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[The Cowboy]

There's a reason this was made, you know. Early steam was goddamn awful.

Yeah, i think some people forget (or weren't using it at the time) just how bad Steam actually was at the start (for the 1st few years).

Man, i detested Steam when i got HL2 retail.

 

[Krejlooc]

Hmmm. That doesn't match with my recollection of 16 years ago not being able to play Half Life 2 at all on deployment because I needed to check-in through this stupid program called Steam. Seemed to me restricting my ability to access the game was goal-accomplished right away.

You weren't forced to update your game with a patch, but you were certainly forced to check-in online quite frequently. I think I was able to play for 1-2 days into my 6 month deployment in "offline mode" on deployment before Steam basically gave me the middle finger.

http://internetgames.about.com/library/weekly/aasteama.htm

from 2003, about Steam's exigence being the patching process, specifically noting how poor the then-current fileplanet process of hunt and peck for patches was.

Your point about the authentication system being poor at the time does nothing to change the intent of steam as a process to simplify the patching process.

 

[Denton]

You're arguing with someone who just claimed Steam made the patching process more difficult. You're arguing with extreme revisionist history. The exigence for steam was to streamline the patching process, period. Everything that came since is just their scope expanding. Originally, steam was little more than an automated updater.

Yeah I know :/

Hmmm. That doesn't match with my recollection of 16 years ago not being able to play Half Life 2 at all on deployment because I needed to check-in through this stupid program called Steam. Seemed to me restricting my ability to access the game was goal-accomplished right away.

Maybe that doesn't match your recollection because 16 years ago Half Life 1 was released..

why do I even bother

 

[Krejlooc]

There's a reason this was made, you know. Early steam was goddamn awful.

Yes, and the reason it was made was because early steam didn't work very well. This gif alone shows how streamlines the patching process was, however, even when broken, compared to how one patched games in the past. Do you not remember what patching games was like prior to steam? Developers releasing patches behind paywall websites like fileplanet, with no way to inform their users that a patch had been released? Needing to extract zip files and read readmes to figure out how to patch. No streamlined process at all. Some games required you manually copy files from one folder to another. Some required you replace files in the system folder. Some required you run an executable that would occasionally install malware. Sometimes the update process was multistep - replace the executable, then replace some DLLs, then copy some additional files into a new folder you create, and so forth.

Steam is just "update notification, click update." You guys are seriously conflating the system being shaky at inception with the intent.

 

[Tacitus_]

Steam is just "update notification, click update." You guys are seriously conflating the system being shaky at inception with the intent.

No, they had good intentions. Didn't stop the result from sucking complete ass at launch.

 

[Krejlooc]

No, they had good intentions. Didn't stop the result from sucking complete ass at launch.

What is being contested is their intentions. We're replying to a guy who said steam had no reason to exist in the first place.

 

[Tacitus_]

What is being contested is their intentions. We're replying to a guy who said steam had no reason to exist in the first place.

Well let me revise my statement then. The Steam of 2002 had no reason to exist since it was so buggy (should've spent more time in the oven - once all the nastiness was ironed out it was a fine system.. most of the time) - and current steamboxes suffer from the same fault. They spent their load on prehype while they should've waited until they had something more concrete show off.
Since they want to eat the console makers lunch, Valve should've taken a note from them on presentations.

 

[Krejlooc]

Well let me revise my statement then. The Steam of 2002 had no reason to exist since it was so buggy (should've spent more time in the oven - once all the nastiness was ironed out it was a fine system.. most of the time) - and current steamboxes suffer from the same fault. They spent their load on prehype while they should've waited until they had something more concrete show off.
Since they want to eat the console makers lunch, Valve should've taken a note from them on presentations.

Things iterate. 2002 Steam had every reason to exist because it was a first step that lead to what we have today. We would have never got what we have today, without that first step.

Your comparison of Steam Machines to Steam is a false equivalence. Similarly, your claim that they want to eat console maker's lunch isn't what they are trying to do. They are trying to expand steam. Steam Machines do that. I have one, as does a casual friend of mine up in seattle. My friend would have never joined Steam without her steam machine. Now she and her boyfriend regularly buy and play steam games.

