Gaming communities can be rough, but I can’t think of another forum like Steam which is across so many games consistently incredibly toxic towards developers, even if their product is fine with only minor issues and no predatory monetization. They are my least favorite place of conversation.
What would you do to improve the culture around them?
Without proper moderation, it will always be terrible. I don’t think Valve is going to change that given their hands off approach to this kind of stuff.
There used to be a game called Domina on Steam, the developer used his forum and the game changelog to complain about trans people and spread conspiracy theories about covid vaccines. It took months and several verbal warnings from Valve before they finally shut down the store page and its forums.
That is what it took for Valve to draw a line. They do not care about xX_gamerfart13_Xx screaming that their Dell from 2004 can’t run GTA V.
I’d love to be wrong, but I think Valve is more likely to shut down the forums feature than bother with moderation.