide conspiracy is likely a bunch of bull, but more transparency and honesty is also required from writers. Then again, maybe you should stop following TB as well since he's very good friends with Sterling...

As for Escapist or any other site, they tend to employ both hired writers and freelancers. A sensible person would blame the author for bad articles, not the site, unless there's a proven issue with all the authors spewing out shit.


haven't seen his GG video, but from what you say he doesn't take a side, he just makes generalizations on both sides. He doesn't want to get on neither's bad side. He is still a tool. TB at least sided with GG.

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Jodwin said:

You're free to point out where I made any personal claims about where "corporations" as a whole fall on the good-or-evil axis. Rather, I simply pointed out the flawed logic BlueFeena had and corrected geo on his views on Sterling.

The issue I take with both of them -- and frankly any gaming journalist personality for that matter -- is that they're part of the "circle jerk" as some have described. Also, neither Yahtzee or Sterling can seem to keep their personal politics out of anything they do. It makes them extremely annoying and I don't read articles on video games to get someone's personal politics blasted in my face.

I do not rely on someone / something to tell me where to get my entertainment. Sometimes my purchases are no deeper than an impulse buy; other times I do some deeper research using whatever sources that are necessary and I do not rely on some e-personality to spoon feed me my info. Rarely am I disappointed with my purchases.

Edit: Also;

Phml said:

outrage porn.

/runs to the patent office. You can pay me ten cents every time you use it now. :D

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Exactly, Steam should redirect to *******, its a great source of information on new releases. Screw internet personalities and their stupid audiences. I dont want to see pewdiepie's recommendations when i launch steam.

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I think the new percentage of good / bad reviews will become the new metacritic for PC games. Sure there was always a percentage of good and bad reviews, but now its up at the top below the logo and above the release date.

I've been seeing games where the top 5 reviews are 'recommended' but the overall is they're overwhelmingly negative and the other way around.

The 'recommended' reviews on Depression Quest are making a comeback. I remember when 99% was 'not recommended.' 2 or so months later its now 55%.

I found someone with 300 reviews on his profile. All of them said yes or no. All were recommended with 0 not recommendeds.

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geo said:

The 'recommended' reviews on Depression Quest are making a comeback. I remember when 99% was 'not recommended.' 2 or so months later its now 55%.


A cursory read of the reviews show that most all of the "recommended" reviews arn't very serious, either the bog standard 5 guys joke or something more creative.

In fact, the bulk of the serious reviews that ignore the controversy bullocks are negative.

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doomgargoyle said:

Screw internet personalities and their stupid audiences. I dont want to see pewdiepie's recommendations when i launch steam.

Exactly this.

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Jodwin said:
His video on SJWs could be summed as both sides are idiots and reasonable people stand in the middle, and the video on gamersgate concludes that any industry-wide conspiracy is likely a bunch of bull, but more transparency and honesty is also required from writers.

In the meantime, the conspiracy is verified by internal newsletters between games journalists of some prominent sites, discussing of how to direct their efforts together.

Proof here:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/17/Exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite

Their response confirmed this:
https://twitter.com/AnnoyedGamer/status/512362441586401280

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Well, we obviously need an official representative from Doomworld to act as a Steam curator, to recommend Doom and only Doom. Maybe other Doom engine games... not sure... and Quake is right out. But yes, how can people know that Doom is good if we don't recommend it?

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New format sucks, no doubt about it. OTOH, I had to actually search for the curators section, so that's a good thing. I just think this Blue Steel presentation is completely out of place. Think I'll just stick to my traditional method of "click every new release in hopes of finding something cool" approach.

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I like the Doom curator.

AAA games never say 'TotalBiscuit likes us,' '9 out of 10 Jim Sterlings,' 'Nerdist out of Pewdiepie!'

That's putting too much faith into one person. There's a common phrase 'what if they get hit by a bus?' A company will still continue and a person will die.

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@VGA: I'll gladly discuss why Progamejournos, and other similar discussion forums, are a natural thing to exist in any industry, and why it's been blown out of proportion by a (potentially well meaning) witch hunt, but that'd be getting way OT in this thread.

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The review snippets in green are things posted by the game devs themselves in the description.

The beauty with reviews is users can pick fights with the reviews, upvote or downvote them. Can't do that with curators.

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