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Polygon: Valve is not your friend, and Steam is not healthy for gaming

Ascheroth

Member
The one thing I strongly dislike about Steam is that it does a terrible job at showing you information about the games you own. Sometimes I'd be browsing my library, I click on the button to see more details, and it takes me to a screen that tells me:
  • How long I've played it
  • Which of my friends own it
  • My achievements
  • Updates the game had
With the exception which of my friends own it, all the other info is utterly useless to me if I haven't played it yet. Nowhere on that page is a description of what that game is about, there are no screenshots, no genre listing or tags, no feature list, etc. Valve has all this information in their store page, but apparently you don't need to know this any more once you already own it. My library is full of games I've never heard of, or barely know anything about. I've bought plenty of bundles in the past, bought things on the recommendation of others, or got gifted. Basically games I know little about, and probably will know less about the more time passes. I'm going to be less likely to check 'em out if I can't see what they're like when I'm flipping through my catalogue.

I wish the interface would just show me this basic storefront information.
Library is indeed in dire need of a redesign. Hopefully the soonish major overhaul will improve things.
 

Mooreberg

Member
I have Steam, GOG Galaxy, Blizzard, and Bethesda clients installed. Competition is great, but Origin and uPlay can choke on shit in hell.
 

spineduke

Unconfirmed Member
Nowhere on that page is a description of what that game is about, there are no screenshots, no genre listing or tags, no feature list, etc. Valve has all this information in their store page, but apparently you don't need to know this any more once you already own it.
.

The lack of real tags and tag search in the Steam client is a sin at this point.
 

KingBroly

Banned
I have Steam, GOG Galaxy, Blizzard, and Bethesda clients installed. Competition is great, but Origin and uPlay can choke on shit in hell.

It's definitely a good thing, but I think the problem with other clients is that there's no real competitor to Steam right now. It's Steam and everyone else. PC Gaming needs to be pried away from 'It has to be on Steam or I'm not getting it.' I think Blizzard can get away it, but having Activision try and wrap Destiny 2 in there is going to require a lot of teeth pulling to get it to where they want it to be financially.
 
IPC Gaming needs to be pried away from 'It has to be on Steam or I'm not getting it.'

There's nothing wrong with having a prefered service. I mostly use Steam, but buy quite a lot of stuff on GOG, and I have no problems with extra clients where I feel it makes sense, like Blizzards app considering that all their games are multiplayer focused. But I resist Origin and Uplay, that does nothing for me for the singleplayer games I want to play, other then being yet another set of credentials, and more like clients to keep track of.

And that's the feeling I think quite a lot of people have, when it comes to "Steam or bust", that they really just don't like the "me too!" products, but accept the other platforms when they make sense (Blizzard) or offer something else (GOG, with a focus on completely DRM free games).
 
It's definitely a good thing, but I think the problem with other clients is that there's no real competitor to Steam right now. It's Steam and everyone else. PC Gaming needs to be pried away from 'It has to be on Steam or I'm not getting it.' I think Blizzard can get away it, but having Activision try and wrap Destiny 2 in there is going to require a lot of teeth pulling to get it to where they want it to be financially.

That's more of an issue with Gamers rather than the service. Although if other services were seen as offering the same value then more people would branch out. I use GOG and Steam and the only reason i don't have Origin or UPlay installed is that i rarely play Ubi or EA games outside of ME and Blood Dragon.

I mean there's people who won't buy a game on Steam unless it has cards ffs so there's always someone who won't be satisfied. Valve aren't my friend sure but they give good service for the features i use so i continue to use them.
 

patapuf

Member
Liar or delusional.

Show me the complaints about GOG then.

Or why all these other services seem to do just fine.

Or why all the biggest PC games like LoL, Blizzards' Stuff, MInecraft ect. are not on steam.


I'm not denying there's some people that prefer having everything on steam (and that some of those are vocal about it on social media) but looking at it from afar? I don't see why you'd get the impression that people refuse to use other services.

Exept the windows store. But that's fully deserved.
 
