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Valve: 35 million active Steam users, Source is "about to get even better", and more

H

hamchan

Member
zythyl said:
If you get banned, there's a reason for it. Hence, you probably deserve to. Because being banned and losing all your subs is the result of some pretty serious altercation no doubt.
Click to expand...

It shouldn't be alright to lose access to any of your games in the first place since he's already paid for them.

Honestly, if Valve ever bans me and I lose access to my library of 250+ games then I see nothing morally wrong with then pirating all the games I bought.
 
G

Grayman

Member
xelios said:
Economist reminded me of CCP - Eve Online since they employ one. Psychologist is interesting.



See above!
Click to expand...
given the amount of experiementation they have done with pricing for L4D2 (it had a unique deal almost every week before release) and now their forays into new pricing models with TF2 and possibly DOTA2 it makes a lot of sense to have someone on staff. I think they will be using the economist for real world market information. The economist at Eve deals with the ingame economy.
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
zythyl said:
Whoa settle there. Steam isn't DRM in the traditional sense and you know that's true.
Click to expand...

It's still DRM. Any game bought on Steam can't be played without Steam on your computer. Not to mention all these Steamworks games that are becoming more popular. Want to play Duke Nukem Forever? Must have Steam or your not playing it for life.

Just in regards to what i said before i have never done anything wrong on Steam and i am a member "In good standing" I am just concerned about owning for what i paid for.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Togglesworlh said:
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Steam is a form of DRM.

I'm not going to justify the rest of your post with a direct response, because it's mostly just blind fanboy ramblings - and I say this as someone who is known to worship the ground upon which Valve walks - but on the DRM thing you are factually incorrect.
Click to expand...
Gez said:
It's still DRM. Any game bought on Steam can't be played without Steam on your computer. Not to mention all these Steamworks games that are becoming more popular. Want to play Duke Nukem Forever? Must have Steam or your not playing it for life.
Click to expand...

Steamworks is, however Steam itself is not - or rather, DRM isn't inherent in the client. Developers that don't opt for Steamworks are not required to have their games tethered to the Steam client; for example, Zeboid took this approach with Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Gabe Newell: We need to hire an economist, because we keep bumping up into these issues. You're starting to look at weird issues like currency and inflation and productivity and asset values and liquidity of asset categories. We just wish we were smarter about this stuff. We're reading frantically. We're brushing up, and all we're doing is convincing ourselves that we're more stupid. Half the time people are saying, oh, well, illiquid assets inherently have a penalty, so this argues for trade-ability, that we're essentially becoming a Russian currency model in the 1970s. Everybody races off to try to read papers on the implications of that.

I'm surprised to hear them say "We just wish we were smarter..." and "...all we're doing is convincing ourselves that we're more stupid". I guess it is a good quality though.

3D Character Artist
Animator
Anti-Cheat Engineer
Artist
Bilingual Support Representative
Economist
Film Editor
Food Services
Graphic Designer
Level Designer
Motion Designer
Multimedia Graphics Artist
Psychologist
Software Engineer
Software Engineer—Payment Systems
Sound Designer
Steam Account Manager
Steam Data Mining Engineer
Steam Database Engineer
Statistician
Steam Technical Account Manager
User Experience Designer
Web Engineer—Back End
Web Engineer—Front End
Writer
Click to expand...

Hopefully these get filled at some point. Their customer service is non-existent.
 
F

Foliorum Viridum

Banned
Steam is actually Aperture Science.

They just sound too awesome. You know that they're doing weird experiments where they're kidnapping employees, plugging them into Steam and trying to make some sort of super AI that can combat Origin.
 
C

Chinner

Banned
just been speaking to water_wendi, and we both agree that Origin is on track to overtake Steam.

origin has only been available for 3 months and it already has 4 million accounts, while Steam has been open for 8 years and only has 35 million accounts. that means EA gets 4 million new users every 3 months, while steam only gets 4 million new users every year. that means if we take into account a full year, Origin will 16 million users, and if we factor in Battlefield 3, TOR and third party games Origin will probably gain about 20 million accounts from that.

origins speed of growth means it will have overtaken Steam by the beginning of 2013.
 
