You can be a “couch dev”, with amazing talent and the ability to write good running code / blueprints. Or you can be a corporate guy with alot of money, in for another quick cash grab. The problem is not going to be generally solved with higher entry fees to Steam direct. What Steam needs is quality control and guidelines. Being “corporate” also does not solve the problem, there are PS4 games on Sony’s digital store of horrible quality made by registered companies aka. “pro devs”.
There has to be a small team at Valve, who tests the game and gives professional feedback to the developer on where they can improve the game. People who can detect a cheap asset flip. Nothing wrong with buying assets of a content store and using them, though. But reskinning full game templates and selling them on Steam should never ever be allowed.
Oculus is doing a pretty good job with quality control, while still being open to all kinds of developers. They have two tiers of app categories, the once who got approved by their team and gallery apps. Maybe this could work for Steam too.
Totally agree on that. I just think that a minimum standard of technical quality and not being allowed to sell reskinned asset flips as five different games, should be expected.