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caffeinade on 22 December 2017
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JEMC said:
caffeinade said:

Valve does not strike me as the type of company that strives to bring employees into its main unit temporarily.
I could see them hiring a third party company to fill that kind of a role.

Valve has that per game, gate fee to play around with.
Currently set at 100 USD per game, if increased to 250 USD per title.
The problem could, just, disappear.
All without needing to hire and train employees that don't improve the overall production capacity of Valve.

In my mind Valve are currently in the observation phase of their plan.
Set the cost of entry to the minimum, observe and gather data.
They could then use the data gathered to inform further actions.

Sadly, rising the fee to $250 wouldn't solve it. Many of those garbage games exist for the sole reason of achivements and cards, which people use to earn more money from the market.

If they want to keep things under control, Valve should use a scale system. Something like publish a game, pay $100. From game 2 to 10, pay $500. After all, if you come back with more games it means that you've had success so you can pay that higher fee. From game 10 to 25 pay $1,000, and so on.

Of course, there needs to be some balance to that scale, and it can be something as simple as time. If you only publish one game or less per year, then the fee could be kept at $100, but if you publish more than 10 games per year (imho, a clear sign that something smells fishy), then rise that fee to something like x2 or more.

At the end of the day, what Valve should try to do is, if not reinforcing their system to try to keep the garbage out of the store, at least make it harder for those publishers to make money from their "games".

The problem with scaling the price upwards is: it could create a level of uncertainty with legitimate developers.
When designing a system to choke problematic developers, you need to be careful to avoid harming desirable ones.

Having a flat fee, helps to create trust, reliability and predictability.
As a developer you can, with ease, say: "I know exactly how much it will cost to put this software on Steam".
Remember: Valve has been making steps towards movies, TV shows and general purpose software on Steam; Valve needs to keep that in mind when dictating prices.
You don't want to encourage developer to place their asset flips under software to avoid monstrous fees; you don't want to punish developers who can legitimately produce content quickly.
A balance must be found.

A flexible payment scheme sounds beautiful, but: if you look at the real world implications and complications it starts to fall apart.
Valve offer a way for developers to recoup the cost the gate fee when they have made enough money on Steam; a flexible payment structure could result in too many moving parts.
The system should aim to be uncomplicated yet highly effective; efficient systems are things worth admiring.