Game devs praise Steam as a 'democratic platform' that 'continues to be transformative' for PC gaming today
Game devs praise Steam as a 'democratic platform' that 'continues to be transformative' for PC gaming today
"It's just a great constant in our industry that is [otherwise] really in f***ing panic mode."
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I don’t even view Steam as being particularly innovative. They just don’t suck. It does what it’s supposed to do.
That's the thing. You can launch Steam and have it just get the hell out of your way, and go enjoy your games. You don't really have to interact with any of the features on a regular basis. For many players, that's perfect.
But it's actually been incredibly innovative. Proton has made Linux gaming a reality when it previously seemed impossible. Remote Play Together is basically wizardry. Steam Input is fucking brilliant and lightyears beyond other control customizations. These things are available to every Steam user gratis if you want them.
(fixed minor typos)
Family sharing is also very great
Seriously, even better with the beta where my partner can now play games in my library even if I'm playing something
Can you play the same game at the same time?
That's basically the one thing you can't do right now unless you add another copy to the family iirc, which is fair enough imo
Yeah, it makes sense
Yeah this is my understanding, which I mean fair, anything my partner and I play for coop we're both buying anyhow, or we gift one another a copy if we like it independently.
Steam streaming is pretty cool too, I use it very often.
I like the controller support and streamlining of Linux working compared to stuff like heroic launcher.
It's not innovative anymore, but it sure was when it released. But they kept it near its peak instead of making it utter horse crap.
Corporate tactic, very secret: Don't self-destruct.
But if we don’t self-destruct, how do we create value for shareholders?
No shareholders if you aren't publicly owned. Stakeholders, yeah probably, but no shareholders.
You can still have shareholders in a private company, those shares just aren't traded publicly...
I would love to learn more about Valve's actual numbers, but not enough to wish them going public and fucking up the one thing that continues to work as advertised in the world.
It's not innovative anymore
What have you been smoking? That's just plain wrong. See my other comment for examples.
It's just that they don't push their innovations down your throat.
Steam Deck had a bunch of cool tech launch both with it and soon after it launched, like Steam Input. If you don't need it, you don't have to know about it, but it's there if you do. Likewise, AMD GPU drivers got way better due to Valve investment. Steam on Linux was super buggy some years ago, and it had growing pains with Wayland. That's all working properly now.
And that's exactly why I like Linux over other OSes. My software quietly gets better without me doing anything, whereas on Windows or macOS, there's a big banner with stupid updates every time there's a major release. Or maybe that's because I'm on a rolling release distro, IDK.
But yeah, quiet, impactful improvements are the way to go. If things aren't breaking, they're doing their job.
Steam Deck had a bunch of cool tech launch both with it and soon after it launched, like Steam Input.
Steam Input actually started years ago with the Steam Controller 🙂 Valve has been quietly improving it for a long time now, and it's only gotten better with the Deck. SI is the #1 most underrated thing in gaming I swear.
But yeah the Steam client has quietly and steadily improved on Linux, even in the past 6 months. I saw issues with storage sizes, graphical bugs, page loading errors... and nearly all of it fixed now. It's in a good state.
Steam on Linux is still buggy as shit. Can't even properly full screen it with multiple displays. Shits the bed.
It was utter horse crap when it released. The military green Steam was among the worst pieces of software ever conceived. So they worked a lot to make it as good as it is today.
worst pieces of software ever conceived
Oh you sweet summer child. You've clearly never used Peoplesoft, or the shovelware packed with printer drivers, or browser add-ons from the Netscape days, or the horrible CD burner programs pre-installed on PCs in the 90s...
Well... I did. And i can still say that first Steam app was a steaming pile of crap.
It wasn't great but I remember distinctly - it worked well enough after a few weeks and I've literally never missed a day playing since. Compared to other game 'services' it stays out of the way, doesn't eat memory and works. at the time, I worked for a software company that shipped physical box copies and tried to convince them that this was the future - nope. It was a fad or for games only. Sigh.
I don’t even view Steam as being particularly innovative. They just don’t suck
Sadly, that's basically 'innovation' in this climate. Not being a shitty corpo is an innovation for a lot of MBAs that have more years in school than sense in their head.