F

Frankfurter

Member
Chinner said:
just been speaking to water_wendi, and we both agree that Origin is on track to overtake Steam.

origin has only been available for 3 months and it already has 4 million accounts, while Steam has been open for 8 years and only has 35 million accounts. that means EA gets 4 million new users every 3 months, while steam only gets 4 million new users every year. that means if we take into account a full year, Origin will 16 million users, and if we factor in Battlefield 3, TOR and third party games Origin will probably gain about 20 million accounts from that.

origins speed of growth means it will have overtaken Steam by the beginning of 2013.
Click to expand...


I guess you are joking anyway, but on a serious note I'd like to point out that Steam has 35 million active users. I dunno if Valve ever said what qualifies a user to be active (having logged in at least once in the last 180, 90, 30, 10 days? Having at least started one of the games from his Steam library in the last 180, 90, 30, 10 days?), but in any case there is definitely way more Steam accounts than 35 million.
 
C

Chinner

Banned
Frankfurter said:
I guess you are joking anyway, but on a serious note I'd like to point out that Steam has 35 million active users. I dunno if Valve ever said what qualifies a user to be active (having logged in at least once in the last 180, 90, 30, 10 days? Having at least started one of the games from his Steam library in the last 180, 90, 30, 10 days?), but in any case there is definitely way more Steam accounts than 35 million.
Click to expand...
there's no point trying to dispel what 'active' means because we don't know how valve qualifies it, so we might as well accept the number what it is. or what you said basically.
mrfolego said:
I know youre just trolling or at least playing devils advocate chinner, I like you for your smartness
Click to expand...
are you coming onto me
 
S

Saty

Member
Valve has said before that 'active' user means one who has logged into his account in the last month and that has at least 1 game bought in it.
 
U

UnluckyKate

Member
Trojita said:
Gabe Newell: We need to hire an economist, because we keep bumping up into these issues. You're starting to look at weird issues like currency and inflation and productivity and asset values and liquidity of asset categories. We just wish we were smarter about this stuff. We're reading frantically. We're brushing up, and all we're doing is convincing ourselves that we're more stupid. Half the time people are saying, oh, well, illiquid assets inherently have a penalty, so this argues for trade-ability, that we're essentially becoming a Russian currency model in the 1970s. Everybody races off to try to read papers on the implications of that.

I'm surprised to hear them say "We just wish we were smarter..." and "...all we're doing is convincing ourselves that we're more stupid". I guess it is a good quality though.



Hopefully these get filled at some point. Their customer service is non-existent.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding me ? I've contact them and they awesered me in 24 hours. They even respond to me during week end. Gaf told me it took a week, for the same issue, but Steam support got my back in 48 hours, week end included.
 
K

kingschiebi

Member
For those who are interested what a psychologist does at Valve should take a look at:

http://gdcvault.com/play/1014734/Biofeedback-in-Gameplay-How-Valve

It's a talk about how they measure biologial feedback during playtesting to polish levels and encounters. (i.e. they record eye movement in Portal to check what players are looking at and tune the environment to make puzzle elements easier to spot)

I haven't heard of any other developer doing that and it shows just how important those guys consider the playtesting phase and what they mean with iterative design.
 
A

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
kingschiebi said:
For those who are interested what a psychologist does at Valve should take a look at:

http://gdcvault.com/play/1014734/Biofeedback-in-Gameplay-How-Valve

It's a talk about how they measure biologial feedback during playtesting to polish levels and encounters. (i.e. they record eye movement in Portal to check what players are looking at and tune the environment to make puzzle elements easier to spot)

I haven't heard of any other developer doing that and it shows just how important those guys consider the playtesting phase and what they mean with iterative design.
Click to expand...

Don't forget about the mad meter in Dota 2.
 
R

robin2

Member
wutwutwut said:
A chargeback is where you ask your bank to reverse a transaction on a particular credit card. You're saying that this transaction shouldn't have happened. There are two ways this can go:
- either your CC got stolen and used for another account, in which case that other account gets locked. This is fine, of course.
- you charge a transaction you made on your account back. This generally means that you're accusing Valve of some sort of fraudulent behaviour. Too many of these and Valve gets heavy penalties imposed. Gabe might even get banned and blacklisted from accepting credit cards for the rest of his life, so even if he opens up a new company he wouldn't be able to become a merchant.