Further: Steam machines aren't officially released. You are speaking as though they have launched a half-finished product. They are doing exactly what you suggest they do.

 

[TheDarkKnight774]

Just give me a stream box with 360 controller capability. It's all I want

 

[Tacitus_]

Things iterate. 2002 Steam had every reason to exist because it was a first step that lead to what we have today. We would have never got what we have today, without that first step.

Your comparison of Steam Machines to Steam is a false equivalence. Similarly, your claim that they want to eat console maker's lunch isn't what they are trying to do. They are trying to expand steam. Steam Machines do that. I have one, as does a casual friend of mine up in seattle. My friend would have never joined Steam without her steam machine. Now she and her boyfriend regularly buy and play steam games.

Further: Steam machines aren't officially released. You are speaking as though they have launched a half-finished product. They are doing exactly what you suggest they do.

Allright, you've got me interested, what were their gaming habits before? Because the way I'm looking at it, outside of some niche cases for streaming, the steamboxes are aimed at people who don't play PC games.

But I'm biased because I, and all my friends, are PC gamers.

 

[Krejlooc]

Allright, you've got me interested, what were their gaming habits before? Because the way I'm looking at it, outside of some niche cases for streaming, the steamboxes are aimed at people who don't play PC games.

But I'm biased because I, and all my friends, are PC gamers.

They owned an Xbox 360 and played games like Left4dead 2, Halo 3, and Street Fighter IV primarily. Once they got their steambox and saw that Left4Dead2 and Street Fighter IV were there, and the sort of sales they had, they switched. They were already looking for something to replace their Xbox 360, and the PS4 and Xbox One hadn't launched yet EDIT: Scratch that, they had launched, a few months prior. Getting a steam machine for them was awesome. My friends have since played through Half Life 2 and the episodes and portal and sleeping dogs. They play all this with either a steam controller or a wired xbox 360 controller.

I have another friend, life long playstation gamer. Earlier this year, he asked me to help him build a PC after hearing about my trip to dev days and dinking around with my PC and PS4. I put together a $750 build for him and he's been blown away since. In fact, checking steam right now, he's logged in using XBMC. He's taken to games like Metal Gear Rising and XCom and CivV and he's interested in Elite Dangerous after trying my setup. Had Steam Machines been available for consumers, I would have steered him to get an alienware build instead of building his from scratch. He uses an Xbox 360 controller with a dongle.

I think this idea that PC and Console gaming tastes are wildly different is outdated. There is plenty on steam to satiate the console gamer.

EDIT: Neither of my two groups of friends here are what I'd call hardcore gamers. My second friend, the one into MGR and XCom, is more so of a hardcore gamer than my first group of friends, the one with an actual steam machine, but they don't visit forums or anything like that. My friend, the one who plays XCom, visited me a week ago and asked me "what is family sharing" and I have no idea how he heard about it. Regardless, we've shared libraries since and he thinks that's awesome.

 

[Extra Sauce]

Both at the same time. Steam launched with Half Life 2, which needed to authenticate online. But the reason they did this was to provide a platform to patch HL2 with in the first place.

also: just to point out, Steam does not predispose DRM. You can make a steamworks game that doesn't need to be authenticated online. There are also games on steam that you can run without launching the steam client.

But if Steam launched with HL2 and DRM was present from the beginning, how can you say with such certainty that "the exigence for steam was to streamline the patching process, period."

Seems to me like DRM may have been as much a factor to motivate the creation of Steam as patching was?

 

[Krejlooc]

But if Steam launched with HL2 and DRM was present from the beginning, how can you say with such certainty that "the exigence for steam was to streamline the patching process, period."

Seems to me like DRM may have been as much a factor to motivate the creation of Steam as patching was?

Because the DRM steam offers has always been optional. When it launched, the only game that used it had DRM, but steamworks' DRM has always been optional. The moment it launched, if you began making a game for steam, you had the option of making it DRM free.

 

[TheTwelve]

People who want to play on PCs with all the advantages that brings, but want to do so in their living room and without the effort of building a PC, installing OS etc ? Believe it or not, there are people like that.

*raises hand*

 

[Tacitus_]

I think this idea that PC and Console gaming tastes are wildly different is outdated. There is plenty on steam to satiate the console gamer.

