A comprehensive guide to help Steam remain competitive in the modern gaming landscape.

[FOXDUDE69]

Hello, everyone!

Like many of you, I love Steam and I want to see it remain successful in the future.
There are many wonderful guides on Steam but they are typically meant to help players, so I think it's about time someone makes a guide to help Valve.

Let's Start!



𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓-𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐒

You can't technically make an account for a child under 13 on Steam.

Meanwhile all of Steam's biggest competitors allow you to create a parent-supervised child account for your offspring.

This includes the Epic Games Store, where my offspring are already building a significantly large library of free games and enjoying matches of FORTNITE with their dad, while at the same time not being allowed to play RAFT on Steam with their dad because they haven't reached the arbitrary age of 13 despite the fact that they've been gaming since they were toddlers.

Since they aren't allowed to have an account, the only games they can play with me on Steam are shared screen or split screen games, both types of games that, let's be frank here, are more comfortably enjoyed though Playstation/Xbox on our 75" TV (Steam link introduces lag and visual artifacts so that's not a real solution).

What all of this is guaranteeing is that the vast majority of their childhood gaming memories will be dominated by consoles and the Epic Games Store.

The Epic Games Store already has the future advantage here, due to the fact that they've captured the attention of the next generation of gamers with the insane popularity of FORTNITE, a generation of gamers without an ounce of loyalty towards Valve like the Counter Strike generation had, and this backwards policy of only allowing children over 13 to create accounts is further increasing the advantage they'll have in the future.

When a child can have an Epic account stacked with hundreds of good free games and making countless, priceless childhood memories on their platform long before they are even allowed to make a Steam account (6 more years until my oldest is allowed to have an account), Valve is just letting Epic race by them while they are stuck in reverse.

Lastly, developers that lock their games to Steam are leaving money on the table because of this nonsense, too. The aforementioned RAFT has no ESRB or PEGI rating, but Subnautica is very similar in the type of content it features and it has a ESRB of 10+ and PEGi 7.

So if RAFT was on Epic or Playstation these developers would have made additional sales from parents of children 7 and up. Instead, and because RAFT is locked to Steam, these children are not technically allowed to own a game that's appropriate for their age. It's an absurd situation.



𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐘𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐌

Another thing that Valve is sorely lagging behind is with their laughably inferior loyalty program.

Yes, it's fun to customize your profile with some silly stuff but it doesn't hold a candle to using points to redeem actual games like you can on Playstation, Nintendo and even the Epic Games Store now.

The Steam points system should be reworked to give users the ability to redeem their steam points for full games or partially pay for the purchase.

This would also naturally make Steam points far more valuable, meaning Steam Awards would become more meaningful, which is a good thing in my opinion, and the "Jester problem" would basically take care of itself.

The items currently on the Points Shop would then also have to be greatly reduced in cost as their value relative to the value of a partial or full purchase of a new game is remarkably inferior.

But what we would be left with would be a loyalty program that actually encourages users to spend directly on Steam instead of third party key selling sites like Humble Bundle.

Additionally, every purchase on the Steam store should heavily contribute towards your Steam level. It just makes perfect sense.



𝐅𝐈𝐗 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

Steam customer support is infamous for how terrible it is.

From personal experience and from what I've read online through the years, the average customer support experience on Steam seems to go a lil' something like this:

You write in your problem and wait multiple days for a generic answer from someone who didn't even bother reading your ticket.

Sounds familiar?

Compare this to other videogame services which allow you to livechat or even call... Services where you communicate to people who are actually trying to solve your issue instead of stonewalling you in hopes you give up and close the ticket.

This behavior reduces trust in the platform.

Valve's customer service is one of the worst I've experienced in my life and it's the main reason I've started significantly reducing the amount of money I spend of Steam and no longer recommend the service to friends and co-workers like I used to.

Trust is very important, and in the age of digital gaming, where you don't physically own the product you are purchasing, trust is paramount. So if you can't trust the entity selling it to you... Money will go elsewhere.



𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍

Let's face it, the Valve we fondly remember does not exist anymore, that's why you don't have a Half-Life 3 or a Left 4 Dead 3 or a Portal 3.

Yeah, yeah, Valve can't count to 3, very funny, I know.

But the underlying issue causing this "inability to count to 3" is not funny at all, it's ugly and downright disgusting.

