Steam/PC Gaming Discussions

[ByTor, Prince of Ro’den]

http://www.screengurus.com/2016/07/07/valve-determined-ruin-steam-platform/

 

I have my own opinions and stance on this, but I don't want to set a mood. Please discuss this and all topics concerning Steam/PC Gaming.

[WarTraveller]

For the record, I've kind of had a bad day, so this might be a bit...well, a lot more bitter than it probably would be otherwise.

Steam is perhaps the worst kind of thing it could possibly be; a necessary, but hateful thing. It's the most convenient, fastest and easiest way (though not always the cheapest) way to buy, download and play PC games, as long as you have a good internet connection; finding physical PC games is almost impossible, and even then you still have to run them through their service unless its an EA or Ubisoft game. And Valve, frankly, has abused that with their infuriating "Not our Problem" attitude. It has lead to every single horrible piece of crap that Steam is known for; the hopeless Steam Greenlight, the disgusting Steam Early Access, the Paid Mods mess, the avaricious obsession with hats and a ton of games that, frankly, are completely overrated apart from TF2. CS: GO, in particular, I despise. An hopeless game at its core, what with its skill-gates and frankly obnoxious playerbase with their AWPs and their AKs, with the very worst aspect being those almost worthless, garish "skins" for weapons. And the mess with the skins and the gambling sites, in the words of a certain British video game pundit, is nothing short of skincrawling.

A lot of people "meme" Valve into something more positive. These cheeky little scamps ran by "Gaben" who cannot count to 3. But I'd like to see them in a more...realistic sense. Gabe Newell in particular, is far from the memetic "funny fat guy", but rather lazy, tactless, incompetent and as greedy as they come.

[Ishapar]

I have just recently used steam, and I agree with Wartraveller that it is a necessary but hateful thing if you want to have any games.  Of course, I have never tried any netplay, so I can't say how bad it really is, but I find it annoying having to keep my computer on all night to try to download Sonic Generations...

[Wulfsbane]

Thing is, a lot of the times Valve has good intentions when they impliment things such as Greenlight, Early Access, and the paid mods. Unfortunately the bitter laid plans of mice and men go astray.

Greenlight itself isnt terrible but it's just mismanaged. People can get in some really crappy stuff (like most anime games) but there have been several gems in there. It just needs to be better managed. Early Access isnt a bad idea either as you can play the game and see the development cycle play out in front of you. It's supposed to be a way to give feedback to developers about bugs and things that should be added/deleted. Yet you have games like Day-Z that abuse this. I bought Prison Architect Early Access and I loved it, I gave a bit of feedback and I was able to see the game grow right before my eyes.

While I'm not for the idea of "paid mods," I do think we should be given the option to tip/donate the mod creators as they usually spend hours, days, even months developing their own flairs to games such as Skyrim and Civ V. @TheRedStranger and I talked about this one day. There are multiple mods on Skyrim I would l could give some $ to help the creators along and it would give them motivation to keep doing what they are doing and improve the games.

But just look at what Steam has done,  while there was a lot of bad aspects they have had in recent memory, but there's a ton of good that outweights the bad. Think 12 years ago, a lot of people hated Steam but now look at it.