Apparently, Valve keeps getting builds that were never run through Steam at all, which is how games end up with broken launch options or missing depots.
Four months or so Blizzard dropped a new season for Diablo 4 (along with a new game update), while being “Steam Deck Verified” and the new version of the game didn’t launch at all on Linux anymore.
The Proton team had to make an experimental Proton build which took around a day before it was fixed iirc.
So really, even AAA devs can’t seem to test launching their games for all scenarios.
Reminds me of the new Simon the Sorcerer game. The Linux build used a script to launch the actual game. The only thing the script did was to call the game’s binary. Trouble was that they misspelled the binary. Just launching it once would have shown them the error.
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Now imagine the developer who wrote that terrible code starting to use AI to excrement exponentially more terrible code…
But think of how much faster they could put terrible code out!
The verb form of excrement is to excrete.
The more you know!
I mean, this is actually the type of overengineered error LLMs make when coding. Especially back then.
5 MINUTES!? How about 5 months!? I mean WTF!?
Meanwhile we were so afraid to hit submit we tested for months even if we were just launching a playtest build. Sweating before every early build submission and our steam review.
Even if it was actually a rubber stamp im glad we took so much care and am glad steam is setting up more tests like this.
Don’t stop caring just because others don’t. Do it for yourself. It will show. Proud of you.
Im going to share this with the team thank you :)
Glad there’s some devs who do care. Do You mean any specific title here?
This new law is probably aimed against ai slops or/and super bugged self crashing crap… bethesda :V
I am a co founder of Hermertia Wars. Bunch of indie devs making our dream come true by working on an Action RTS that takes characters from our 13+ year lore playing minecraft community, and makes them heros you control while recruiting villagers, soldiers, and directing economy. Like AOE/warcraft 3 meets smash bros. Early game. We have a long project in mind. Would love new playtesters or meet folks interested in indie dev :). We are also a workers cooperative which is the best part.
We are now living in time where the platform holder asks the developers to at least play their game for 5 minutes. The quality bar is that low.
Tim McSweeney next week:
Steam’s terrible choice to demand that developers play their own game is incredibly anti-consumer and is cyber-bullying me specifically. How can anyone compete in such an unfair ecosystem?
Well yeah, he’s got a point. Would you want to be forced to play fortnite?
Games with launchers becoming trendy in 1, 2, 3…
That’s a nice way to leverage Steam’s own stats against dumbasses.
Ngl, kind of surprised that something like this wasnt the case already.
Five minutes seem unreasonably paltry.
For real.
If it were me, I’d probably be swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction, but I’d prefer that the developers clear the whole game to make sure the whole thing works. Submit enough gameplay data to prove that every achievement is unlockable.
The Stanley Parable devs be like
Make them play at least 2 hours so they can’t ask for a refund
Every achievement is too much. Some achievements are pure time sinks, and some are designed to be hard to be completed.
I said what I said. Every. Achievement.
(Half joking, but also half serious. It sucks when people accomplish something crazy difficult only to learn that the game is bugged and the achievement fails to unlock or the criteria can’t be met)
That was my initial thought, however it may seem unreasonable as some studios develop for multiple storefronts and/or platforms. Should they play the entirety of their game on every platform or storefront, probably, but testing is like security, they don’t really care about it because it’s not a money maker.
I miss the days of old when a game would launch mostly bug free (with a few minor exceptions).
Just getting people to boot the damn build can be like pulling teeth
5 minutes is paltry. Devs should be required to submit an uncut recording of the first 30 minutes of gameplay from launching via Steam before they can release a game or push an update.
I don’t think that’s an unreasonable demand, cause if a game can’t launch or survive 30 minutes of normal gameplay, it shouldn’t be on the store for people to waste their time and/or money on.
2 hours. If 2 hours is enough gameplay to completely lock us out of getting a refund, it’s the bare minimum for devs to play their own game.
5 minutes is paltry.
Yes, but I feel like this is intended more to curb AI-generated games that are submitted to Steam without any testing. This is just adding a layer of “a human (or something close-enough to a human) launched the game and didn’t find it immediately unsuitable for public release”, which I guess wasn’t there before.
Can it verify that the player did more than just sit at the main menu? actually started the game?
Also, hopefully this will cut down on long unskippable opening cutscenes.
Valve should require video of a full game launch through Steam, through the main menu and then starting a new game, with at least five minutes of actual gameplay to verify that it’s not a crashy mess.
Also also, it should be required for every major update, not just the initial product listing, along with a list of test platform specs.
heroes3 remake on Steam, few months ago :D
What was that download? Like 300KB?
did research… 23.49KB
Ah yeah? make them 100% the game first
