Upload GIF as Steam Avatar

[Bangdini]

Would be nice to use animated steam avatars that we can upload. Maybe can replace the frame?

[Joack1to]

Yes, this will be soo good, but if everyone have a gif avatar, the servers go down currently because when soo people at same time will see the avatar por people this will be a carge for the servers of steam. But isn't bad idea

[Bangdini]

Steam has so many servers and have limits to artwork as only 8mb. Using a 1-2mb gif as a profile photo isnt gonna harm them whatsoever

[Joack1to]

Originally posted by Bangdini:

Steam has so many servers and have limits to artwork as only 8mb. Using a 1-2mb gif as a profile photo isnt gonna harm them whatsoever

puede ser (in english)

[FFL2and3rocks]

Probably won't happen because of the points shop, they'd rather have you spend points there instead of uploading your own.

[Aachen]

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks:

Probably won't happen because of the points shop, they'd rather have you spend points there instead of uploading your own.

And it’s much easier to vet ‘em ahead of time than try to moderate a free-for-all.

[Gwarsbane]

No thank you, I don't want to see the animations that there are now.

Also pretty good chance that since they bought in animated avatars that they give away with the free points that they will never allow uploaded animated avatars because thats one less reason for people to buy things to get free points to get the animated avatars.

Other reasons why I and many others don't want to see animated avatars.

Takes up more bandwidth which not everyone has easy access to unlimited bandwidth. Going from 20 or 30 kilobytes to 1 or 2 megabytes is a big difference. Times that by millions of active users and thats quite a bit of space. You are thinking of just yourself with this. There are literally a billion plus accounts with 100+ million active accounts a month.

Mods/Valve employees are already overworked as it is, and it can take a while to get an avatar that can only take seconds to see if its breaking the rules removed. Now imagine how much longer its going to take if they have to sit there and watch a 10, 30, 60 second animation because you know people will try to hide crap in them. Course they also might not bother and just might remove them without bothering to look at them. That will tick off a lot of people.

Then you have the issue of photosensitive epilepsy which again there can and will be idiots out there that upload crap like that to trigger others just because they think its fun.

It takes time to remove it and just seconds of exposure can cause people to have a seizures, and if no one is around to help them they could easily die because of it, or even if someone is around they can still die from it.



So no, uploading animated avatars/anything is a REALLY bad idea and Valve should not be allowing it to happen and any animated stuff they do allow should also take into consideration other people.

[Bangdini]

Steam has an option to disable Animated Avatars and Frames in the settings. They already don't moderate them at all unless I'm mistaken. If they want to use the point shop they can implement a custom 10,000 point custom animated avatar

[Bangdini]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

So no, uploading animated avatars/anything is a REALLY bad idea and Valve should not be allowing it to happen and any animated stuff they do allow should also take into consideration other people.

They already do take consideration of other people because they can disable the feature. About the bandwidth and epilepsy issue dont you think they should worry about the artwork that is uploaded regardless of bandwidth? Multiple 8mb images and the ability to overwrite screenshots and put animated ones in their place all in one page. Having a 500x500 animated frame wont hurt the bandwidth whatsoever and if they were so concerned about it they would have it disabled to begin with.

[Walach]

I believe the only real reason why Valve hasn't, yet, made it possible to upload GIFs is because so few of them doesn't use copyrighted materials.

But then again, most people use copyrighted pictures here so it's not exactly the best reason why not to allow it. :P

[Bangdini]

Originally posted by Walach:

I believe the only real reason why Valve hasn't, yet, made it possible to upload GIFs is because so few of them doesn't use copyrighted materials.

But then again, most people use copyrighted pictures here so it's not exactly the best reason why not to allow it. :P

Valid point but Steam has been like this for so long why change now?

[Walach]

Originally posted by Bangdini:

Valid point but Steam has been like this for so long why change now?

Why not? You don't really need a reason, or if nothing else you don't need a good reason for changing things.

I believed the Steam client wouldn't change their way for how they display the games. I was thinking it would just be a bare boned thing forever, but I was wrong. :P
Everything will always change. That... That sounded better in my head.

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Bangdini:

Steam has an option to disable Animated Avatars and Frames in the settings. They already don't moderate them at all unless I'm mistaken. If they want to use the point shop they can implement a custom 10,000 point custom animated avatar

Disable animations only works in chats. It doesn't work on the profile, how do I know this? Because I have it disabled and I can still see the stupid animated stuff on peoples profiles.

If they ever do a custom one for points, it should be over a million points to make sure you're dedicated to steam. Because then they can have someone look at it because anyone that buys enough stuff to get a million points has for sure paid enough money to have someone look into it. 10,000 points is easy to get.

And yes they do moderate the avatars, they just don't go through them one at a time as they are being uploaded as thats just not possible. They look at them when they are reported, again how do I know this, because I have reported ones that broke the rules and many days later they are finally removed.

Again the ones that can trigger seizures in people can do it in seconds, having them up for days is dangerous and there is no way for Valve to scan for them accurately. Just like there is no way for them to scan for other ones that break the rules which is why they don't have a scanning system in place for when people upload them.

This is why, if they are smart, they will never allow anyone to upload animated avatars.

[Bangdini]

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

This is why, if they are smart, they will never allow anyone to upload animated avatars.

Or hear me out... add a feature to disable it completely

[Bangdini]

Originally posted by Walach:

I believed the Steam client wouldn't change their way for how they display the games. I was thinking it would just be a bare boned thing forever, but I was wrong. :P
Everything will always change. That... That sounded better in my head.

I appreciate the optimism, its impossible to tell what steam does next

[Gwarsbane]

Originally posted by Bangdini:

Originally posted by Gwarsbane:

This is why, if they are smart, they will never allow anyone to upload animated avatars.

Or hear me out... add a feature to disable it completely :sunglassesDoge:

If for what ever dumb reason they did decide to do something like this, it would have to have an off switch AND would have to be off by default. This way peoples bandwidth is not wasted and only a single static frame is seen and downloading. Its more trouble to them than its worth.