Exept the windows store. But that's fully deserved.

And it's more related to how poorly Microsoft handled Games for Windows Live, rather then Steam.

Any platformer holder needs to earn the customers trust. We shouldn't blindly run to any new alternative just for the sake of competition.
 

prag16

Banned
And it's more related to how poorly Microsoft handled Games for Windows Live, rather then Steam.

Any platformer holder needs to earn the customers trust. We shouldn't blindly run to any new alternative just for the sake of competition.

I don't think anybody's talking about "blindly running". It's more a whynotboth.gif situation. These complaints about having another client on a system are ridiculous. You can create desktop shortcuts to remove the need to launch from a client. You can add other games as non-Steam games.

What's ridiculous is the people here and in the Destiny 2 thread saying things like, "whelp I was hyped for Destiny 2, but I refuse to install battle.net so now it's a no-buy for me". jackiechan.png
 

patapuf

Member
I don't think anybody's talking about "blindly running". It's more a whynotboth.gif situation. These complaints about having another client on a system are ridiculous. You can create desktop shortcuts to remove the need to launch from a client. You can add other games as non-Steam games.

What's ridiculous is the people here and in the Destiny 2 thread saying things like, "whelp I was hyped for Destiny 2, but I refuse to install battle.net so now it's a no-buy for me". jackiechan.png

This is Battle.net. Battle.net

Since when are PC gamers not installing Blizzards client. Every single game on there has a huge population that's probably bigger than everything on steam bar CS and Dota 2.

Like, fanboys can be annoying, but does anyone really take them seriously? Does anonye really believe that the "steam only" people have any kind of impact?
 
Honestly, I'm sorry to go off topic, but why are you coming off as incredibly defensive? It sounds like "oh! console fanboys are also like that!" or something.

I don't like platform fanboys whenever they advocate and shove their opinions on you. Period. Is that hard to grasp?

He's saying that disliking a platform "because of their fanboys" is stupid because (among others), every platform has fanboys, so by definition one should hate all platforms.

He's right, too. The only context where hating a platform (or, really, pretty much anything) because of its fanboys makes any sense, is when one selectively ignores one's preferred platform's fanboys. It's a post-hoc rationalization for one's own, already existing preferences.

He's not saying you said it, just pointing out that the article is stupid because of that. I think you two misunderstood each other: particularly your reply here seems to be interpreting his post as saying something different than it does (he said "I hate fanboys" attacks are ridiculous, but your reply seems to interpret it as fanboys themselves being ridiculous).
 

wazoo

Member
This is Battle.net. Battle.net

Since when are PC gamers not installing Blizzards client. Every single game on there has a huge population that's probably bigger than everything on steam bar CS and Dota 2.

That is pretty much right. I have never imagined not having battle.net, it would be like not buying any 1st party games on a console.
 

ezodagrom

Member
This is Battle.net. Battle.net

Since when are PC gamers not installing Blizzards client. Every single game on there has a huge population that's probably bigger than everything on steam bar CS and Dota 2.

Like, fanboys can be annoying, but does anyone really take them seriously? Does anonye really believe that the "steam only" people have any kind of impact?
That is pretty much right. I have never imagined not having battle.net, it would be like not buying any 1st party games on a console.
I don't have any Blizzard game (not really interested in them), I play only on PC, and I don't feel like I'm missing out at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

Gattsu25

Banned
This is Battle.net. Battle.net

Since when are PC gamers not installing Blizzards client. Every single game on there has a huge population that's probably bigger than everything on steam bar CS and Dota 2.
I've been using battle.net years before voice communication in games were even technically possible.
 
I don't think anybody's talking about "blindly running". It's more a whynotboth.gif situation. These complaints about having another client on a system are ridiculous. You can create desktop shortcuts to remove the need to launch from a client. You can add other games as non-Steam games.

What's ridiculous is the people here and in the Destiny 2 thread saying things like, "whelp I was hyped for Destiny 2, but I refuse to install battle.net so now it's a no-buy for me". jackiechan.png

It depends on the client.