That's why if you think a transaction's been made in error, it is generally much better to try to resolve the issue with the merchant than go straight to your bank.
Click to expand...
Thanks. And also thanks to the one who answered before you.
I see this seems like an extreme scenario... but I undertsand it is a problem.



Steam also has a frightening EULA (provided I understood it it well)
(If it has not changed) it states you are purchasing a service and Valve has the right to change the conditions of the service at will; then you can accept or not the new conditions, to keep accessing the service, but if you don't you won't get any refund.
So Valve cold theoretically make steam a monthly paid service out of the blue, and if you don't start paying you'll just lose the right to access the service, that is accessing your account (with all the consequences), without compensations.

Not good.
 
jediyoshi

jediyoshi

Member
robin2 said:
(If it has not changed) it states you are purchasing a service and Valve has the right to change the conditions of the service at will; then you can accept or not the new conditions, to keep accessing the service, but if you don't you won't get any refund.
So Valve cold theoretically make steam a monthly paid service out of the blue, and if you don't start paying you'll just lose the right to access the service, that is accessing your account (with all the consequences), without compensations.

Not good.
Click to expand...

It's not good they could do something at a theoretical extreme? Have you read any other software EULA ever?
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Chinner said:
just been speaking to water_wendi, and we both agree that Origin is on track to overtake Steam.

origin has only been available for 3 months and it already has 4 million accounts, while Steam has been open for 8 years and only has 35 million accounts. that means EA gets 4 million new users every 3 months, while steam only gets 4 million new users every year. that means if we take into account a full year, Origin will 16 million users, and if we factor in Battlefield 3, TOR and third party games Origin will probably gain about 20 million accounts from that.

origins speed of growth means it will have overtaken Steam by the beginning of 2013.
Click to expand...

I know you're playing around but I feel like I should say this because sadly there's people who aren't.

Those 4 million accounts are likely old EA accounts that were switched over. Me and 5 of my friends have Origin accounts when we've never downloaded anything from them, not even the old EA download manager. We just had regular EA accounts that were transferred.
 
V

Valygar

Member
To all the people applying for Valve, remember that while they look for "smart people" they also look for people with a big list of skills. They don't probably want an economist, but a java-flash programmer economist, or a trilingual Community manager economist.

I mean, somebody working on the steam security was also a flash designer.
 
H

HeadlessRoland

Banned
jediyoshi said:
It's not good they could do something at a theoretical extreme? Have you read any other software EULA ever?
Click to expand...

Seriously, the EULA for most games (mmo or otherwise) breaks down to, "We reserve all rights forever and can do whatever we want when we want."
 
A

angular graphics

Banned
robin2 said:
Thanks. And also thanks to the one who answered before you.
I see this seems like an extreme scenario... but I undertsand it is a problem.



Steam also has a frightening EULA (provided I understood it it well)
(If it has not changed) it states you are purchasing a service and Valve has the right to change the conditions of the service at will; then you can accept or not the new conditions, to keep accessing the service, but if you don't you won't get any refund.
So Valve cold theoretically make steam a monthly paid service out of the blue, and if you don't start paying you'll just lose the right to access the service, that is accessing your account (with all the consequences), without compensations.

Not good.
Click to expand...

What OS are you using? If you are using Windows, pretty sure the EULA somewhere will mention Microsoft deserves the right to do similar things, eg either pay for monthly access or GTFO.

Still not good?
 
T

ThoseDeafMutes

Member
Chinner said:
just been speaking to water_wendi, and we both agree that Origin is on track to overtake Steam.

origin has only been available for 3 months and it already has 4 million accounts, while Steam has been open for 8 years and only has 35 million accounts. that means EA gets 4 million new users every 3 months, while steam only gets 4 million new users every year. that means if we take into account a full year, Origin will 16 million users, and if we factor in Battlefield 3, TOR and third party games Origin will probably gain about 20 million accounts from that.

origins speed of growth means it will have overtaken Steam by the beginning of 2013.
Click to expand...


You had me going for a second.
 
N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Valve said:
We don’t like to brag, but Source is considered the most flexible, comprehensive, and powerful game development environment out there. And it’s about to get even better.
Click to expand...
Have you addressed usable yet?

Gabe Newell said:
Newell was asked in the latest Steamcast: "Will Valve ever update the Source SDK, especially Hammer?"

