Is steam getting less and less consumer friendly?

[NaughtiusMaximus]

It seems like the longer I own steam the more I realize how much it's not really my friend and just a corporate entity trying to bilk me for my hard earned cash. I just recently tried playing skyrim again after probably 2 years or more, with a plethora of mods I spent many hours researching, downloading, and installing. However the game just continuously wants to crash now and I'm certain it's because of an update. This has happened numerous times before and everytime I try to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. However the result always eventually ends up being the same. Somehow, eventually, steam gets it's disgusting claws on it and shoves some crap on my hard drive that I never wanted never asked for and only breaks the game for me. I find it extremely hard to believe they aren't aware of their customers complaints about their auto-update system and not being able to turn it off completely. If they are then it makes them look even more bad as they don't pay attention their consumers in the least bit. Even if you are one of the few steam users who isn't greatly negatively effected, it is still annoying to have steam trying to force updates on you all the time. In most cases the updates you download you have no ♥♥♥♥ing clue what they even did and the game worked totally fine for you before and you can't even see any difference. So why the hell are you forcing this update on me? I don't need you soaking up more of my hard drive space and bandwidth for seemingly nothing at all.

Another anti-consumer practice of Valve is the inability to do anything with a game after purchase. It is linked to one account and it will stay on that account forever. The very least they could do is allow you to trade games with other steam users. This is one thing I have to give consoles credit for even if they get tons of♥♥♥♥♥♥for their paid internet subscriptions, at least they actually OWN their games and can do with them as they see fit (assuming they bought it on a disc). I don't understand why steam wouldn't allow it's users to sell their games to each other and include their little tax fee like they do for all other sales and purchases from steam user to steam user. Is it maybe because all they really care about now is their bottom line? (rhetorical obviously that's all they give a♥♥♥♥♥♥about)

[Zer0Shade]

Steam is not responsible for the contents of game updates, so you're barking at the wrong tree here.

Besides, a lot of people are playing both old and new versions of skyrim just fine, so the crashes are on your end. Either because of bad mod configurations or just plainly dated hardware.


As for your second point: Game trading/Selling will never be a thing because it would destroy the game industry.
Developers would be getting considerably less money as customers would just keep trading/buying the games from other players instead.
Devs get no money = Devs can't make more games.

Also, nobody owns their games, even on consoles. You're just buying a license to play them. Just because you can trade physical games on console, doesn't make it legal.

[Count_Dandyman]

Steam has nothing to do with game updates beyond delivering them and it has even less to do with your insistence of trying to fill a game with mods and then finding out it doesn't work right after that. Start learning rule #1 of modding "mods have to work around the game, the game has no requirement to work around the mod".

The second Steam starts allowing the resale and trading of used games all that will happen is the prices of games will go up, sales will vanish and we will get more important content turned into single activation DLC because companies will be forced to start making more from each original sale and force users not buying it new to pay them in other ways.

Steam is far from being anti-consumer and most things people complain about are things that would push Steam into taking an anti-consumer stance and methods to change.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Not sure how it's less consumer friendly, if other services offer much less than Steam. But ok if that what you think, less features and services is more consumer friendly.

Giving you heads up Steam has nothing to do with games, they just give you the product / updates that the game pubs/devs push out. Keep in mind if the game pubs/devs breaks the game, then you need to contact them to fix the issue they caused.

Now please tell me which game you're having trouble with.

Also to inform you that you can set the updates to be update later on, or when you want to update, but it will update when you start the game, because it searched for the update. If you play only single player games, and don't want to updates, play in offline mode, which you can do by click on Steam > Go offline.

Oh, and the last part... You must be joking... Clearly you must be joking... NO ONE ALLOW THIS! You can't resell digital game licenses, GoG, Epic, Steam, Discord, Origin, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc, etc, and etc.... Do not allow you to resell digital game licenses

[Midnight]

I'm not sure i'm following... you're saying that Steam is potentially less friendly because they're allowing developers to release regular updates, updates that (generally) fix bugs, provide quality of life, requested / contemporary features, etc? That seems rather ill-thought-out and counter-intuitive.

