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Why Shouldn’t Air Control be Sellable?
So I made this video. Then a day later this happened. I don’t mean Sterling’s video in particular, I just mean yet another in a series of outcries bemoaning the quality of games on Steam and calling for tighter standards on what gets published. And it’s sometimes frustrating to pose the counter-argument on this issue – the opposition has megaphones on major game websites and the support of armies of self-righteous game players, while the side of open platforms is largely the side of developers and a few critics that want to see barriers to entry lowered. And while I wanted to respond I’ve got more important things to make videos about than rehashing these same arguments forever, so I figured a blog post would do. More after the jump.
Now, I want to be upfront about the fact that Air Control is by all accounts a terrible game. This post is not an attempt to rush to the defense of a game that almost certainly a waste of money unless you’re buying it for ironic hipster cred. Nor is it an attempt to diffuse most of the bile being thrown the game’s way – by all means, rag on the game! I’m not saying “This game is good.” I’m saying “Arguments for taking this game off of Steam generally suck.” Well, let me rephrase that: Arguments for taking this game off of Steam result in a chilling effect that raises the barrier of entry for smaller, deserving titles that aren’t trainwrecks. And why are we so eager to throw those small titles out with the bathwater? So people plunking six bucks down on a game called “Air Control” sight unseen and without any research can be assured their purchase will have an abitrary “minimum level of quality.”
It’s yet another example of angry internet people being upset that they have to recognize something they don’t like even exists; the very idea that a game like “Air Control” rests in a Steam database next to Half-life 2 and Portal frustrates them to no end. It’s not enough to warn people about the game; it’s not enough to publicly mock the video game equivalent of a z-grade movie. No, it must be destroyed, removed from the store and banished from sale outright. So what is it about Air Control that makes it so terrible that a strongly worded review or criticism isn’t enough; what makes it so terrible that people need to demand it be ineligible for sale? Well, let’s review the arguments:
Just… look at it! It’s garbage!
Pleas to aesthetic taste are perhaps the weakest arguments I’ve heard. Yeah, the game uses pre-baked art assets and generally lacks any sense of artistic direction, culminating in a title that’s unappealing to the eye. But plenty of games have visual styles that turn off people for any number of reasons. Games like Proteus, Race the Sun, and McPixel have each turned people off by their lo-fi looks. The You Don’t Know Jack games are literally low-res ports of Macromedia games from the late 90’s and early 2000’s, and look and sound every bit the part. Actual Sunlight uses default RPG maker popups, but that doesn’t make the game any less affecting or meaningful. I love Luke Schneider’s work at Radian Games (seriously, buy Super Crossfire), but no one would suggest the new Powerpuff Girls game didn’t have a bit of an air of programmer art about it. But even so, no one’s calling for any of these game’s removal from the store. Not every game can (or should!) be a lush visual indulgence; and games are more than a series of pretty frames rendered to your monitor.
Liz Ryerson has a fantastic piece up on the dangers of judging games by their visual aesthetics (in particular in reference to Michael Brough’s work) that attempts to remind people that something they might not find attractive is not the same thing as something that is low quality or without thought or value. The point is: A game being ugly or using default engine asset isn’t grounds for a work to remain unpublished. Ugly games are games too.
It misrepresented itself
So do most games, frankly. Have you seen the Dead Island trailer? Or talked to people about bullshots? Should Aliens: Colonial Marines been removed from Steam for not matching its screenshots? Should Dark Souls 2? Should a game that has “30 levels” where each level is the same space but different waves of enemies be removed from the store? Alternately: What happens when a game like Metal Gear Solid 2 comes around again, pulling a bait-and-switch with its protagonist? Are we to blame false advertising and remove that game, too?
Valve/Steam are not in the business of enforcing Truth in Advertising laws. Granted, they should have an improved returns system, and the fact that they still don’t is a testament to the idea that Valve maybe aren’t the universal good guys the internet keeps pretending they are.
It’s Broken
Here’s a review of Watch_Dogs that notes poor framerate, mouse acceleration, and an occasional BSOD. The reviewer describes the game as being so broken as to recommend that readers “find something that works” instead. But he’s not calling for the removal of this game from Steam, just lamenting the poor state of the game. Bethesda games crash regularly. Older games on Steam tend to only half-work if you don’t have the original hardware to run them on (Quake III in particular kills my machine to the point where I need to reboot it unless I run an updated third party source port capable of supporting modern resolutions). I bought R*’s Manhunt a few years back and the game crashes after the first cutscene on my current gaming PC. Steam surely sells games whose multiplayer services have long been shut down, and lots of games are in a questionable position with Games For Windows Live going offline in the near future. Should these games all be removed too, because they’re broken for one person or are partially broken or may be broken in the future?
