Treat "Non-Steam" Games like Steam Games

[Jodian]

I really enjoy the way that Steam monitors and tracks the usage of the games you play. I often find myself comparing notes with others as to how many hours we've played a certain game, or how many total hours we've played, etc.

I also enjoy the fact that I can add all my non-steam games to Steam in order to bring everything into a single launch platform. My friends can see when I'm playing a game, what game I'm playing, and that gets me more offers of, "Hey I have that game, let's play!"

The one thing that Steam doesn't do, however, is tie those two likes of mine together. For example, I have both my "World of Warcraft" and "Starcraft" games added to my Steam library through the use of the option to add Non-Steam games. Steam, however, doesn't track how often I play them, or how long I've played them, and the games don't show up in my list of games when someone views my profile. This defeats a lot of the benefit of adding them to Steam in the first place, since they could just as easily be launched from the start menu instead.

My suggestion would be, you guessed it, to add this feature. Perhaps Steam could use a generic "Non-Steam Game" logo to represent the game on profiles and simply keep track of the game's name and time played. They already track time played on Steam games, would be nice if they tracked all games in a user's library so the profile statistics were more accurate.

[Crashed]

I would guess any such tracking would be local if it were to be implemented as non-Steam shortcuts are stored locally.

[Spawn of Totoro]

There is no way for Valve to verify the game is what it is though. I can rename Notepad.exe to anything and run it. I can even et it as "Half Life 3" if I wanted to, then my profile would display "Half Life 3" on my profile.

The only benefit adding a non-steam game has is that it lets other know what you are playing. Anything beyond that could case too many issues. Even just the non-steam game has caused problems with scammer setting it up to say "In non-steam game Admin Tools".

[Start_Running]

__ eredeti hozzászólása:

I would guess any such tracking would be local if it were to be implemented as non-Steam shortcuts are stored locally.

That's basically all non-steam games are. Sshort cut links. and NO OP steam's not likely to give database and cpu cycles to games games they did not make money on.

[Incog]

i like this, that is a good idea I have some none steam games myself too!

[Jodian]

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

There is no way for Valve to verify the game is what it is though.

Why would valve care if you put 30 hours into Notepad and called it Starcraft? Valve shouldn't care if the game is valid or not. All it would be doing is tracking how long you've used it and the name you gave it.

Would likely be simple to implement, just another database heading.

Start_Running eredeti hozzászólása:

Steam's not likely to give database and cpu cycles to games games they did not make money on.

Actually, the more features Steam adds, the more likely people are to use Steam for all of their gaming needs. In addition, not every game that Steam sells is sold exclusively by Steam. I have many games, now available on Steam, that I purchased as Indie projects before they got to Steam. They're listed in my Steam library as non-steam games, and as such don't appear in my profile.

So when someone sees my profile they don't see that I've put over 500 hours into that game. Because of that they don't get curious and search the Steam store for the game. Also because of that they certainly don't buy the game from Steam... See, it all goes around in a circle of marketing.

[Spawn of Totoro]

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Why would valve care if you put 30 hours into Notepad and called it Starcraft? Valve shouldn't care if the game is valid or not. All it would be doing is tracking how long you've used it and the name you gave it.

Would likely be simple to implement, just another database heading.

Then you would be allowing false information and that would defeat the purpose of such a feature. It would also be highly abused.

I don't see the benefits from it being out weighed by the issues it would cause.

I don't want people having a game called "Spawn of Totoro's Mom" on their profile.

[Jodian]

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

I don't want people having a game called "Spawn of Totoro's Mom" on their profile.

Because that's more offensive than "Genital Jousting", "Hentai", "Sex and Broadcasting", or "Slave Story"??

(all of which ARE games on Steam)

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

Then you would be allowing false information

Please tell me how the current system is accurate in ANY way? All I have to do is start up a game and leave it minimized overnight... Bam! 8 hours of game play, and in reality I haven't even tried it.

[999999999]

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

I don't want people having a game called "Spawn of Totoro's Mom" on their profile.

Because that's more offensive than "Genital Jousting", "Hentai", "Sex and Broadcasting", or "Slave Story"??

(all of which ARE games on Steam)

But not names of Steam users, correct? Because if it were, that would be just trolling.

[Spawn of Totoro]

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

I don't want people having a game called "Spawn of Totoro's Mom" on their profile.

Because that's more offensive than "Genital Jousting", "Hentai", "Sex and Broadcasting", or "Slave Story"??

(all of which ARE games on Steam)

Those are game actualy played and with tracked stats vs another way to insult and harrass others.

Still, you state no benefits of such a system in any post.

Valve benefits from games sold on Steam being on your profile for others to see. They don't benefit if you are advertising games not sold on Steam there.

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Please tell me how the current system is accurate in ANY way? All I have to do is start up a game and leave it minimized overnight... Bam! 8 hours of game play, and in reality I haven't even tried it.

But you played the game. That is more accurate then Half Life 3 being show on you profile for 8 hours.

And achivements would also show how little of the game was played.

[Jodian]

999999999 eredeti hozzászólása:

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Because that's more offensive than "Genital Jousting", "Hentai", "Sex and Broadcasting", or "Slave Story"??

(all of which ARE games on Steam)

But not names of Steam users, correct? Because if it were, that would be just trolling.

Wrong... http://steamcommunity.com/id/Hentai

[999999999]

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

999999999 eredeti hozzászólása:

But not names of Steam users, correct? Because if it were, that would be just trolling.

Wrong... http://steamcommunity.com/id/Hentai

I don't see that user playing a game with another user's name in the title.

[Spawn of Totoro]

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Wrong... http://steamcommunity.com/id/Hentai

That is a custom URL, not the name of the user.

[Jodian]

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Wrong... http://steamcommunity.com/id/Hentai

That is a custom URL, not the name of the user.

Still leads back to a user... But anyway, I just did that because I could.

I think the key factor here is that Steam, like any gaming launcher, wants to be the SOLE LAUNCHER that players use. The more players use the Steam launcher, the more exposure those players have to advertising. Doesn't matter if the player is playing a non-Steam game or not. They're being exposed to the Steam system, and as such, it's advertising.

The more features added to make players WANT to use Steam for all their Non-Steam games, the more of a benefit that Non-Steam feature becomes.

[Spawn of Totoro]

ViperZeroOne eredeti hozzászólása:

Still leads back to a user... But anyway, I just did that because I could.

I think the key factor here is that Steam, like any gaming launcher, wants to be the SOLE LAUNCHER that players use. The more players use the Steam launcher, the more exposure those players have to advertising. Doesn't matter if the player is playing a non-Steam game or not. They're being exposed to the Steam system, and as such, it's advertising.

The more features added to make players WANT to use Steam for all their Non-Steam games, the more of a benefit that Non-Steam feature becomes.

Except the user has to be on Steam already in order to see it, so it isn't benefiting Steam/Valve.

A feature that can be exploited, yet offers little to no benefit.

Another down side is it would bog down support with reports due to inappropriate used.

[999999999]

I'm sure that Activision-Blizzard would love for that to happen.