Instead of continuing to work on their beloved franchises and innovate and develop new ones, Valve elected the way of easy greasy money.

They elected to focus on esports and played a significant and pivotal role in the normalization of lootboxes and gambling. Vast amounts of money for relatively little work.

And I do mean little work because even by esports/live service standards, CSGO and DOTA2 are quite pathetic. Fresh content is extremely rare... But lootboxes for young teens to gamble with... That's always rolling out.

Valve should turn back and try to live up to the reputation of being "the good guy", a reputation they've long stopped deserving but could deserve once again through hard work and a decision to start once again contributing to videogame history in a much more positive way.

Valve should apologize to their fans for abandoning their beloved franchises for lootbox money and promise to do better in the future. They should cut off API access to all the gambling websites that they like to pretend they can do nothing about. Make a clean break from the sleazy stuff, and then they should take the vast amounts of money they have and make good single player and co-op experiences.

Take a page out of Sony's Playbook and buy up smaller but promising studios with talented and passionate developers and with time and money, turn them into your own Insomniac, your own Santa Monica, your own Naughty Dog.



𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐋

Quality control on Steam or the lack-there-of is an ever-present issue that we've just "learned" to accept. The Steam Store is filled with trash that couldn't even be described as shovelware and we've gotten used to seeing it so much that we "trained" ourselves to ignore it.

At least that's what we think, until we start browsing other stores and immediately notice that, while there some junk titles here and there, it's a much more pleasant experience to browse through content.

In my experience, the significantly reduced amount of trash on a store greatly helps in discoverability of smaller, low profile but legit indie titles which would otherwise be swimming at the bottom of a pool of trash. It's remarkably refreshing browsing through other stores compared to browsing on Steam.

Yes, we know those games sell because of Steam Cards, but is this worth your reputation, user experience and discoverability for smaller legit devs? The only sane answer is no.

If you care about your reputation and user experience, you have to curate your store.
You got away with ignoring this issue throughout the years, but as competition stiffens and other platforms offer a more curated experience, continuing to ignore this issue is foolish.


Thank you for reading!

[Mad Scientist]

引用自 FOXDUDE69：

ToS says: "No Kids under 13!"

Though it does not expressly forbid them from using an account. Again, parent/guardian consent or other applicable adult can make an account for them to use, so any age an adult feels is responsible enough to use an account, may do so;

You become a subscriber of Steam ("Subscriber") by completing the registration of a Steam user account.

This means the individual that creates the account is the subscriber & responsible party. Much like how adults can buy their children an airsoft toy; it requires an of-age-of-the-law to purchase, not to use.

It puts the responsibility onto the adult making the agreement & account, thus the adult is the subscriber.

[AmsterdamHeavy]

引用自 BlueCanine：

引用自 brian9824：

Yep, Steam changed their wording years ago to add the you cannot make an account if your under 13 bit, and EPIC got dinged because they knew they had underage users, their were their own employee's emailing about it, and they conducted surveys of players ages where they were told they were underage.

Sure saying you can't make an account if your under 13 doesn't stop anyone, but age gates are never about stopping anyone. Its about legal liability, nothing more.

Just like on EPIC any kid can make an account on epic right now and say they are 35. Epic doesn't do anything to validate it or make you prove your an adult.....

Right. See, this is where the issue is, if the statement in the link you provided about Family view is about children under the age of 13, then Valve is knowingly collecting personal information on children under the age of 13 without getting verified parental consent going through the proper procedures. Valve saying that is no different than the internal emails from Epic you are talking about.

On the other hand if Valve's statement there is about the age or 13-17, then they are likely in the clear when it comes to COPPA laws.

If they mean between 13-17, that makes your entire reason for disagreeing with the suggestion as null and void, if they mean under the age of 13, that means they are breaking the law, and Foxdudes suggestion is even more important for Valve to do.

The parent is creating the account. That IS consent, even if they dont read. Not reading would be on the parent.

Parental consent renders COPPA irrelevant.

[FOXDUDE69]

引用自 AmsterdamHeavy：

引用自 BlueCanine：

Right. See, this is where the issue is, if the statement in the link you provided about Family view is about children under the age of 13, then Valve is knowingly collecting personal information on children under the age of 13 without getting verified parental consent going through the proper procedures. Valve saying that is no different than the internal emails from Epic you are talking about.