“Broken” is a weird thing in software. EULAs attempt to defend companies from broken software by claiming it’s provided “As-is,” but they exist in something of a legal limbo in a lot of places. And what’s “broken” for you might not be “broken” for me – I’m sure people are running Quake 3 and Manhunt just fine on hardware from 2003. So how broken is so broken that it’s unsellable? Valve are already offering titles that ostensibly won’t work for some or even most people. Why are we drawing the line here, with this game? I mean, aside from the fact that it plays badly and isn’t visually appealing and we’re trying to turn it into something of an internet mockery. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason.
Copyright infringement!
This taps into a bigger question than game quality: With the increase in releases on Steam, how can they be sure no content ever infringes another’s copyright? This is a problem that has cropped up on YouTube and elsewhere on the internet. And the short answer is they can’t, at least not easily. There’s no way to check every audio file and image in a game against every bit of audio and image under copyright. And seriously: Do we really want YouTube’s ContentID system creeping its way into our game distribution channels?
Now, Air Control is probably riddled with every bit as much stolen content as people claim. But angry internet mobs who notice that sound clips are taken from a Delta Video don’t get to dictate fair use; the courts do. The way the system works should be: Delta (or whoever) notice their content has been taken. They file a DMCA claim with Valve, who promptly pull the game to remain DMCA compliant and immune from prosecution. Delta then threatens to take the developer/publisher to court. Sometimes they reach a settlement (yay!) and the game is made available again once Valve is notified the matter is settled. Other times they go to court, and a lot of bad things can happen there. Either way: courts decide if unsourced material is cool, and Valve exists to facilitate distribution. It is not Valve’s job nor the job of Internet Nobodies to play Intellectual Property Lawyer.
TLDR;
People wanting to kick Air Control off of Steam aren’t taking on a meaningful advocacy for consumer rights, they’re joining in yet another internet pitchforks-and-torches bandwagon. It’s not that Air Control deserves defending – it’s a transparent cash grab that offers little value outside of a “so bad we can make fun of it for 15 minutes” style ironic purchase. But hey, at least that’s some value to someone, even if it’s a shallow activity and not the best way to spend that $6. Why deny people that if they want to engage it in that way? Why remove it outright, as though being available to consumers is itself a crime? This mentality would see MST3K films banned from store shelves; it would expunge badly written books from Barnes and Noble, it would seek to not just mock but eradicate works that don’t achieve a certain level of quality.
I get going all “Hulk Smash” on the game – it’s bad media, and the internet has been doing that to bad media since the heyday of James Rolfe and Doug Walker. But removing it from sale invites a terrible precedent of making distribution channels less inclusive, and the benefits of being assured in our luxury purchases don’t offset the loss in making these channels even harder to get onto. If nothing else, think of it this way: Five years from now someone’s going to stumble on Jim Sterling’s video and think Air Control looks like a goddamn hilarious way to spend six bucks so that they and their friends can understand Sterling’s frustration. And if Sterling gets his way they won’t be able to.
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75 Comments
Daemian Lucifer
June 4, 2014 at 11:14 PM
Man,do I wish to have known the two of you some 10 years ago when piracy became illegal in my country.”Hey,police,you cant close that shop!Ea didnt press charges against them!”
Or better yet,some 15 years ago when that jeweler in my neighborhood was charged for fencing stolen goods.”Hey,police,cut him some slack.Do you know what a monumental job it would be for him to check if every piece of jewelry was legit?”
But I guess that “Fuck the law,upholding it is hard” applies only to digital stuff because….of reasons I guess.
Merus
June 5, 2014 at 12:04 AM
I feel like the more pressing question is “why doesn’t Steam do refunds when every other store does?” and that is because Steam has been explicitly set up to look and act like a store, but is not actually a store. It is a “subscription service”. This is essentially done so that Valve don’t have to comply with foreign consumer protection laws that, among other things, mandate that stores have to accept refunds for items that aren’t fit for purpose. Steam’s not a store, so they only have to care about doing the right thing when it’ll harm their reputation when they don’t. (Which is why the people having problems with automated support only get it sorted out when they go to Kotaku.)
The more you dig into how Steam actually works, the more you realise how grimy it is and how easy it is for Valve to screw us all as soon as things start getting rough for them.