However... even when there are no readily apparent benefits for the end user, auto-updates on Steam are a bit of a necessary evil. It's partly for our convenience and protection (or it masquerades as such) but it also allows Steam to distance themselves from potential liability. While it doesn't apply to every game, one concern is ensuring security enhancements and hotfixes are delivered and applied in a timely manner that doesn't compromise the typical user (who may or may not understand the importance of immediately installing the latest security update or hotfix in an opt-in system). This is especially relevant where a game has a strong multiplayer component, a third-party login or provides microtransactions (i.e. Bethesda's creation club). Enforcing the download of whatever the developers deem worthy to push out is a blanket approach that allows Steam to place any consequences squarely upon the developer. Is it a pro-consumer or consumer-friendly practice? I'd like to think so, considering that Steam's longevity ensures my ability to access my game catalogue on their service. Plus, perusing the various Steam discussion forums will quickly prove just how desperately the typical user requires the protection of auto-updates, considering the (often simplistic) phishing and social engineering that so many fall prey to.

[Count_Dandyman]

Dr.Shadowds 🐉님이 먼저 게시:

Not sure how it's less consumer friendly, if other services offer much less than Steam. But ok if that what you think, less features and services is more consumer friendly. :conwayshrug:

Giving you heads up Steam has nothing to do with games, they just give you the product / updates that the game pubs/devs push out. Keep in mind if the game pubs/devs breaks the game, then you need to contact them to fix the issue they caused.

Now please tell me which game you're having trouble with.

Also to inform you that you can set the updates to be update later on, or when you want to update, but it will update when you start the game, because it searched for the update. If you play only single player games, and don't want to updates, play in offline mode, which you can do by click on Steam > Go offline.

He makes it clear in the opening post is problem is with a heavily modded version of Skyrim he is trying to use not sure if it was the original or the special edition.

[Midnight]

Count_Dandyman님이 먼저 게시:

He makes it clear in the opening post is problem is with a heavily modded version of Skyrim he is trying to use not sure if it was the original or the special edition.

Right, and it's easier to blame Bethesda's latest update rather than go through fifty+ mods and eliminate the most likely culprit.

NaughtiusMaximus님이 먼저 게시:

However the game just continuously wants to crash now and I'm certain it's because of an update

Which is code for "I don't really know what's causing the crash, but Bethesda is an easy scapegoat". I'll reserve further commentary until the OP states that they have disabled / removed every mod and vanilla continued to crash.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Count_Dandyman님이 먼저 게시:

He makes it clear in the opening post is problem is with a heavily modded version of Skyrim he is trying to use not sure if it was the original or the special edition.

Ah ok, thank.

OP you must not know Bethesda very well... Their games are always breaking even if there was an update, or not, putting mods, adds more problems to the fire, you have a chance of getting the issue, or not, depending on the hardware config, as well how you setup the game mods, or what you added. I had every Bethesda game break on me due to mods mostly because their games are not stable, mods can fix Bethesda mistakes hence seeing mods that fix game broken issues that Bethesda broke, or needed to redone because how it can cause a problem.

[Satoru]

Hey OP

Unless you go to websters dictionary and see taht "Consumer Friendly" suddenly means "skyrim started crashing" then stop saying things like "consumer friendly" when you basically have no idea what that means at all.

You do realise OP that vanilla Skyrim hasn't been updated in literally 3 YEARS right? But no of course its because of a 'certain update'. No it cant POSSIBLY be because you're screwing up your mods right?

Or that Skyim in general, crashes a lot because its a 32-bit game and people seem to want to cram everything under the sun into the game then complain about why it crashes.

Oh and you do know that Steam allows devs to have mutliple versions of a game available right? Games like CK2 have litraly 2 DOZEN previous versions available.

If Bethesda doesnt want to make previous versions available, you're free to go scream at the m for being 'consumer unfriendly' becuase they are the only roadblock for that.

But of course why let pesky things like 'facts' get in the way of a good whine fest right?

[76561198021901124]

I bet you will be laughed at by the regulars when you post this in Skyrim forums.

Boi, just how ignorant can someone be.

[anrkyuk]

Zer0Shade님이 먼저 게시:

As for your second point: Game trading/Selling will never be a thing because it would destroy the game industry.

Funny that, I've been gaming since well before the "internet" was a thing and selling / trading your big box retail games was never an issue, and surprise, surprise the gaming industry wasn't "destroyed".

[Zukabazuka]

anrkyuk님이 먼저 게시:

Zer0Shade님이 먼저 게시:

As for your second point: Game trading/Selling will never be a thing because it would destroy the game industry.

Funny that, I've been gaming since well before the "internet" was a thing and selling / trading your big box retail games was never an issue, and surprise, surprise the gaming industry wasn't "destroyed".

