Freedom of speech doesn't apply here. It's their store, they can decide to not sell something for any reason without consequences (apart from the loss of revenue from selling said game).

But to do that you need to curate the games, which is what Valve will stop doing.

From the blog post:

"So we ended up going back to one of the principles in the forefront of our minds when we started Steam, and more recently as we worked on Steam Direct to open up the Store to many more developers: Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy. If you're a developer, we shouldn't be choosing what content you're allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

With that principle in mind, we've decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling."

That means that devs will be able to develop whatever they want (minus illegal or trolling) with no consequences. And, until they make another statement clarifying this, that also includes shovelware.

Really that would fall under the consumer for not using the tools made available to them for free (like youtube, site reviews, word of mouth etc). Devs do have to do a better job than their competition, which in turn means their competition would have to work much harder. These days though we're getting more and more devs complaining about spotlight issues, even for those that do less effort than others, so that isn't really a factor as much these days. Why try harder when you can point at the Steam store and complain that you're not on the front page 24/7 making FN levels of cash?. 

There is no one wins all solution, but this is about as close as we can get. They are still making more tools for the public to make use of, so that we can still filter what we want and do not want to see from the storefront. 

Their previous decision when going against VN's definitely earned them a lot of flak, so you cannot please everyone in that instance. The crowd that doesn't care or want them on the storefront cannot win, but at the same time, the other crowd wants those VN's from and center for all to see, no matter the age, and that's why we'll be getting these tools, so that both sides can win, rather than one. 

True, and yet Valve would still get the blame.

"information challenged"?, as in mentally handicapped?. I can understand if you're telling me there are plenty of people, who use Steam and are mentally handicapped, but at the same time I find that hard to believe, simply because I've seen no media push, no survey and no coverage of a large number of those people using Steam. 

IF you don't know how to use youtube, word of mouth, or even judging something for yourself, then I'm sorry but you'll need to seek help from someone else, and even then, that doesn't become something of your own decision, it eventually becomes the other person's.

He thought it was the full game, despite media outlets, youtube, twitter and the like all talking about it. Your friend would have to be literally living off the grid to not know what was going on, surrounding such a well loved, well talked about and well known franchise. 

I don't know how LobT was allowed either, let alone how to this day, it's youtube video still remains on Sony's YT channel. We've had numerous folk like Jim sterling and those around the net pointing out it's poor quality though. 

You know what remains a current mystery to me?. How SE is sorting out Chrono Trigger on Steam, yet they only did this now when the voices grew louder. The other FF games ported straight from mobile to PC still remain in the same state as their day 1 release, and people voiced their dislikes for that outcome. People complained about Square not patching Nier, yet SE hasn't done anything about it. Only CT remains the one game where they scurried towards sorting it out. 

The other bigger issue I have, is how EA is legally selling Battlefront I and Titanfall 1 on PC when those two games are online based and are quite literally dead. You are essentially buying those two games, to then do nothing with them. No private servers, no modding to make them run with LAN games, no nothing. And they are somehow allowed to get away with it because they aren't the big fat target that Steam is. 

The issue with VN's is that some of them can be tame, others not so much. It's when those non tame ones start popping up at the front page of the store, does that become a glaring issue, when you're trying to sell to as many age groups as possible.

I work with co-workers that aren't in depth in the info of the gaming industry, but they know enough of what's going on with PubG, FN, and other games out there. Most of them aren't into E3, and some haven't heard of it, but were interested to find out more about the event. 

To be info challenged, means that you do not lack the know how to use a computer, let alone know what sites to even make use of. My stepdad literally came from farm life back in ireland, he gets that excuse when it comes to being tech/info challenged. But everyone else on this island where I'm from doesn't get that excuse, because we've got tech all around us and we don't have spots on the island where you're in the middle of nowhere with no net and no means of an education to learn on how to info gather. 

It sounds like your friend could do with a little more foresight in the future. I mean, there were times when I just watched something, thought it was what it was, but was then educated more about what I had watched moments later via the comments section of the video, and later on via my circle of friends. 

It sounds odd that he stopped at the end, I mean didn't he at least question the scene at all?. I do this with a lot of movies and tv shows. I'm always like "nah this can't be how it ends, no way!?". Only when the closure is made clear and evident do I smile and acknowledge an ending to a show/movie/game/book.

There is a similar case of that happening over on Steam. That recent "aids" game literally has an acknowledgement from the dev, claiming that they know it's a rip off and a garbage game and that it's a cheap cash grab, but they do it because they know there is a crowd out there who will buy garbage games either for giggles, reviewing, bashing on about (Jim sterling does this on purpose that it's lost it's charm). 

Also Nier was originally going to be a PC based game, but then we had Sony step in and things changed. The delay and the reviews ended up being drowned out as a result. This is why I'm not too keen on supporting Publishers like SE, Capcom, Konami and other oens out there whenever they make a deal with one of the big 3, as it normally ends with me getting a screwed PC version somewhere down the line. Capcom even just announced that they will be showing off MH Switch this E3, yet mentioned nothing for the PC port of MHW, let alone on how it's going.

Platinum had also moved onto their other projects when Nier released, but SE could have still noticed this at some point. It would be a good gesture if they even grabbed them to throw in a few patches sometime this year or next. 

Nier suffered issues from Frame rate to prompts to textures, Full screen issues etc. The PC gaming wiki site lists a bunch of issues to fix: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Nier_Automata

This includes broken games straight out the get go. Like Bless Online for example.

They are promising that for years already, but nothing changed yet

Well years ago we didn't have discovery queue, or proper and expanded tags. We also didn't have Steam workshop either. 

What is really taking forever, is the store and client UI overhaul.

Mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand... If you genuinely want something it will be available... But on the other they need to make up for that with better tools for the end user to filter out the rubbish.

Hopefully this means a return of EA games to Steam?