Uplay has to be open for you to play a Uplay game. Even on Steam, if I launch, say, Far Cry Blood Dragon, it has to open Uplay first and then launch the game. I think certain Origin games also force the client to open before it'll launch the game (Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012).

You can't make shortcuts for Battle.net games without engaging in serious shenanigans, and even then, it can be super picky about how it'll let you launch a game when the client is closed.

My problem is that all of these clients have separate friends lists, take up system resources (though really, Steam is the most bloated), and it's just generally inconvenient to manage all of these logins, especially as more of them move to two-factor authentication. Sure, you only have to login "once," I rebuilt my PC about 10 months ago, and going back through and just logging in to a lot of these things was a huge bitch.

I have serious login fatigue. This isn't exclusive to Steam vs. other PC game clients, but nowadays whenever something tries to drag me away from anything I use frequently it's incredibly inconvenient. Like, yeah, if everything was on Steam and Youtube it'd be a monopoly, but it'd also mean I'd have to deal with a lot less login information.
 
No corporation is your friend.

I'll defend specific corporations and specific capitalism till my last day on this planet.

But a monopoly, in the manor of Valve/Steam is almost never a good thing.

I wish people would recognize the different aspects of capitalism and not support:

-Charge-what-the-maker-will-bear capitalism.
-Protectionsism-capitalism (Lobbies/money-hating ensure politicians help protect the market leaders by burying competition)

I wish upon the days long past, of good capitalism, ethical-capitalism that would be:

Charge-a-fair-market-price (Something like two-buck-Chuck does with his wine found at Trader Joe's)

Hopefully this article can get people thinking and discussing the different forms and aspects of capitalism and get us back to making capistalsim great again.
 

ezodagrom

Member
Like, yeah, if everything was on Steam and Youtube it'd be a monopoly, but it'd also mean I'd have to deal with a lot less login information.
Though, as long as Steam allows publishers to freely sell games on other digital stores, can't really say that it would have a monopoly even if it was the only client around, I think.
 
I'll defend specific corporations and specific capitalism till my last day on this planet.

But a monopoly, in the manor of Valve/Steam is almost never a good thing.

I wish people would recognize the different aspects of capitalism and not support:

-Charge-what-the-maker-will-bear capitalism.
-Protectionsism-capitalism (Lobbies/money-hating ensure politicians help protect the market leaders by burying competition)

I wish upon the days long past, of good capitalism, ethical-capitalism that would be:

Charge-a-fair-market-price (Something like two-buck-Chuck does with his wine found at Trader Joe's)

Hopefully this article can get people thinking and discussing the different forms and aspects of capitalism and get us back to making capistalsim great again.

"Free" isn't a fair price? Valve is paying regulators?

And people need to stop throwing the word "Monopoly" around when it clearly does not apply here.
 
Every game has a link to the store page on the list of links on the right.

Tbh, the store and community links are poorly placed.

What they need to do is add some abridged info about both the store page (so description of what it is, price, tags, etc.) and the community (latest/best guides, forum posts, new content like mods) to the game page on the library.
 
"Free" isn't a fair price?

And people need to stop throwing the word "Monopoly" around when it clearly does not apply here.

Good point I agree, to a degree.

What would be a better way to describe Steam? Or comparatively Amazon? As I don't think monopoly is an exact fit... But it's close. (I mean aren't they monopolies? For example Rockefeller Oil was a monopoly, and other oil companies existed, but the competition to Rockerfeller was POOR competition and just barley existed, never able to get enough market share to be a any threat. And more importantly could never get enough inertia to offer a viable 2nd choice to consumers)

Obviously both Steam and Amazon are HUGE distruptors to local economies, and other business would like to compete, but are unable to break into the market for multitude of reasons. Or just can't compete because to both Steam and Amazons credit they are THE market leaders because their service is SO DARN GOOD!

But where is the balance to support DOTA 2 creators, or other creators, or local economies...?

These are just questions for exploration, because I have no idea what the solve would be. I hope smarter minds than mine can tackle and solve these disparities. Because I know there is A TON of nuance i skipped over... super complicated subject.

