> "Steam for example has none of the same problems as the app store because they very actively curate, and they don't let the riff raff in, which erodes consumer confidence in shopping in the store."

I love Steam, but they don't police it as much as you think.

First off, pre-orders are always problematic as Steam doesn't know if a new game is going to be good or an unfinished tech demo that was released one year too early, which was the case for a game I pre-ordered last year. If it's bad enough they'll do refunds, but you need to push them and they won't always grant them if you don't ask in a timely manner.

More troubling, they sell games that they know are broken. Full Spectrum Warrior is one example that I can think of. The game tries to resolve a no-longer existing address hundreds of times a second and lags horribly. It's easily fixed but Steam support doesn't care because it's not Valve's game.

Steam does a lot of things right, but it's very much a buyer beware situation, and for higher stakes than a $0.99 app.