I used to hate that steam tried to be facebook - now discord, but the store still offered good products.

But what about today?
I was bored and wanted to try something I haven't played before, so I decided to browse steam's "new releases" catalog - Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't actually give valve any money for a mere license to play a game (if they allow me to), instead I browse steam for games to pirate.

To my shock, the first 5 or so pages I went through were filled with nothing but itch.io tier teenager's first unity projects, blatant $5 meme streamer bait and (most likely vibecoded) cheap clones of other successful games. All among other low quality games like porn clickers and whatnot.

WTF happened?

Our society's quality shows up in what we choose to buy. If something sells, it means people are okay with it. This isn't just a Steam problem.

Making money is getting tougher for indie devs, so they end up making copies that lack real creativity or care about profits only. Remember how easy things have become thanks to LLMs.

I wonder how many of them are malware.

and exactly what would you like seeing in the store?

>and exactly what would you like seeing in the store?
Effort.

Call me out of touch, but my quality standards have not lowered in the last decade, or ever.

This feels no different to me than a chef at a restaurant using filthy dishes and stale ingredients.

Although this makes me wonder if it really does boil down to quality assurance on valve's part.

I still have faith in the average person, and I believe that they would feel the same as I do.

What if there are just no people to criticize these low quality products around anymore, what if there are no people at all?

...