Perhaps unions are a solve? (I hope not but...?)

I'll shut up now... lol
 

Anno

Member
Good point I agree, to a degree.

What would be a better way to describe Steam? Or comparatively Amazon? As I don't think monopoly is an exact fit... But it's close. (I mean aren't they monopolies? For example Rockefeller Oil was a monopoly, and other oil companies existed, but the competition to Rockerfeller was POOR competition and just barley existed, never able to get enough market share to be a any threat. And more importantly could never get enough inertia to offer a viable 2nd choice to consumers)

Obviously both Steam and Amazon are HUGE distruptors to local economies, and other business would like to compete, but are unable to break into the market for multitude of reasons. Or just can't compete because to both Steam and Amazons credit they are THE market leaders because their service is SO DARN GOOD!

But where is the balance to support DOTA 2 creators, or other creators, or local economies...?

These are just questions for exploration, because I have no idea what the solve would be. I hope smarter minds than mine can tackle and solve these disparities. Because I know there is A TON of nuance i skipped over... super complicated subject.

Perhaps unions are a solve? (I hope not but...?)

I'll shut up now... lol

I mean what market do you even want to think of them as a monopoly? PC gaming as a whole? Not a chance. As large as Dota and CS:GO are they are decently far down the list of largest PC games in the world. AAA PC gaming? I don't think so, either. No games from EA, maybe 50/50 or 60/40 market share for Ubisoft. 2k I guess? So indie gaming? There's like five other stores that are popular and well regarded. Even stuff like itch.io is becoming a credible platform competitor for this level of game.
 
Good point I agree, to a degree.

What would be a better way to describe Steam? Or comparatively Amazon? As I don't think monopoly is an exact fit... But it's close. (I mean aren't they monopolies? For example Rockefeller Oil was a monopoly, and other oil companies existed, but the competition to Rockerfeller was POOR competition and just barley existed, never able to get enough market share to be a any threat. And more importantly could never get enough inertia to offer a viable 2nd choice to consumers)

Maybe you've heard of Overwatch, League of Legends, or Battlefield? None of these are on Steam.
 
I mean what market do you even want to think of them as a monopoly? PC gaming as a whole? Not a chance. As large as Dota and CS:GO are they are decently far down the list of largest PC games in the world. AAA PC gaming? I don't think so, either. No games from EA, maybe 50/50 or 60/40 market share for Ubisoft. 2k I guess? So indie gaming? There's like five other stores that are popular and well regarded. Even stuff like itch.io is becoming a credible platform competitor for this level of game.

Ok. I see what you mean, and I'm persuaded to your side, however I never said they were a true monopoly.

I guess I'm still searching for a term to accurately describe a vast majority market leader that has some bad business practices, but gets great PR? I'm at a lost for a descriptive word...?

Perhaps we call it "a Microsoft?" :p
 

Anno

Member
Ok. I see what you mean, and I'm persuaded to your side, however I never said they were a true monopoly.

I guess I'm still searching for a term to accurately describe a vast majority market leader that has some bad business practices, but gets great PR? I'm at a lost for a descriptive word...?

Perhaps we call it "a Microsoft?" :p

I mean this is a pretty blatant example of you calling them a monopoly.

But a monopoly, in the manor (sic) of Valve/Steam is almost never a good thing.

They are a large player in the PC gaming space. Probably no reason to think of them as more than that.
 

MoogleMan

Member
Article is full of shit.
Steam is, and has been great for gaming. It single handedly revolutionized digital distribution.

And it's not even close to a monopoly.
 

aliengmr

Member
Perhaps we call it "a Microsoft?" :p

Or we call it a "corporation" or a "business"?

Valve just tapped a market when very few wanted to. Too much piracy, too little control. Valve stepped in showed you can make billions on PC and whaddya know...suddenly there just isn't any competition.

You can convince me Steam isn't perfect, you can convince me Valve need to do a lot better, you can even convince me to use another service, but you can never convince me that Valve/Steam are now, or ever have been, harmful to the PC platform.