Oh no, I didn't mean that at all. PC games can sate pretty much every taste (character action and fighting games are pretty rare though, but I don't mind since I never got into those). I meant in the "box under your TV" kinda way. People who wouldn't spend the time comparing options and just want a box which does what they want - I get the need for that, I do, but I've been gaming on PC from the start, which is for me from the Win3.1 days, so I can't really relate, only acknowledge it.

And if I may say so, they sound like the ones who wouldn't get a gaming PC without getting it in a nice premade box.

 

[Extra Sauce]

Because the DRM steam offers has always been optional. When it launched, the only game that used it had DRM, but steamworks' DRM has always been optional. The moment it launched, if you began making a game for steam, you had the option of making it DRM free.

Not sure that is relevant to my question though. Valve created Steam, and Valve uses DRM on their games via Steam. So again I ask... how do we know DRM was not a motivating factor in Valve's creation of Steam, as opposed to "streamline the patching process, period".

Sorry for pestering you like this, but I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.

 

[Tacitus_]

Not sure that is relevant to my question though. Valve created Steam, and Valve uses DRM on their games via Steam. So again I ask... how do we know DRM was not a motivating factor in Valve's creation of Steam, as opposed to "streamline the patching process, period".

Sorry for pestering you like this, but I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.

Half Life 2 used Steam for DRM, and I remember something about CS players grumbling about Steam forced updating... I think they wanted to play on a previous patch or something, my dad was a stinger with always-on internet and we got it kinda late compared to my classmates who were plaing DOD, CS and NS all day.

 

[Krejlooc]

Not sure that is relevant to my question though. Valve created Steam, and Valve uses DRM on their games via Steam. So again I ask... how do we know DRM was not a motivating factor in Valve's creation of Steam, as opposed to "streamline the patching process, period".

Sorry for pestering you like this, but I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.

Because DRM existed before steam. Steam wasn't the birth of DRM. Half Life 2 wasn't the first product from valve to ship with DRM. The problem that Steam was a solution to wasn't DRM, it was the creation of a patching platform.

 

[Portugeezer]

It's the new Half Life 3.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

I have one in my basement already.

 

[SerTapTap]

It's the new Half Life 3.

Eh, it's going to happen. The OS is practically done and in use by some, people are already making the hardware (Alienware Alpha). I think about the only thing it's hinging on is the controller. There's no way it's going to be delayed indefinitely because they can't decide what to do with the face buttons.

 

[Tacitus_]

Because DRM existed before steam. Steam wasn't the birth of DRM. Half Life 2 wasn't the first product from valve to ship with DRM. The problem that Steam was a solution to wasn't DRM, it was the creation of a patching platform.

I suppose you could argue CD-keys being DRM, but Steam w/ HL2 was the first time I heard of call-home online DRM (and what a wreck it did on people trying to play HL2 on launch day). Though I suppose there might've been earlier examples of that, I wasn't that active on the internet then since we only had dial up and my parents didn't like me ranging up huge phone bills.

 

[Extra Sauce]

Because DRM existed before steam. Steam wasn't the birth of DRM. Half Life 2 wasn't the first product from valve to ship with DRM. The problem that Steam was a solution to wasn't DRM, it was the creation of a patching platform.

But isn't Steam's DRM more robust than what came before it?

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I guess I'll never be able to believe that DRM wasn't a factor in the creation of Steam.

 

[meanspartan]

It was supposed to be an "Easy" way for people to get into PC gaming, preferably with only a couple SKUs so games could have preset "Steambox basic" or "Steambox Plus" settings.

Instead, it is a fucking Linux OS that won't play most games, and there is going to be dozens of different steamboxes, so simplicity is out the window. They are going to be if anything more complicated than regular PC gaming. So I don't even know what the fuck Valve is doing other than pissing off vendors that now can't ship PCs they made without the OS while the hardware devalues.

But hey, the controller might be cool.

(To be clear, I love Valve and PC Gaming. I just thought this was a cool idea that they totally butchered with their execution. It absolutely should have been a singular Steambox, or at most a few SKUs)

 

[Tacitus_]

It was supposed to be an "Easy" way for people to get into PC gaming, preferably with only a couple SKUs so games could have preset "Steambox basic" or "Steambox Plus" settings.

