The thing about Steam deciding to allow just about anything to be uploaded to their service isn’t really new to me. If you’ve seen their library over the past several years, it’s probably just going to be a lot like that continued. There have been multiple developers as well who have attempted to defend their obvious low-effort garbage, even attempting to sue for libel, but there’s not a lot of foothold in those cases.
Another weird aspect is that following the announcement, suddenly Steam is policing more on content violations at the moment, but only if it’s “trolling”, whatever that would legally amount to if anything. However, they also wanted to back off on content policing, which seems to mainly be aimed at keeping anime porn type games and visual novels on. Maybe now they don’t have to blatantly yet vaguely hint at where to get the patch that unlocks the entire boobs, it can just come with the game itself, though that’s going to deter streaming even further.
Essentially, I don’t expect a lot to change, because this has generally been the case for a while. Instead of acting like they might do something, they just outright said they won’t, but also somehow are doing more. I’m fine with all kinds of blatant porn games being on there as long as I don’t have to sort through a billion Sakura Whatever to find whatever, but that’s also why there’s a search box.
I have less issues with content as opposed to quality, however. AAA studios are not immune to this problem either, but generally the major blame is aimed toward “my first game” quality things which are mostly bought (or stolen) assets. There’s sort of an unwritten rule I’ve heard before where you don’t sell your actual personal first game, maybe put it up for free and get feedback, at least, if you do want to show it off. I don’t think that’s often followed. A lot are just also from flash-in-the-pan memes which will lose relevance within a month or so. If you have to involve memes, it’s better to be the memetic source rather than a follower. That also doesn’t mean “reference everything”.
Regarding content and subject matter itself, there are many games which still exist involving potentially highly offensive material, and they will keep happening. At this rate, I don’t really care. Art in all its forms explores all kinds of subject matter. Games, too, art or not. There’s some that are just made to directly offend everyone, which just ends up being pointless in the end, and some that just happen to offend many because they don’t hold back.
For some reason, I also have to note that the ones most outright angry at Steam’s decision, at least among the loudest, are in the game journalism sphere, the same ones that also post opinion as news a large amount of the time, which I find to be a much bigger concern than the types of games they like to showcase. One might take the hints on how they like to write articles about specifically “diverse” games and/or walking simulators from the indie scene in consideration for how they would react to a game that’s an edgy Postal clone, for example, but whatever. Sometimes it’s good to show weird or unusual games. Either way, it’s generally mostly advertising, save for some reviews, maybe, because press is press.
As far as my thoughts, I think the decision isn’t a good one, but not a terrible one, but also an inevitable one. It has good intention, at least as far as their income, and it will probably backfire and maybe at least another storefront will figure out a better strategy. Speaking of, don’t consider Steam the one-stop shop for PC games. That also goes for any site that specializes in being a third-party seller of Steam keys for a large part of their inventory, like Humble or Green Man Gaming. If what Ubisoft has been doing, having Steam versions that also end up requiring their Uplay to be installed, making the whole thing redundant, that should at least be a sign to diversify shopping. Also be sure to control your backlog. Just because there’s a sale doesn’t mean you have to buy things. It’s just an opportunity to do so.