On the other hand if Valve's statement there is about the age or 13-17, then they are likely in the clear when it comes to COPPA laws.

If they mean between 13-17, that makes your entire reason for disagreeing with the suggestion as null and void, if they mean under the age of 13, that means they are breaking the law, and Foxdudes suggestion is even more important for Valve to do.

The parent is creating the account. That IS consent, even if they dont read. Not reading would be on the parent.

Parental consent renders COPPA irrelevant.

All those companies doing things by the book to comply with the law and none of that was needed after all. ammarite?

[The Presence]

A guide based on what data exactly? And what data shows that Steam won't be competitive in the future?

None of the points are remotely applicable to whether or not Steam will stay around or not.

[Squirrel With Acorn]

引用自 Mad Scientist：

引用自 FOXDUDE69：

ToS says: "No Kids under 13!"

Though it does not expressly forbid them from using an account. Again, parent/guardian consent or other applicable adult can make an account for them to use, so any age an adult feels is responsible enough to use an account, may do so;

You become a subscriber of Steam ("Subscriber") by completing the registration of a Steam user account.

This means the individual that creates the account is the subscriber & responsible party. Much like how adults can buy their children an airsoft toy; it requires an of-age-of-the-law to purchase, not to use.

It puts the responsibility onto the adult making the agreement & account, thus the adult is the subscriber.

a parent can choose to let their child to use the parents account, but this also means that account cannot be given to the child as they grow up and move out of the house as per the subscriber agreement since the account belongs to the parent and not the child. Making Foxdude's suggestion important.

[Squirrel With Acorn]

引用自 AmsterdamHeavy：

引用自 BlueCanine：

Right. See, this is where the issue is, if the statement in the link you provided about Family view is about children under the age of 13, then Valve is knowingly collecting personal information on children under the age of 13 without getting verified parental consent going through the proper procedures. Valve saying that is no different than the internal emails from Epic you are talking about.

On the other hand if Valve's statement there is about the age or 13-17, then they are likely in the clear when it comes to COPPA laws.

If they mean between 13-17, that makes your entire reason for disagreeing with the suggestion as null and void, if they mean under the age of 13, that means they are breaking the law, and Foxdudes suggestion is even more important for Valve to do.

The parent is creating the account. That IS consent, even if they dont read. Not reading would be on the parent.

Parental consent renders COPPA irrelevant.

Again, COPPA spells out exactly what the law requires for Parental consent, which Valve does not do at all. You are wrong.

Again, read this link from the FTC it spells out exactly what is considered as parental consent, something that Valve does not do.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-six-step-compliance-plan-your-business#step4

[HikariLight]

Of course the yesman comment was selected as an answer.

[Start_Running]

tHe only way for a 13 year iold to have a valid account is by having their parent or guardian create it for them. SImple as. That account can then be restricted further by Family View and other parental controls.

That's pretty much all that needs to be done to satisfy COPPA. COnsent is granted by a duly empowered party.

If it is brought to Valve's attention by the duly empowered party that this was in fact not the case the Valve will basically just terminate the account right then and there once the details have been processed.

引用自 HikariLight：

Of course the yesman comment was selected as an answer.

Does this surprise you?

[The Presence]

引用自 HikariLight：

Of course the yesman comment was selected as an answer.

Shouldn't be surprising based on the comment another user linked to.

[Xhoas]

引用自 The Presence：

A guide based on what data exactly? And what data shows that Steam won't be competitive in the future?

None of the points are remotely applicable to whether or not Steam will stay around or not.

It's just a collection of suggestions that you see in the forums from time to time. Like " too many trash games" and the good ol' "Valve should start to make new games". it's just very subjective...

[Boblin the Goblin]

引用自 FOXDUDE69：

引用自 AmsterdamHeavy：

The parent is creating the account. That IS consent, even if they dont read. Not reading would be on the parent.

Parental consent renders COPPA irrelevant.

All those companies doing things by the book to comply with the law and none of that was needed after all. ammarite?

Nope.

Epic got sued because they knowingly(that's the important part) collected the information when they knew(another very important part) it was from accounts of those under the age of 13.

That isn't "by the law". That's why they got in trouble.

[The Presence]

By the way, let's just point some things out real quick:

𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓-𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐈𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐀𝐂𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐒

Been argued to death but it's not even relevant anyway.

𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐘𝐀𝐋𝐓𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐌

There's no data that inidicates Valve needs to implement a loyalty program and their model is being threatened by some 5% return Epic offers. The PlayStation Stars program isn't even comparable since it's behind the Playstation Plus subscription.

And Nintendo points expire.

𝐅𝐈𝐗 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐋 𝐂𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐔𝐏𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

They read tickets and when people get a realistic answer and don't like it, suddenly support is the big bad evil. Doesn't happen exclusively on Steam.

𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐆𝐀𝐈𝐍

Again? Alyx was well-received. Overwhelmingly Positive, even.

𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐋

If you don't like those games, don't play them. That simple.

Ironically, the last one would make Steam less competitive. Let's cut off and effectively eliminate a part of the community that uses Steam and spends money on those games. Where would they go?

[Boblin the Goblin]

引用自 BlueCanine：

引用自 AmsterdamHeavy：

The parent is creating the account. That IS consent, even if they dont read. Not reading would be on the parent.

Parental consent renders COPPA irrelevant.

Again, COPPA spells out exactly what the law requires for Parental consent, which Valve does not do at all. You are wrong.

Again, read this link from the FTC it spells out exactly what is considered as parental consent, something that Valve does not do.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-six-step-compliance-plan-your-business#step4

Wait, Steam doesn't require you to use a credit, debit, or other online payment system that notifies you of each purchase? Since when?


Because as laid out in Step 4, here is one method;

引用自 FTC：

use a credit card, debit card, or other online payment system that provides notification of each separate transaction to the account holder;

[Squirrel With Acorn]

引用自 brian9824：

引用自 FOXDUDE69：

All those companies doing things by the book to comply with the law and none of that was needed after all. ammarite?

Not really, Valve updated their wording back in 2016 or so to add the bit about the creating of accounts requiring you be 13 or older. Thats part of doing things by the book. Just like Valve added an x-ray scanner in CS GO for france that fundamentally changed nothing, but put them in Compliance with France's laws.

I mean heck I know your kids have a switch and Nintendo's terms for making an account are even more lax then Steam

The Services may not be used by anyone under the age of 18 without the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms. You represent and warrant that you are at least 18 years of age (or the age of legal majority under applicable law), or, if not, that you have reviewed these Terms with your parent or legal guardian and that he or she has agreed to be bound by these Terms.

So guess its time to start suing nintendo and reporting them and going on about how bad they are. I mean think of the children...

they changed their wording? Epic changed their wording too and started the proper procedures before the FTC even got involved about 18ish month after Fortnite started up, that didn't stop the FTC from going after them for that 18 months of breaking the law though. So now you are saying that Valve was breaking the law up to 2016?

Also Nintendo goes through proper COPPA procedures for creating accounts for children.

During account creation, when picking a birthdate under the age of 18 you are greeted with this

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2992687128

enter parents email, and the parents gets this email

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2992687891

clicking the link brings the parent to this

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2992688328

parent acknowledges, on the next screen they enter their debit/credit card details, and then after that the next step is account creation including about child privacy, the parents rights and mechanisms they have and so forth.

Nintendo follows the COPPA laws, Valve does not. But Valve only needs to follow the COPPA laws if you are right about what their Family View statement actually means.

[Squirrel With Acorn]

引用自 Start_Running：

tHe only way for a 13 year iold to have a valid account is by having their parent or guardian create it for them. SImple as. That account can then be restricted further by Family View and other parental controls.

That's pretty much all that needs to be done to satisfy COPPA. COnsent is granted by a duly empowered party.

If it is brought to Valve's attention by the duly empowered party that this was in fact not the case the Valve will basically just terminate the account right then and there once the details have been processed.

引用自 HikariLight：

Of course the yesman comment was selected as an answer.

Does this surprise you?

Nope, to satisfy COPPA verified parental consent needs to be obtained, and the FTC has laid out what is considered as verified parental consent, none of which Valve does at all. Read step 4, Valve does none of that.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-six-step-compliance-plan-your-business#step4

But Valve only needs to do this if they knowingly collect children's under the age of 13 personal information.

And if Valve's statement in family view

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6B1A-66BE-E911-3D98

We encourage you to create a Steam account with your child.

Is talking about creating an account for a child under the age of 13, it means that Valve is knowingly collecting the childs information, and therefore would be breaking the law.