Instead, it is a fucking Linux OS that won't play most games, and there is going to be dozens of them. They are going to be if anything more complicated than regular PC gaming. So I don't even know what the fuck Valve is doing other than pissing off vendors that now can't ship PCs they made without the OS while the hardware devalues.

But hey, the controller might be cool.

(To be clear, I love Valve and PC Gaming. I just thought this was a cool idea that they totally butchered with their execution. It absolutely should have been a singular Steambox, or at most a few SKUs)

Tbh, I don't think that the number of SKUs is the problem as there's different needs for different people, the problem is as you identified, it being a linux distro that can't play the majority of PC games unless you already have a gaming PC and are using the box for streaming.

I suppose people who don't already have a steam library won't mind... until they try to buy a game that's not compatible with linux.

 

[soulassssns]

I'm still at a loss on what the purpose of the Steambox was if you already own a Windows gaming pc.

 

[Extra Sauce]

I'm still at a loss on what the purpose of the Steambox was if you already own a Windows gaming pc.

I could myself plugging one directly to my TV, and use Big Picture and a gamepad exclusively.

But then I could do this with a regular PC...

 

[Tacitus_]

I could myself plugging one directly to my TV, and use Big Picture and a gamepad exclusively.

But then I could do this with a regular PC...

I can see the benefit of putting a streaming box under your TV if you want to game that way and you can't employ any other means of getting your PC connected.

... but even in that case you can get a cheaper box from somewhere else. Maybe for people who are not techies... but if they're not techies, how are they going to end up in the solution of intranet streaming to a different box from their main gaming PC?

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Its Valve, it could take an other 10 years and they don't care.
They only care about the quality in the end.

 

[Mechazawa]

I don't know why the hell they announced those things so early. The controller alone has gone through, like, 4 major revisions since they announced it.

 

[2spooky4me]

This thing is going to be dead on arrival, as long as Valve doesn't release their own hardware. 3rd parties manufacturers are going to be overpricing hardware just to make a profit, because they won't be making any money anywhere else. So enthusiasts won't be buying these boxes, and console gamers will stick with traditional consoles because of the weird unfamiliar controller...

 

[SerTapTap]

I don't know why the hell they announced those things so early. The controller alone has gone through, like, 4 major revisions since they announced it.

Whole point of the controller was to get tons of feedback and iterate quickly

 

[abstract alien]

Is it me or is the Steam Controller going to suck for 2D games?



My favorite Steam games are stuff like Spelunky and Shovel Knight so I'm not sure this will be for me.

For the ones that rely on digital movement, it might. Ones that use analog movement should me fine, provided the owl works as advertised.

 

[Grief.exe]

Is it me or is the Steam Controller going to suck for 2D games?



My favorite Steam games are stuff like Spelunky and Shovel Knight so I'm not sure this will be for me.

For the ones that rely on digital movement, it might. Ones that use analog movement should me fine, provided the owl works as advertised.

The haptic touchpads actually work perfect as dpads. There are even some videos on YouTube of people playing fighting games using the touchpads emulating a dpad and facebuttons.

 

[Forsete]

Another Valve vaporware? Ep 3? HL3?

I haven't looked in Valves direction for years. TF2, HATS! DOTA or whatevs it is called don't interest me the slightest.

Are the games still super expensive on Steam? At least in Sweden retailers can offer games at lower prices.

A question about the steam box. What kind of games would it play? Isn't it based on Linux? So not many games would work on it, or has Linux support taken off in the last few years?

 

[Man God]

The only good thing about steam from its inception until...2006 or so was that it had amazing download speeds. Friends list was shit, the whole thing would crash all the time, update constantly, had memory leaks left and right. Best thing about it was pretty decent yahoo like web games. It did start to pick up after HL2 launched and was mainly recognizable as the Steam we know today by 2006ish.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

The only good thing about steam from its inception until...2006 or so was that it had amazing download speeds. Friends list was shit, the whole thing would crash all the time, update constantly, had memory leaks left and right. Best thing about it was pretty decent yahoo like web games. It did start to pick up after HL2 launched and was mainly recognizable as the Steam we know today by 2006ish.