Can't blame Valve for the competition being late to the party.
 

AgentP

Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Since Polygon speaks for MS, this article makes sense.
 
I have my issues with Steam, but apart from GOG every single company that distributes games on all platforms are a piece of trash in comparison.
 

prag16

Banned
It depends on the client.

Uplay has to be open for you to play a Uplay game. Even on Steam, if I launch, say, Far Cry Blood Dragon, it has to open Uplay first and then launch the game. I think certain Origin games also force the client to open before it'll launch the game (Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012).

You can't make shortcuts for Battle.net games without engaging in serious shenanigans, and even then, it can be super picky about how it'll let you launch a game when the client is closed.

My problem is that all of these clients have separate friends lists, take up system resources (though really, Steam is the most bloated), and it's just generally inconvenient to manage all of these logins, especially as more of them move to two-factor authentication. Sure, you only have to login "once," I rebuilt my PC about 10 months ago, and going back through and just logging in to a lot of these things was a huge bitch.

I have serious login fatigue. This isn't exclusive to Steam vs. other PC game clients, but nowadays whenever something tries to drag me away from anything I use frequently it's incredibly inconvenient. Like, yeah, if everything was on Steam and Youtube it'd be a monopoly, but it'd also mean I'd have to deal with a lot less login information.
Well yeah the clients open, but the game still autolaunches. Though I haven't used battle.net recently so admittedly not as current on the behavior of that one.

Otherwise, those seem like such absolutely minute first world problems to the extreme.

Nevermind that steam imo is the least user friendly and modern of all the major clients. If it wasn't for the in home streaming feature, I'd prefer my entire library be on Origin if I had the choice. Meh.
 

Arulan

Member
Nevermind that steam imo is the least user friendly and modern of all the major clients. If it wasn't for the in home streaming feature, I'd prefer my entire library be on Origin if I had the choice. Meh.

If you're implying that Steam's UI should adopt the horrid modern UI design direction of flashy menus, wasted space, and a general trend of convenience over functionality, then to hell with that.
 
FF243H.png
 
It depends on the client.

Uplay has to be open for you to play a Uplay game. Even on Steam, if I launch, say, Far Cry Blood Dragon, it has to open Uplay first and then launch the game. I think certain Origin games also force the client to open before it'll launch the game (Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012).

You can't make shortcuts for Battle.net games without engaging in serious shenanigans, and even then, it can be super picky about how it'll let you launch a game when the client is closed.

My problem is that all of these clients have separate friends lists, take up system resources (though really, Steam is the most bloated), and it's just generally inconvenient to manage all of these logins, especially as more of them move to two-factor authentication. Sure, you only have to login "once," I rebuilt my PC about 10 months ago, and going back through and just logging in to a lot of these things was a huge bitch.

I have serious login fatigue. This isn't exclusive to Steam vs. other PC game clients, but nowadays whenever something tries to drag me away from anything I use frequently it's incredibly inconvenient. Like, yeah, if everything was on Steam and Youtube it'd be a monopoly, but it'd also mean I'd have to deal with a lot less login information.

Buy you don't need to open the clients, just run the shortcut and it'll automatically open. If your login is saved the game should launch right away.

The friend list concern is legit though, while Uplay has make it possible for us to link our Steam and Uplay friend list, it would be nice if other clients do the same in the near future.

But from what I've seen, the no steam no buy folks are just being ridiculous. It's just another form of fanboyism.
 
Buy you don't need to open the clients, just run the shortcut and it'll automatically open. If your login is saved the game should launch right away.

The friend list concern is legit though, while Uplay has make it possible for us to link our Steam and Uplay friend list, it would be nice if other clients do the same in the near future.

But from what I've seen, the no steam no buy folks are just being ridiculous. It's just another form of fanboyism.

Not with battle.net though. The "create desktop shortcut" "feature" just points to "Overwatch Launcher.exe", which only opens the battle.net app. Attempting to manually create a shortcut to the .exe just opens up the launcher anyways and throws an error message.
 
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