Steam lets users combat fake or bad games through its new Explorers programme

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Gaming fanImage source, AFP/Getty Images

The company behind gaming platform Steam, Valve, is recruiting gamers to crack down on fake or bad games.

YouTuber John Bain, or TotalBiscuit, says the firm wants to try to prove that the Steam store "isn't infested with terrible titles".

A new Explorer programme will then highlight games which "probably deserve more exposure than they're getting".

TotalBiscuit uploaded an hour-long video after being invited to the Valve Corporation headquarters in America.

YouTuber TotalBiscuit uploaded an hour-long video to YouTube talking about his visit to Valve., external

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If a bad game starts to get a lot of attention in the Steam store, and a user questions why they're being shown that game, Valve says it wants to be able to deal with it by showing the data it's collected.

This includes showing how many visits the game has had and where the visits come from, like video reviews and Reddit posts.

TotalBiscuit calls it a "bit of a crowdsourcing system".

Image source, Valve Corporation

But Valve also wants to discover hidden gems that get buried by allowing users to become explorers.

Users that opt in will be shown a list of games that failed to reach a level of exposure after being released.

They'll then test them and assess their game play.

TotalBiscuit said that Valve "haven't determined exactly what to do with the assessments" but are hoping that it can use them to kill off bad games.

Image source, Valve Software
Image caption,

The hugely popular Steam service has about 125 million active users

Valve is also taking measures to stop the profitability of "fake games".

It's launched Steam Direct, which is "intended to decrease the noise in the submission pipeline" by making the process similar to that of a bank account, using a structure that includes tax forms, making it harder for anyone to submit a game to the store.

The previous system saw developers courting users to make their game popular.

Valve and Steam haven't released any information about the updates on the site.

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