Steam announce changes to their trading card system
Steam announce changes to their trading card system
It is well known that there are developers that abuse the Steam ecosystem, either by developing low effort games for the chance of a quick profit or develop what are known as “fake games” to profit from Steam’s trading card system using bots.
Valve is now working on many levels to combat the swarm of “fake games” on the platform, with plans to ditch the frequently abused Steam Greenlight system and create a direct publishing model.
While this will prevent some of these titles from reaching Steam, it will not solve the problem entirely, as developers will still be able to profit from their games using the Steam trading card system, which means that the source of the problem remains.
In a new Steam Community update, Valve has announced changes to their trading card system, deciding not to ditch this system but to put checks and balances in place that will prevent “fake games” from dropping trading cards. Now games will need to pass a certain “confidence metric” in order to start dropping trading cards.
This move is designed to take away the economic incentive for developers to release “fake games” on Steam by removing the Steam trading card system as a source of profit.
Valve has not revealed what data influences Steam’s “confidence metric” though this is understandable why they haven’t given how this metric could be exploited by developers.
You can join the discussion on Valve’s changes to their Steam trading card system on the OC3D Forums.