After seeing some great reviews by Jim Sterling, I was really looking forward to buying some of Digital Homicide Studios' games on Steam today --but they were gone!

I cannot help but feel the OP is a troll post. If your argument is that you base your video game purchases on the negative recommendations by Jim Sterling, then by all means you can always buy direct from their shopfront. If however your post is simply a backdoor way of illustrating the current woes of Digital Homicide, I probably would have preferred a post that went into the arguments in a logical and well thought out manner. There is definitely meat on the bone when it comes to the issues that arise in the various claims and counterclaims amongst the various parties (Jim Sterling, Digital Homicide and Valve recent steps) that could account for some interesting conversations.

http://kotaku.com/angered-game-developer-sues-game-critic-jim-sterling-fo-1765484317

http://www.polygon.com/2016/9/17/12951756/digital-homicide-lawsuit-jim-sterling-steam-users-valve

http://www.digitalhomicide.ninja/

while Digital Suicide are handling their customers very badly it seams its become common place to rip to shreds indie studios without giving any credit at all.

Remember Mount & Blade 1? That started out as a total mess and i'm sure there are many who wouldn't even look twice at it. I could probably make a review of that and rip it to shreds too but it really was a diamond in the rough when you get into it.

I'm not saying that digital suicide has anything like that but its not helpful to give troll-like reviews of game without even knowing how to play it. Instead they could suggest ways to improve the game or find out if any updates are coming out to address the issues.

Agreed, Mount and Blade was pretty rough around the edges, but showed a lot of potential very early on.

while Digital Suicide are handling their customers very badly it seams its become common place to rip to shreds indie studios without giving any credit at all.

I don't know how accurate it is, but I read that Digital Homicide was flooding the Steam store with trash games (notice the release dates) that they'd reskin multiple times, in the hope of getting sales from unwitting customers, and that Valve actually had a prior problem with them when they submitted ten Steam Greenlight games on the same day.

They seem to be trying to treat Steam the same way many developers (badly) treat the iOS and Android stores by putting as much trash in the store as possible to get consumer eyeballs and hope they click on one of them. i.e. some developers compete by the amount of space they take up in the store, rather than the quality of the games.

One of the things I liked about Steam was how closed-garden ensured-quality it was, but three or so years ago, they decided to shift to being the "app store" of all PC games, pretty much, with the bar of quality much lower. This is good for indies that have unusual games that deserve attention, but bad for indies by having their games drowned amidst shovelware.

its not helpful to give troll-like reviews of game without even knowing how to play it. Instead they could suggest ways to improve the game or find out if any updates are coming out to address the issues.

Sure it's helpful to consumers to let consumers know what games aren't worth the price. No, having game reviewers suggest game design fixes are a bad idea. Game players aren't innately good game designers, as much as they like to believe it (years of game playing does not make one a good designer - that's a popular delusion).

I don't watch too many video reviews, and when I do, it's usually Let's Plays (or speed-run-races! yea man!) rather than the over-the-top criticism-style reviews, but it's obvious most of those hyper-critical reviews are mostly for humor, and consumer-directed.

What would be nice was if people gave follow-up reviews a year later, if the game has seen substantial changes... but there's so many games being released, that follow-up reviews means Game A gets a second review (as a reward for selling consumers trash the first time around?!) making Game B get zero reviews.

Quality games have become more and more a hide n seek like hunting out there on the trasure for better graphics are game design budgets gone slowly to a minimum to work with even in the Indi scene where budgets are even lower than AAA companies could aquire. I is all the same convinience mess arround for except of a few developers and studios. Anyone is fixing on DLCs/In App purchases rather than making a good bug free game or even deliver what they have promised.

So thats my opinion as active developer and passionate gamer for over 20 years