Abnaxis
June 5, 2014 at 6:15 AM
You are comparing two things that aren’t the same. From a practical perspective (NOTE: I am not saying anything about right and wrong here, I am talking purely about practical implications) fencing a stolen piece of jewelry isn’t the same thing as selling a 2 gig piece of hardware, that contains a few MB of stolen IP, somewhere in there. That might be stolen, or the owner might have given permission to use it. Or it might be in public domain. Or being used in a way that’s compliant with Fair Use. I dunno, I don’t like the game so obviously they must be doing something illegal!
If you want to try and compare it to physical goods (which you really shouldn’t, they’re not the same damn thing) it’s like putting a pawn shop owner in jail, because a thief (allegedly) stole a necklace, melted it down, forged two rings (with different gemstones that he bought legitimately) and sold it to the broker. OBVIOUSLY, the owner needs to send any jewelry someone brings to his shop to a lab, and spend thousands of dollars to have the materials tested on every single item they buy so we know where the materials originated from, or THEY’RE BREAKING THE LAW.
Or, y’know, we could just wait and see if anyone reports some stolen jewelry, and work from there.
Trix2000
June 5, 2014 at 1:07 PM
I don’t think that sort of system’s much different from that of other products – it’s not like you’re aware of every single kind of food, car, computer, etc that’s out there to pick from.
And even without that, the system allows a lot of room for positive word-of-mouth to affect a game’s success. If something is truly worth playing, theoretically it should rise to the surface and be something people talk about. That should hopefully provide incentive to developers to make real quality titles – to better rise above the morass. Obviously not a perfect solution, but then I think a similar model applies to many consumer markets.
I don’t tend to go browsing for games often, meaning I tend to ignore a lot of stuff that doesn’t achieve a certain level of visibility. But there’s PLENTY of games out there to fill time with, so I don’t have many qualms with being picky.
Combat
June 5, 2014 at 9:48 PM
Look up house of leaves, I don’t think you can find a more niche idea for a book.
An executive for B&N probably doesn’t want his store known for absolutely unreadable shit.
What’s this idea that anything good for the consumer is only done altruistically? Let’s say it doesn’t cost a penny to increase the size of the store, or to keep employees hired, or to shelve books, let’s say B&N takes literally any story sent to them. The worst fanfiction you can find is on store shelves. Do you want to shop there? Do you think the people who still do shop for books want to shop there? Do they want to deal with people demanding refunds moreso than they were before?
I don’t know who exactly won’t play any game not on steam, and the kinds of games small enough where they have issues getting on steam are small games that will only sell through word of mouth anyway.
False Prophet
June 6, 2014 at 9:34 AM
“I don’t see how it opens you up to a lawsuit to bar a product from your store based on whatever you damned well please. You don’t need a legal standing to bar things from your own store.”
But if you have something in your store, and then remove it while claiming it infringes copyright, and it turns out it doesn’t, the publisher has grounds for a defamation suit. I’ve seen it happen to academic librarians criticizing the products of academic publishers on reasonable grounds. I don’t think it’s beyond the pale to suggest a commercial publisher could do the same on far more legitimate terrain.
Daemian Lucifer
June 7, 2014 at 2:22 AM
Bad analogy because melting gold is changing its property completely,but using anothers music(or gameplay)doesnt.If you want a good analogy in physical world,then you should use something like stealing a car,ripping it into parts,then using those parts in another car.And guess what,you can get arrested if you are found selling cars that have stolen components in it.It doesnt happen often,because its hard to find out,but it does still happen.
“Or, y’know, we could just wait and see if anyone reports some stolen jewelry, and work from there.”
Um,someone did do that.Plenty of people actually(because some of it is really obvious).
So to go back to that car analogy up there,its like stealing a famous hand made unique car,keeping only the chassis with everything inside changed,then putting it for sale without care because the owner still hasnt noticed that the car is missing.
Shinuzzo
June 7, 2014 at 10:49 AM
It creates a double standard, if games like Air Control can get onto Steam with no trouble while much better games get left to languish on Greenlight. If they’re going to allow terrible games to be uploaded then they should just abolish Greenlight completely and let anything through.
Cyborg771
June 7, 2014 at 11:09 PM
With the current over saturation of let’s players, independant reviewers, and comment threads on forums, I find it very hard to believe you’ve found an undiscovered game. If you have then you can ignore it and play one of the thousands upon thousands of available games that do have reputable reviews, or you could take a risk, potentially being on the forefront of something great, or being able to be te first to complain about a new pile of crap.
Tse
June 8, 2014 at 2:26 PM
I agree, but I also think there are some things that should be changed.
First, and most important, the publisher of a game shouldn’t be the one moderating the forums and reviews.
Second, it’s high time Steam gets a refund policy. If somebody has less than 2 hours of playtime they should be allowed to “return” the game and get their money back.