Price for making a game has increased a lot, require more time and investing more time after the release of game. Second thing is if steam made it possible to trade your games, it would open a market to 10millions users having access to it. Quite different compared to a small town with a shop there selling used games, also the games being sold would most likely not be the one you are looking for. But on steam, every single game would have 10+ copies at lower price than main game.

Second hand market hurts devs a lot on console, there is a reason they only really make money on launch day, because those store will promote any used game they bought over the non used game. Zero money to devs all money to the store.

[anrkyuk]

Zukabazuka님이 먼저 게시:

anrkyuk님이 먼저 게시:

Funny that, I've been gaming since well before the "internet" was a thing and selling / trading your big box retail games was never an issue, and surprise, surprise the gaming industry wasn't "destroyed".

Price for making a game has increased a lot, require more time and investing more time after the release of game. Second thing is if steam made it possible to trade your games, it would open a market to 10millions users having access to it. Quite different compared to a small town with a shop there selling used games, also the games being sold would most likely not be the one you are looking for. But on steam, every single game would have 10+ copies at lower price than main game.

Second hand market hurts devs a lot on console, there is a reason they only really make money on launch day, because those store will promote any used game they bought over the non used game. Zero money to devs all money to the store.

Pish, a secondhand anything hurts who ever made or produced it, they key is to make something someone wants to keep or in the case of games, at least complete.

Pre-digital purchase days games were far longer, far harder and had many unlocks, hidden content and easter eggs, game took time to complete and assuming the game wasn't just garbage, a quality game didn't appear on the second hand market a week after release or in the case of modern day recycled trash, the day after.

The problem is the industry (in general) has become lazy, protectionist and greedy, very, very greedy.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Trading or re-selling digital license that's already bound to the account, will not become a thing, mainly because this will drive sales. This also helps supply more funds to the pubs/devs as well because they can't just give, or sell to someone as they would with a physical copy, which they're become less, and less on the PC, not talking about DRM free games, plus some of those services policies are against of sharing, or selling, especially selling DRM free games without permission of IP holder of the content.

The only things that will remain trading or selling will be physical copies. Consoles are moving more towards digital license, and at some point in the future, they may stop selling physical copies, they're already not selling physical copies for certain games, that can only be bought as a digital license. Do note, that we're not entitle to selling, or trading our own digital license that are bound to our accounts, under the policy we agree to, and do not own the said content.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

NaughtiusMaximus님이 먼저 게시:

It seems like the longer I own steam the more I realize how much it's not really my friend and just a corporate entity trying to bilk me for my hard earned cash. I just recently tried playing skyrim again after probably 2 years or more, with a plethora of mods I spent many hours researching, downloading, and installing. However the game just continuously wants to crash now and I'm certain it's because of an update. This has happened numerous times before and everytime I try to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again. However the result always eventually ends up being the same. Somehow, eventually, steam gets it's disgusting claws on it and shoves some crap on my hard drive that I never wanted never asked for and only breaks the game for me. I find it extremely hard to believe they aren't aware of their customers complaints about their auto-update system and not being able to turn it off completely. If they are then it makes them look even more bad as they don't pay attention their consumers in the least bit. Even if you are one of the few steam users who isn't greatly negatively effected, it is still annoying to have steam trying to force updates on you all the time. In most cases the updates you download you have no ♥♥♥♥ing clue what they even did and the game worked totally fine for you before and you can't even see any difference. So why the hell are you forcing this update on me? I don't need you soaking up more of my hard drive space and bandwidth for seemingly nothing at all.

Another anti-consumer practice of Valve is the inability to do anything with a game after purchase. It is linked to one account and it will stay on that account forever. The very least they could do is allow you to trade games with other steam users. This is one thing I have to give consoles credit for even if they get tons of♥♥♥♥♥♥for their paid internet subscriptions, at least they actually OWN their games and can do with them as they see fit (assuming they bought it on a disc). I don't understand why steam wouldn't allow it's users to sell their games to each other and include their little tax fee like they do for all other sales and purchases from steam user to steam user. Is it maybe because all they really care about now is their bottom line? (rhetorical obviously that's all they give a♥♥♥♥♥♥about)

I have a friend with over 2 TB of mods installed for Skyrim.

It runs fine. It is you, or how you installed the mods.

Dont blame Steam, it isnt even a Valve game ffs.

[WolfEisberg]

I do agree that Steam really needs an option to not update a game. Updates should never be forced on the PC platform. People praise Steam for supporting modding, but really they are half-as-ing it by forcing updates.