On the Importance of Quality Control in Game Marketplaces

In the wake of Steam scrapping Greenlight as a result of a flood of poor and exploitative games polluting its store, I attempt to analyse the circumstances of two famous examples where quality control in gaming has almost derailed its stakeholders, and offer my hope that these cautionary tales can inform modern game companies, like Steam, not to make the same mistakes.

Quality control is a vital aspect of any business, especially in a sector where customers have come to expect a high standard. Gaming stands as a luxury product, due to the high cost and non-necessary nature of video games, so perhaps video game companies are more vulnerable than other businesses from the pitfalls of lacking stringent quality control standards. If quality control fails, then over time the reputation of the seller becomes tarnished and customers lose faith in the product, ruining future sales.

A famous example of how disastrous a tarnished reputation can be is the 1983 video game crash, a period where consumer faith in video games as anything more than a short term fad had eroded almost completely, to the point that nobody was buying a videogame. This was because the complete absence of quality control systems had led to market oversaturation. Unscrupulous companies had been flooding the market with rushed, poorly-made games in the interest of making a quick buck without any consideration for the end consumer. In the end, for most customers this rendered video games, with their high cost and luxury nature, not worthy of purchase.

It took many years to turn around this failure, and soon Nintendo became the mastermind behind restoring customer confidence. At first, the company focused on marketing their video games as children’s toys (which led to a vital product differentiation from a more negative image), but over time they brought strict quality controls into video games development thanks to their strict control over releases. At the time, Nintendo owned a practical monopoly, so any video games company wishing to publish their products on their system with official support had to go through a vetting procedure to achieve the Nintendo Seal of Quality.

It is ironic, then, that the same company’s products would eventually become synonymous with poor quality shovelware titles. Fast forward to 2008, where the Wii was the story of the day. This might not seem a likely place to find an example of something that ultimately damaged a company’s reputation beyond repair, given that the Wii sold an astronomical amount of sales, over 100 million consoles worldwide. However, it was at this point that Nintendo’s great empire began to unravel.

The Wii had become synonymous with shovelware; titles that ultimately were made with a similar design philosophy to the circumstances leading up to the video game crash of ’83. At the time, going into a retail shop and looking at a shelf of Wii software was like digging through excrement looking for nuggets of gold. This was thanks to the extremely popular nature of the console’s and Nintendo’s sudden focus on the ‘casual’ market; that is the market of people that were non-traditional gamers; the elderly, soccer moms, extremely young children. These unfortunate consumers were the customer base of anyone looking to publish on the Wii, and as their tastes were not as ‘refined’ as what in the industry would be called ‘hardcore’ gamers, the opportunity was taken to exploit such consumers for all they were worth, with greedy companies and rip-off artists throwing together games with no thought and as little investment as possible to capitalize on this huge market of gamers who knew no better.

By the time the Wii U came out, the reputation of Nintendo had already been dragged through the mud. To many, Nintendo had become synonymous with the word ‘casual’ , and known for not taking its core market seriously. Promises of ‘good’ third party games meant nothing, and the golden goose of the prior casual market had flown away to greener pastures in the smartphone market. Nintendo were left at a sector of the market that simply didn’t exist anymore.

Fast-forward again to today, and Nintendo is still suffering the consequences of their decision to abandon quality control in favour of making a short term success (albeit a massive sales success) out of the Wii. The successor console has completely died a sad and tragic death despite a big attempt to close old wounds with excellent-quality titles, some of the best in the generation, and with the Nintendo Switch release being just around the corner, the hype train that normally comes with the release of a new console is at risk of being derailed by a lack of customer faith. People just don’t believe in Nintendo and the company is suffering to repair its reputation.

It is a relief then, that one of the best consumer markets in gaming today is abandoning a widely-panned quality control system. I’m referring, of course, to Steam Greenlight. With the cautionary tale of the video game crash of 1983 and the massive failure of Nintendo to repair their reputation in the wake of the runaway Wii, I am watching with bated breath in the hope that Valve can implement something that is much more functional than the ‘anything goes’ approach that is being taken now. Jim Sterling (I warn you, the video has a...weird opening...) has done some excellent videos on the topic of Steam Greenlight and I highly suggest that you watch his series on the subject.

Prior to this announcement, Steam was going much the way of the Wii, and the ’83 Videogame Crash before that. It was quickly developing a reputation for allowing rushed indie games and ‘asset flips’ (games made from pre-built elements with little to no creative effort put in whatsoever), and it was fast becoming dangerous, with games like Air Control and Slaughtering Grounds being at the forefront of a new wave of terribleness that was at risk of flooding the store with raw sewage in game form.

In part, this could be due to the modern indie game renaissance that took place in the wake of Minecraft, its hype inspiring many would-be game developers to cry out ‘me too’, despite lacking in any kind of the skills needed to see through a game project with any kind of success. It was a sad situation, but Steam was in danger of becoming over-saturated; go to Jim Sterling’s videos and they will give you an idea of the sheer volume of Steam games that were being released on a rapid basis.

However, I do express my hope that the abandonment of Steam Greenlight in favour of a stricter system, Steam Direct (a system that essentially asks developers to pay upfront for the privilege of store space though they can supposedly ‘recoup’ the cost at a later date), is not a case of too-little, too-late. I am willing to think optimistically, because I feel Steam is big enough that its reputation hasn’t taken a massive blow quite yet, and with the goodwill of gamers from truly excellent moves such as Steam Sales, I believe that Valve has more than enough of a good reputation to recover before any damage is done to their brand name.

So it is with cautious optimism that I hope Steam Direct is a success, and that any future game companies can look upon the current crisis facing Nintendo, and the market crash of ’83, and learn some vital lessons in quality control before the market hurtles toward a crash. Nobody, consumer or business, or even economy (given the larger financial impact of the gaming sector nowadays), would benefit to see an industry with so much potential be brought to its knees again.