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Good points though.

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I mailed the SDK addy and copied in Gabe the first time. Then I forwarded the previous unanswered query and some new queries to Gabe directly. Neither returned an answer, not even to say my email was received and had been forwarded on to the correct person, or who the correct person to get in contact would be.

As a direct result of this silent treatment I’ve given up wasting my time writing up bugs, suggestions, feedback, queries and the like regarding Valve products, Steam features and mod legal queries. It kinda narks me off to see that they clearly are replying to emails concerned with trivial pursuits (“What was the name of the guy who voiced the fisherman in The Lost Coast?”) and are ignoring items that concern the core user experience (i.e. functionality or gameplay issues, technical enquiries, etc.).

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“Why on God’s Green Earth would they filter out the most popular email service providers on the planet? Are you sure this is true? Where did you get this information? In any case, I believe I sent half my emails from Gmail and half from a stable webmail account.”

i would imagine there is a varity of reasons why they would do this. its probably safer for one. its alot harder to spoof an isp email addy, since it is directly tied to your internet service. it cuts down the amount of spam. they like to try to answer as many emails as they can, so having a limiter like this makes it at least possible. i found this out by reading others responses from valve on different sites, and asking how they got a response when i wasnt getting any. all the people i asked said they used an isp email addy. another point is, what address are you sending mail to? if you are using a generic address like sdk@valvesoftware.com, it might be better to direct it to a person, like gaben@valvesoftware.com, or lombardi@valvesoftware.com. gabe is very good at answering emails, or if he cant he will forward it to the proper person. hope that helps you get in touch with them. you can also ask them to put you the mailing list, this way you can get heads up on when patches and updates are forthcomming, and valve press releases.

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“what kind of email are you using to contact valve? they filter out free accounts like gmail, hotmail etc. your best bet is to use an isp provided email.”

Why on God’s Green Earth would they filter out the most popular email service providers on the planet? Are you sure this is true? Where did you get this information? In any case, I believe I sent half my emails from Gmail and half from a stable webmail account.

I agree with your point about Steam’s flexibility being one of its strongest assets. Maybe Valve could set in motion some sort of internal ‘three strikes’ system to make sure that publishers/developers are ensuring a certain degree of quality. This way you still have a QA process with clear consequences to lazy sellers, it just becomes a retroactive system.

This would probably better fit in with how Valve works as a company, as they’d only have to have a team on standby to deal with indiscretions, instead of having to deal with every single release. They’d literally only need a Steam complaints service to monitor consumer feedback (which they may already have), the production of a document setting out the expected level of quality assurance (the ‘standards’), and a small team of investigators to deal with substandard products released on Steam and uphold said Standards.

Punishments could range from admonishments (losing a strike), to more severe actions (disabling all new download purchases until a patch has been readied), to severance (the third strike, or for gross misconduct). I may sound like a busy-body trying to come up with solutions, but it really pisses me off something royal to think that in some cases Steam is undermining the joyous simplicity and convenience of digital purchases by selling products that cannot be accessed or refuse to work. I just want to see Steam work as it should do. Some TLC and A2D, please, Valve.

P.S. The new patch is a step in the right direction, and exactly the sort of speedy resolution we’ve come to expect from Valve.

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Same with Ufo Defense, which I recommend securing the DOS version of as the Windows version is not actually improved outside of being directly compatible with certain older versions of Windows…and forces full-screen 320×200 or something similarly unbearably low-res.

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what kind of email are you using to contact valve? they filter out free accounts like gmail, hotmail etc. your best bet is to use an isp provided email. i have written them and gotten responses from them many times as have many others.

as for your suggestion of certification, i’m sorry but that idea is horrendous. look how long it takes for m$ and sony to release patches. it can take months. it just isnt feasible, on a platform where you could get day 1 patches if you bought a retail version. they would kill sales if they did that.

in fact valve has no plans to impliment this at all. look at what they say for their new steamworks innitiative;

“Plus, Steamworks does not have a certification requirement—your game and its future are yours to control.”

http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/

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It’s true that a product can never be perfect, but when you have a product like Steam that can update all of its clients automatically without the need for manual patching by the end-user, it can be annoying that Valve are constantly working on the next big feature for Steam instead of addressing the needed improvements/fixes to its basic functionality. I firmly believe that criticism is as important as praise to a software developer, so I have no qualms in giving Valve some much needed tough love from time to time.

I would email every time something irks me about Steam, but in the past I have never got a response, so it seems more worthwhile to put it all in a thread I already know Mr. Lombardi is aware of.

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Please read what I said about Microsoft and Sony submission processes. Games must pass a submission process in order to be sold for a platform like the 360 or PS3. Valve could very easily exact a similar process in order to meet the expectations of its customers. It would require on Valve’s part a team of experienced QA testers to go through the game and check for major bugs, at the very least to check functionality with Steam.

If Steam is to grow and stay ahead of the inevitable competition in online distribution, I believe this is something Valve need to look into. It’s simply not acceptable to have Steam downloads not working for games. Valve can by all means stick their head in the sand and pretend like it has nothing to do with them, but this insistence on looking the other way won’t change the fact that shoddy Steam products hurt their name just as much as the game’s creators.

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The Steam Version of Stalker was up to date at release in line with the retail patches. I’m not aware that there has ever been a discrepancy between them.

As for QA that’s not Valves Job, that’s the responsibility of the publisher/developer whose releasing the game through Steam. If they say it works on X, Y & Z when in fact it doesn’t, it’s hardly Valves fault if the facts are wrong. It’s up to the developers to get their facts right, and I’m sure it’s safe to assume that there is a fair degree of Steam distribution testing that takes place before a release, but the responsibility to carry it out thoroughly must lie with the developer/publisher.

If you go to a store and buy a branded washing machine and it turns out it’s broken, whose responsibility is it? Sure the store will refund your money, but it’s the manufacturer whose QA failed in the testing.

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As for the bug well.. not really steam’s fault is it? They didn’t develop the damn thing.

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