Automatic patching of titles directly and joining friends directly in game from the client were both huge in the days of needing fileplanet queues for critical patches and all seeing eye server browsing

 

[tim.mbp]

I'm really interested in a Steam Machine, particularly the small boxes. The first ones are coming out now without Steam OS and the controller.

Gigabyte BRIX

Zotac Zbox EN760

The BRIX review was pretty disappointing with it's poor thermals and noise. The Zbox looks pretty decent to me. Still waiting on the Alienware Alpha to decide which one to get.

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

I'm still very interested in this but Valve is losing the momentum of interest they had in it with their complete silence.

If it was so far off why release info so early? Sure, it's delayed now, but before that, the reveal made it seem years off.

 

[Kadayi]

 

[Lombax]

Its alive and well! As a matter of fact I'm posting to this thread from my Steam Box.

 

[SapientWolf]

Niche product is niche.

If they can get it at or under $400, have it play current gen games at current gen console settings, and sell it at Wal Mart then that product is no longer niche.

 

[Polari]

There's a reason this was made, you know. Early steam was goddamn awful.

This implies Steam isn't still goddamn awful. That's one of my biggest doubts about the Steam console - Valve suck at usability.

 

[Denton]

I'm still at a loss on what the purpose of the Steambox was if you already own a Windows gaming pc.

If you want to play PC games on TV without moving your PC there, you could get a Steambox. Small one for streaming, or big one for native playing. Or you could build new PC yourself, install Steam on it and get your Steambox that way. Valve doesn't care.
If you already have one in living room, or do not care about TV gaming, then Steambox has no purpose for you - and Valve is perfectly fine with it, since you are already a Steam user (at least I assume so).
Valve does not need to sell 20 million steamboxes in first 3 years to be successful. They already have 75+ million users. Steamboxes are just to give more options to userbase.

I mean, I already have a PC in my living room, connected to both 24" and 55" TV. I have Windows installed on it and I enjoy all games in that sweet 1080p@60fps@ultra. For me, Steambox has no appeal apart from the controller (which I want, a LOT). But I have a few friends who are console gamers (all PS3 and PS4 based) who want to get in on the PC action. Unfortunately with this delay I will be probably building PCs for them from scratch, but if Steambox wasn't delayed and there were some good options for it (price/perf), I would have recommended that, and perhaps installed Windows for them if they needed it.

 

[xDUMPWEEDx]

Comparing this to 3DO is hilariously misguided.



People who want to play on PCs with all the advantages that brings, but want to do so in their living room and without the effort of building a PC, installing OS etc ? Believe it or not, there are people like that.

Sure, misguided as in 3rd party manufacturers are producing a machine in which they can't subsidize through game sales, thereby forcing the fact that every system sold has to be sold for profit, in turn resulting in a high retail price.

...totally not anything similar whatsoever, right?

I never said the situation was the exact same, which is why I have no idea why you even thought that. Read the whole post next time.

 

[CerebralTiger]

If you want to play PC games on TV without moving your PC there, you could get a Steambox. Small one for streaming, or big one for native playing.

Some of the smaller ones are also good for native gaming. Valve's own prototype was roughly around the size of an xbox one, and could house high-end components.

Form factor is by far the biggest appeal for me. A tower pc enclosure looks out of place in the living room, imo. Something that can easily fit inside a tv cabinet is ideal. I just hope Valve will release a commercial version of its prototype some day, or at least make the CAD files for its enclosure available.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

This implies Steam isn't still goddamn awful. That's one of my biggest doubts about the Steam console - Valve suck at usability.

What's wrong with BPM as a PCTV interface, other than 'partial controller support' games often still requiring kb+m to launch?

 

[ashecitism]

What's wrong with BPM as a PCTV interface, other than 'partial controller support' games often still requiring kb+m to launch?

He probably means the overall client and service.

 

[SwiftDeath]

It makes me sad that steambox has seemingly faded into the background. Maybe next year it will garner the same attention but I have my doubts. I was curious to get impressions this year though

 

[ashecitism]

It makes me sad that steambox has seemingly faded into the background. Maybe next year it will garner the same attention but I have my doubts. I was curious to get impressions this year though

It will only get attention if Valve pull some really big things out the hat. But at this rate I doubt any of it. And it's not like Valve care.