He replied: "Oh yeah, we're spending a tremendous amount of time on tools right now. So, our current tools are... very painful, so we probably are spending more time on tools development now than anything else and when we're ready to ship those I think everybody's life will get a lot better.

"[It's] just way too hard to develop content right now, both for ourselves and for third-parties, so we're going to make enormously easier and simplify that process a lot."
Click to expand...
Source: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/02/23/valve-working-on-making-source-sdk-less-painful-to-use/
 
A

amdnv

Member
Yeef said:
I wonder how many of those 'active' accounts are idle accounts people use for TF2 items. just by myself I have 7 extra accounts and that's fairly tame compared to the armies of accounts I've seen some people with.
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Why do you have extra accounts? I don't keep up with TF2 stuff and whatnot, so I don't know what that idle thing means. But I never felt the need for more than 1 account.

To qualify as an active account, you must have logged into it during the last 30 days, and it has to contain at least one game.
 
J

JakkuFurosu

Member
amdnv said:
Why do you have extra accounts? I don't keep up with TF2 stuff and whatnot, so I don't know what that idle thing means. But I never felt the need for more than 1 account.

To qualify as an active account, you must have logged into it during the last 30 days, and it has to contain at least one game.
Click to expand...

each account gets you 10 drops per week...

....HATS!!!!!
 
S

Shake Appeal

Member
Sciz said:
They need another writer besides Chet and Erik?
Click to expand...
You're forgetting Laidlaw. Most videogame developers do not even hire one person whose job description is basically just 'writer'. Valve have at least three, and keep hiring more and more. Valve also happen to make some of the best story-driven experiences in the industry. Coincidence?
 
S

SneakyStephan

Banned
Chinner said:
just been speaking to water_wendi, and we both agree that Origin is on track to overtake Steam.

origin has only been available for 3 months and it already has 4 million accounts, while Steam has been open for 8 years and only has 35 million accounts. that means EA gets 4 million new users every 3 months, while steam only gets 4 million new users every year. that means if we take into account a full year, Origin will 16 million users, and if we factor in Battlefield 3, TOR and third party games Origin will probably gain about 20 million accounts from that.

origins speed of growth means it will have overtaken Steam by the beginning of 2013.
Click to expand...

Chinner it is better if you post fewer trolls but well thought out ones, you are just forcing it now and it shows.
 
Y

Yeef

Member
amdnv said:
Why do you have extra accounts? I don't keep up with TF2 stuff and whatnot, so I don't know what that idle thing means. But I never felt the need for more than 1 account.

To qualify as an active account, you must have logged into it during the last 30 days, and it has to contain at least one game.
Click to expand...
The way TF2 works, each week an account gets a random number of items (between 8 and 12) just for playing. By simply running an account on an empty local server you'll still get all of the item drops for that account. Then you can just trade them to your main account.

The real question is: if an account has a premium TF2 account, but no other games, does it count as 'active?'
 
A

alstein

Member
HeadlessRoland said:
Seriously, the EULA for most games (mmo or otherwise) breaks down to, "We reserve all rights forever and can do whatever we want when we want."
Click to expand...

Valve can and does enforce those terms a lot easier and more often then anyone else in the industry.
 
A

angular graphics

Banned
alba said:
My issue with that statement exactly, there has be no update and mods are still stuck to Source SDK 2007, there still isn't any proper multi-core support in yet, it's very very annoying.
Click to expand...

We probably need to wait for HL2:EP3 to get a new Source SDK :\

According to the guy that is remaking the Dear Esther mod to a commercial game, there was a significant increase in framerate when he ported his Source 2007 codebase to the latest Portal 2 engine.

http://www.littlelostpoly.co.uk/devblog/?p=751

There have also been some major improvements to the Source Engine in both performance and visuals. The new water shader for example is now much more sophisticated and has optimisations which Jack and I had planned to add but were already implemented – saving us a lot of work. There’s also a neat vertex wind shader that will allow me to add realistic sway to static prop foliage along with the detail sprites, proper multicore support, fast model rendering and a queued material system and much more which results in super-speedy render times that in some cases improved performance by 50-60fps! (And we haven’t even added in our detail sprite optimisations yet!) This is exciting as it means DE should be able to run smoothly at full detail on even the most moderate of PC’s, and hopefully at some point, Macs! – Also made possible with the new Engine.
Click to expand...
 
