Took scrolling through 16 games to hit an achievement hunter game, which was more than I expected, but what an achievement hunter game it is:

My favorite part of this isn't that someone thought this was a good idea for a game, or that they wasted a whole afternoon slapping it together, it's that they actually thought it was worth spending the hundred bucks to publish it on Steam.

Sturgeon's statement was not a criticism, but a simple statement of fact. This is the reality of creativity, and Steam is giving the public a window into that reality. You have to produce lots and lots and lots of crap to occasionally/eventually hit on something great. Naturally, what the public usually sees, whether it's a painting, a musical composition, a novel, a movie, or a video game, is the rare standout.

The crap is an essential part of the creative process, and should be embraced. If you are afraid of creating a lot of crap along the way, you'll never create anything great.

The garbage though. Fuck man I hate it, but I totally agree with you. I know that many of these games are knockoffs from 90s games but maybe these games were only a creative step on the way to working on a more original creation. Plus it gives them publishing experience. And experience with literally everyone telling them that their work is shit.

“Every artist has thousands of bad drawings in them and the only way to get rid of them is to draw them out.”
― Chuck Jones

+1 Pulled Relevant Quote out of Ass

I read Chuck Amuck, Jones' autobiography while I was in art school. It made a big impression.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/338619.Chuck_Amuck

Note that he didn't say "draw them out and sell them."

I'm fine with people making crappy art. I make plenty of my own and really I think everyone should. But when someone decides that their stick figure scrawled on a cocktail napkin, game made from generic public domain assets pasted into a beginner Unity tutorial, or five minutes of improvised mumble rap over the first Google search result for "free trap beats" is worth charging money for, they insult their audience and their craft, devalue the efforts of artists with integrity who try to make sure their work is actually good enough before they foist it upon the public, and display a lack of the humility and self-awareness it takes to improve as an artist.

Absolutely. However, I suspect these folks quickly learn the hard truth that they still have thousands more to go before they're actually ready to share them with the public as anything other than samples of the learning process.