Steam is the best thing to have happened to PC gaming

[Monnsteri]

Change my mind.

[Electric Cupcake]

No. id Software starting the noble tradition of GPLing their engines after a couple years and encouraging fans and other studios to see what can be done with it was the best thing.

Valve owes a lot of it's success to taking the Quake engine and modifying it for Half-Life.

[Monnsteri]

I don't really care about Half-Life to be honest. When I re-joined Steam in 2010 I was impressed to say the least.

No more running downtown to buy a game (and overpaying for it) when you want to play something, no need to search the internet for patches to the said game, don't need to keep the CD drive revving up during gameplay when all the files are on your HDD already or searching shady sites for cracks for games you've legally bought to avoid that.

And especially back then Steam sales were great. Cheap prices and convenience probably lessened piracy on PC by 70% (I pulled that figure out of thin air). I myself and many people I know stopped completely pirating games after starting to use Steam.

[Neo]

Steam was just the logical step from physical media to digital media. Valve stepped in first and won the game.

[Crazy Tiger]

Meh, it's just one of the platforms I use. Like all of them, they have their own uses for me.

[Haruspex]

Neo původně napsal:

Steam was just the logical step from physical media to digital media. Valve stepped in first and won the game.

Valve wasn't even first.

Stardock created Stardock Central a couple of years before Steam and I believe Direct2Drive was offering 3rd party titles before Steam did.

The difference is that Valve just kept at it with Steam, even when everyone else was declaring PC gaming as basically dead and consoles as the future. Even Valve hedged their bets a bit in this time, creating console ports of their games and linking Steam accounts with Playstation and Xbox, just in case. They persevered with PC though, and as a result they grew into the dominant position they enjoy today.

As for whether Steam is the "best thing to happen to PC gaming", you might be right. Everyone was declaring PC gaming as dead in the early 00s, and if it weren't for Valve's stubborn insistence on keeping Steam going, that might have turned into a self fulfilling prophecy.

[Poyzo]

No need to change your mind, OP, as you are correct!

[CANCELCULTURE]

Monnsteri původně napsal:

Steam is the best thing to have happened to PC gaming Change my mind.

Products as a service. Content locked to a accounts, subscriptions, non transferable. You own nothing. (read the EULA's and Steam Subscriber Agreements.)

Forced content updates, product changes, product discontinuation. Counter Strike Global Offensive to CS2, Ubisoft shutdown The Crew.

Convenient one top shop for online criminals to target Steam user with phishing, hijacking urls using Steams features.

Convenient one stop shop for other third parties to commercial advertise users to their own sketchy skins, gambling businesses through Steam Groups, Events and Announcements.

Countless spam, meme reviews and curators, just in it for the lulz, because recommending products on an online store is, FUNNY, and Steam points award-able. Why so serious? Here is a cat...

One stop shop for self game curation, 1000's of games released a year, one mans treasures, if only they can find the one man to sell them to, so Valve gets a 30% revenue cut, of course. Quantity over quality

Early Access - how do you say legal loop hole disclosure, for store developers, warning you about unfinished products, that may change, or never change or be finished and allowing you to buy them anyway. Hey they warned you not to become a victim, unless you feel good about supporting the cause.

Steam Is The Best! To bad we can't all spam that single sentence review somewhere. Maybe the BBB where they have an F?

[Monnsteri]

@CANCELCULTURE

Must be hard to be so bummed out about everything all the time.

[Crazy Tiger]

Whenever someone mentions the BBB, it's clear there isn't much to consider and people put value into something that has none (yes, said BBB).

[Haruspex]

Monnsteri původně napsal:

@CANCELCULTURE
Must be hard to be so bummed out about everything all the time.

Someone pooped all over that guy's party.

Crazy Tiger původně napsal:

Whenever someone mentions the BBB, it's clear there isn't much to consider and people put value into something that has none (yes, said BBB).

The only people I've ever seen mention the BBB with any seriousness are old male Karens who want to complain about the work ethic of younger people and demand to speak to a manager so they can try and haggle on prices at a department store.

[Ben Lubar]

Electric Cupcake původně napsal:

No. id Software starting the noble tradition of GPLing their engines after a couple years and encouraging fans and other studios to see what can be done with it was the best thing.

Valve owes a lot of it's success to taking the Quake engine and modifying it for Half-Life.

Valve's copy of Quake is from long before they GPL'd it. The people at Valve were friends with the people at id Software and they just gave them the engine.

[Pierce Dalton]

Monnsteri původně napsal:

Change my mind.

I don't want to change your mind, instead I want to ask a question: why is Steam the best thing that happened to PC gaming?

[Monnsteri]

Pierce Dalton původně napsal:

Monnsteri původně napsal:

Change my mind.

I don't want to change your mind, instead I want to ask a question: why is Steam the best thing that happened to PC gaming?

Mostly for the reasons I stated above.

[Tito Shivan]

Neo původně napsal:

Steam was just the logical step from physical media to digital media. Valve stepped in first and won the game.

Not really... There was already other digital storefronts when Steam jumped into the business. They got lucky with a mix of some good games in their service (Half Life 2, CS) and an smart and agressive gamification of sales what set them apart.

CANCELCULTURE původně napsal:

Products as a service. Content locked to a accounts, subscriptions, non transferable. You own nothing. (read the EULA's and Steam Subscriber Agreements.)

And all of that would have happened regardless of Steam existing.

CANCELCULTURE původně napsal:

Forced content updates, product changes, product discontinuation. Counter Strike Global Offensive to CS2, Ubisoft shutdown The Crew.
[...]
One stop shop for self game curation, 1000's of games released a year, one mans treasures, if only they can find the one man to sell them to, so Valve gets a 30% revenue cut, of course. Quantity over quality

Early Access - how do you say legal loop hole disclosure, for store developers, warning you about unfinished products, that may change, or never change or be finished and allowing you to buy them anyway. Hey they warned you not to become a victim, unless you feel good about supporting the cause.

Likewise. Mind Blizzard did it first with Overwatch -> Overwatch 2. And companies have been shutting down game servers for decades.

Early Access started with Minecraft grew up with services like Kickstarter and was bound to expand. Mind even Epic is copying Steam's system of self-publishing. Nothing that wasn't happening at -for example- Amazon for ages already. Stores look to offer the less friction between their customers and the stuff they want to buy.

You're blaming on Steam what's just regular industry evolution.

CANCELCULTURE původně napsal:

Steam Is The Best! To bad we can't all spam that single sentence review somewhere. Maybe the BBB where they have an F?

I don't think anyone takes the BBB seriously in 2024. A Bureau where you can get Hamas or Stormfront have a A rating just by throwing money at them:
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-money-buy/story?id=12123843
That dead horse's so beaten it's steak tartar

[CEO Hunter]

Monnsteri původně napsal:

Change my mind.

Nah, waste of time