Third, if a game failed to ever start it should be automatically uninstalled and refunded at the user’s request. Something like 3 launches of a game with less than a minute of playtime each would work as a good automatic check.
Clark Kent
June 8, 2014 at 3:19 PM
I agree that outright removing the game is a bit extreme, but Air Control is an extreme example. It’s not because it’s a bad game, because it regularly crashes, offers no enjoyment or even because of copyright infringements that people want to suppress it. It’s because it’s an obvious scam trying to trick people into thinking they are buying a correct and finished product. Which AC isn’t. There are tons of flash games available for free on the Internet that provide a more meaningful experience than AC.
You wrote that it’s fairly standard for games to misrepresent themselves, it’s true and we know that, But there are some limits and when AC pretends to be “THE BEST SIMULATOR EVAAAAR!” it crossed the line… by far. If a film like Sharnado sold itself as an artsy and contemplative work (it would need to change its name first) I guess you would be rightfully pissed after watching it. Being bad is not a fault, lying to sell an overpriced piece of crap is.
Now as I said, I agree that removing games isn’t the most subtle answer nor the most appropriate, but even retroactively, Steam should put a warning on these things, signaling them as what they are, scams unworthy of people’s money. Because the problem isn’t that AC exists, as it is, it doesn’t bother anybody and is actually quite funny to laugh at. No, the problem is that if this kind of frauds persist people will start to distrust games that don’t come from big studios, and that would harm a lot of people.
Your Name
June 9, 2014 at 10:07 AM
“You shouldn’t have to read multiple reviews of 20 different crappy games before you find 1 decent one.”
Why not? How else will you know if you are going to like the game or not? Are you just going to trust that whoever is in charge of “quality control” happens to like the same things as you do? What about the people who like different things than the majority? As Campster already stated, even for a game such as Air Control. some people are going to have legit reasons for buying it.
Thanatos
June 9, 2014 at 1:21 PM
Steam has the lowest barriers to entry than ever before. And we’ve seen what happened.
Lower barriers to entry clearly are not producing more quality games, and are in fact doing the exact opposite.
As such, we need to raise the barriers back up somewhat. As usual, the optimal solution is somewhere in the middle.
Abnaxis
June 9, 2014 at 1:55 PM
“Bad analogy because melting gold is changing its property completely,but using anothers music(or gameplay)doesnt.”
Not necessarily. You can remix, and re-sample music, and it’s still infringing without permission. You can photoshop, and it’s still infringing. That’s changing the property. That’s why this guy had to pay royalties to these guys for re-sampling their base line.
“Um,someone did do that.Plenty of people actually(because some of it is really obvious).”
Really? So one of the actual owners of the alleged stolen property complained about it being stolen? Or are you talking about the droves of bystanders, who have absolutely no idea or authority over how the content is used?
I wouldn’t say I had a bad analogy, but fine, let’s go with the car analogy. Let’s say I have a nice blue Corvette, with some boss hub-caps. They’re chormed-out, custom-machined, glittery and they SPIN. SWANKY.
But wait, you see someone else with hub-caps that look exactly like mine! That can’t stand! As my friend, do you:
A) Report it to the police, but go ahead and tow the offending car now because obviously they stole my hubcaps, or
B) Find out what my hubcap situation actually is?
If your answer is (A), then do you really expect the police to do anything, whatsoever? Other than fine you for towing someone else’s car on your own initiative? I might have sold my hubcaps to him. He might have seen mine, and asked me to make him some. Or, he decided to make his own, with his own two hands. YOU are in no position to take any action, because it is not YOUR property, only I can make a case for MY OWN property.
Only what you’re saying, is that not only do you personally have the authority to judge whether another car has a stolen part on it, but that every used car dealer must meticulously disassemble every single piece and part of every car they buy, to make sure there is not a single component that might have been stolen from a different vehicle. A single piece of music is one tiny piece of a large collection of data that is a game–it’s a spark-plug, wholly necessary to the experience but just one piece of a great big whole. ASSUMING Air Control didn’t have permission and the assets weren’t released under a permissive license (which again, you have no proof either way about), it is ridiculous to stick the distributor with the responsibility of tearing the whole thing apart to find a single part, on every car, even if it has a valid serial number and a legitimately registered owner.
ninguem perguntou
June 9, 2014 at 4:38 PM
Your argument is honestly quite broken.
There is one thing called common sense: air control is clearly an schemme to mislead and take money from people. Arguing that Watchdogs or even Goat simulator operates on the same level is insane.
And the point isn’t allowing or not allowing to sell.
In a democracy you can sell anything (and sometimes go to jail if you deceive people).
