Well, I could imagine it ***maybe*** being worth paying $300 if they'd kept it well-maintained, and clean to near-mint condition...and included an equally immaculately-maintained set of BBQ tools...and thrown in a couple of quality cuts of meat...

The problem, as I see it, is this: at what point are there going to be so many casualties that the system is untentable? At first, the arrival of poorly made cheap games was actually good for a few laughs, and only problematic in how it would theoretically make Steam look bad to have games like The Slaughtering Grounds sharing space with Dragon Age.

But now, it's gotten to the point where it's arguably substantially problematic for consumers to actually find quality content, and problematic for actual developers of merit to get their content recognized. In a situation reminiscent of GOG's own forums, Steam's solution to these problems -- Greenlight and the Steam Curator Program -- are only band-aid solutions that have not only pushed the onus onto the community, but also apparently have gone ignored by Steam itself.

The only good to come out of this, I suppose, is that it may entice more developers to look outside of Steam/Steam DRM for selling their games. Sadly, GamersGate and the Humble Store haven't been immune to being flooded with garbage either.

You could say that the lettering on the measuring stick was simply changed from "You need to be this tall to enter" to "You need to be this tall to succeed", after which lots of people stopped looking at it altogether. Getting your game to market is not the only requirement for success, but lots of people seem to think that it is, purely because that used to be the first insurmountable obstacle in games development.

wait Jim Sterling bashes games? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu3YetlZCo

I'm pretty sure it's extreme cases of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, or at least a phenomenon heavily related to it (not sure if the effect officially extends to products of one's overestimated competence). Anyway, I guess it's quite common and the main reason we're seeing more and more douchey devs is simply that the barrier of entry in the industry has gone down and now direct interaction between creators and consumers is common.

Heck, I've seen reactions of developers to all sorts of criticism, also to criticism only of certain aspects of rather positively received games, and the first reaction (that the public will never hear) is usually "pfff, those people are idiots, they have no idea what they are talking about" and what follows are explanations for the criticism that put the blame entirely on the critic ("dude is too stupid to understand the game", "dude is too clumsy", "dude is probably a competitor" etc.). In my experience, for most people, it takes some time and distance to actually process the criticism objectively and maybe even take steps to remove the flaws that caused the criticism. I'm not surprised that people like those over at Digital Suicide and the Art of Stealth guy go down in a fire of embarrassment if there's no safety net keeping them from instantly reacting publicly to criticism. It takes a really big person to handle these things responsibly.

I myself have had to fight that urge to post furious replies to some critical reviews of my stuff (even if they were just a few among many positive ones) and I can very much imagine that if one actually follows through with it, one can easily spiral down and end up in a vicious cycle where the coping mechanism and ignorance to one's flaws only manifest themselves more and more strongly as one only provides fuel for more criticism - clearly going so far that one can not even see what an utter piece of garbage The Art of Stealth is (and my guess is that the game's developer may in fact be a very decent guy who just ended up in a really bad place that turns his psyche into pulp).

And I believe a big problem is that often this irrational protection of one's works or just competence is actually a legitimate reaction only there to keep one going. If it only leads to one angry exclamation in private it's helpful, and that only makes it harder to consciously grasp when this automatic defence has gone too far and which criticism is legitimate. It also doesn't help that a lot of criticism is, in fact, driven by similarly irrational behaviour.

For an example of an indie developer who actually responded to criticism in a meaningful way, there's Scott Cawthon, who developed Five Nights at Freddie's.

To be fair, it's probably quite easy to handle criticism well if your name has the ring of an Indiana Jones type adventurer who eats snakes for breakfast and makes love to virgin princesses for dessert.

I remember watching Jim's review in 2014. Just another crap game he made a video about and I kind of forgot about. I had no idea that one video would blow up into this ridiculous mud slinging.

Found this video which pretty much sums up the whole ridiculous situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbh4zGHylY0
It's 30 minutes, but quite interesting to listen to. Digital Homicide... developers with mental problems or just shady jerks? Ashamed they're also in Arizona.

It's finally over (surprised it even lasted this long):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDefw1WMYzM

well not a surprising outcome :D