T

thomasmahler

Member
Whatever happened to this:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/28/steam-big-picture-mode/

I play a ton of games with my PC hooked up to my HDTV. Sitting on a couch, 1080p, 60fps = awesome. But having to stand up every single time in order to change a game or go back to Steam is a major pain in the ass.

I really hope that Windows 8 XBLA is exactly the same thing it is on the Xbox and that Steam / XBLA will fight over which Digital Distribution Service is the most comfortable and has the best integration into the OS.
 
A

angular graphics

Banned
thomasmahler said:
Whatever happened to this:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/28/steam-big-picture-mode/

I play a ton of games with my PC hooked up to my HDTV. Sitting on a couch, 1080p, 60fps = awesome. But having to stand up every single time in order to change a game or go back to Steam is a major pain in the ass.

Hope that the Windows 8 XBLA is exactly the same thing it is on the Xbox.
Click to expand...

A guy that did contract work for Valve for 2 months says it's coming soon: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=30773507&postcount=1
 
A

alstein

Member
HeadlessRoland said:
Which is relevant how?
Click to expand...

Bad rules which are unenforceable don't bother me. Bad rules that can effect me do.

Let's put it this way: if there's a 30mph speed limit on the interstate, if I know the cops aren't out there, it doesn't bother me, if they are: I'd complain constantly.
 
H

HeadlessRoland

Banned
alstein said:
Bad rules which are unenforceable don't bother me. Bad rules that can effect me do.

Let's put it this way: if there's a 30mph speed limit on the interstate, if I know the cops aren't out there, it doesn't bother me, if they are: I'd complain constantly.
Click to expand...

What "rules" are you talking about? What power does STEAM have beyond any other similar service in addition to every major game developer. The answer is none, they all reserve ultimate authority in their ToS/EULA (mind you stipulations in either may not be legal...). And compared to someone say like Blizzard/Activision who will close your shit down and bar you access for hacking and the like its not even comparable.

None of this matters since the entire issue is based on an ignorant premise. Valve does not have an exceptional ToS or EULA, period.
 
T

Togglesworlh

Banned
zythyl said:
Whoa settle there. Steam isn't DRM in the traditional sense and you know that's true.
Click to expand...
Either your definition of tradition is broken or your definition of DRM is broken.

JaseC said:
Steamworks is, however Steam itself is not - or rather, DRM isn't inherent in the client. Developers that don't opt for Steamworks are not required to have their games tethered to the Steam client; for example, Zeboid took this approach with Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World.
Click to expand...
Ah, yes, that is actually true. I will give you that. However, most games at least use that part of Steamworks. Very few don't.
 
I

idolminds

Neo Member
HeadlessRoland said:
What "rules" are you talking about? What power does STEAM have beyond any other similar service in addition to every major game developer. The answer is none, they all reserve ultimate authority in their ToS/EULA (mind you stipulations in either may not be legal...). And compared to someone say like Blizzard/Activision who will close your shit down and bar you access for hacking and the like its not even comparable.

None of this matters since the entire issue is based on an ignorant premise. Valve does not have an exceptional ToS or EULA, period.
Click to expand...
Steam has the power to take your games away. Yes, some other games (like Blizzard games) can as well, but really only their newer ones. For the most part, though, no one can stop me from playing the vast majority of my games no matter if I break some EULA. They would have to come to my house and take them back, which they will never do (and its probably illegal). Steam they can just flip a switch and bye bye games.
 
B

Burekma

Member
idolminds said:
Steam has the power to take your games away. Yes, some other games (like Blizzard games) can as well, but really only their newer ones. For the most part, though, no one can stop me from playing the vast majority of my games no matter if I break some EULA. They would have to come to my house and take them back, which they will never do (and its probably illegal). Steam they can just flip a switch and bye bye games.
Click to expand...
This is only true if you ignore the existence of cracks, which I'm not sure why you'd do. They're out there, use em.

When I run out of my Crysis securom activations, or if one of my games accounts gets banned (steam, battle.net, origin, GFWL etc.), I'll definitely bitch about it on internet forums, but I most certainly won't pretend I "lost" my games, or a company "took mah games away". What I'll do is proceed to crack them and if I didn't make a backup redownload them through other, free means.
 
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