The point is: should STEAM and other venues aloow “games” like Air Control?
1. It alienates consumers, as it is harder to find good stuff and questionable if there are any good stuff after all.
2. If succesful, opens the opportunity for more ill intentioned developers to present even worse products.
3. The reviewers will have more work but, let’s be honest – it is just impossible to keep up with all the stuff on STEAM right now.
4. STEAM loses money – because it will lose consumers in the long run. I, for one, do not visit the site anymore (and I like to support indie developers).
With such low standards nobody wins.
I am not against the existance of bad games, but a minimum level of control quality by the store is helpful to everyone. If an eager developer wants to do a tech demo, release it as such, for free, honestly. Air Control is not even that, as it uses just borrowed assets and code.
Yes, the fruit store has all the rights to sell rotten stuff. But it is just insane to do so.
TLDR: Air Control should not be allowed to be sold because tickets to heaven and shares on the Eiffel Tower are also not allowed to be sold.
You would have a point if people were talking against Goat Simulator, or Slender, but defending air control simply deflates your arguments.
John Carpenter
June 12, 2014 at 10:56 AM
As someone who only recently found your site, and at first was very impressed by your insightful view of video games and the industry, I am thoroughly disappointed by this article.
“I mean, aside from the fact that it plays badly and isn’t visually appealing and we’re trying to turn it into something of an internet mockery. Because I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason.”
Simply judging from the quote above, and if I wouldn’t know better, I’d say you are completely clueless. And it’s not only this quote, it’s the entire blog post, how badly it is structured and how poorly it addresses the issue; in fact it doesn’t address the main issue at all.
For the sake of me being able to still respect your opinion in the future, I am going to assume that your site got hacked by some troll who then wrote this blog.
JGordonHungerDunger
June 27, 2014 at 6:14 PM
Campster, this isn’t some kind of hypothetical new territory. There was a time when people released virtually anything and everything regardless of quality or functionality. It crashed the console industry.
Let’s try not to do that again.
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Vect
September 12, 2014 at 7:01 AM
Is it wrong that when I first saw the title, I thought you were arguing for the right to purchase oxygen and charge people rights for breathing?
Your Name
October 3, 2014 at 9:21 PM
Some people always feel the need to defend the undefendable. There’s misrepresenting a game and there’s Air Control. It’s a whole different level and it’s not a matter of taste. A little bit of quality control would only benefit the consumer.
Re: Heavily armed quality Air Control on Steam | Alien Fiction
November 18, 2014 at 12:34 PM
[…] Over at the awesome Errant Signal, Chris Franklin says some are buying (/into) Air Control ‘for ironic hipster cred‘ […]
Ken
November 20, 2014 at 4:11 AM
“Inclusive”. Oh yes, by all means, let’s make Steam even more inclusive by opening it up to even more abuses by hucksters looking to make a quick buck off a weekend of slap-dash coding.
That’s not consumer advocacy either. There are lots of games on Steam I wouldn’t even accept as a gift, but other people like them. Fine, I’m not telling people what they should like, However…sometimes crap is just crap, and it doesn’t deserve to be sold.
Every single industry that you can name has some level of quality control to it. Every single art gallery, even small local galleries, have a standard they are not willing to compromise. It’s true for the video game industry at large, so why is it not the case on Steam? How exactly did a game like Air Control slip through the cracks? Because no one at Valve even bothered to play the game for themselves. If someone had, do you think they would have allowed it to be sold in the first place? Steam employees, should be, as part of their duties, required to playtest new games that come through Greenlight.
As I write this, Air Control has had its Steam store page removed. Thank goodness. At least Valve listened to the community’s complaints and removed it.
Daniel Jensen
December 16, 2014 at 3:57 AM
Well, this game got removed. Huzzah!
Sean Edgar
May 18, 2015 at 3:30 AM
I know I’m late to this discussion (just getting into Errant Signal), but wouldn’t requiring games to have gameplay trailers be an adequate way of “ensuring quality”? If the games have gameplay trailers, players looking at the game on Steam can immediately see, roughly, what they’re getting themselves into. If they buy a game like Air Control despite having such easy access to video of gameplay, that’s the consumer’s fault. Then, some light measures could be taken to reprimand devs whose gameplay trailers aren’t representative of their games.
DanYuk
February 11, 2016 at 10:58 PM
I need a free mmorpg that i can danlwood on Windows Me, something that is fantasy type and 3-D sort of like runescape but NOT RUNESCAPE. I like stuff like Dragons and something with lvl’s and it MUST have good graphics, I am really desperate!? PLEASE HELP ME FIND A MMORPG!!! I AM REALLY BORED XD