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Steam Steam/Valve Rant

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by Canon, 21 Jun 2018.

  1. Canon

    Canon Reformed

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    I'm not sure if or how much this has been discussed here but interested to hear what people think regardless.

    So I have been AFK for the best part of 6 years. I have maybe logged a handful of game hours in that time. Now that I'm back, of course one of the first things on my list after installing Windows is to download and install Steam, then Counterstrike:Source (out of habit) then CS:GO.

    Needless to say a handful of other games followed suit.

    Before complaining, my memories of the platform are some of the best as far as being sat at my desk are concerned, I installed steam way back, served my time with Half Life, Counter Strike and all of the sequels since. I was delighted when other titles became available on Steam and even more delighted when it became the huge platform it is today.

    The best times I had were playing CS:SOURCE on servers (like the CPC server!) that I found with a good community, on several occasions myself and friends would host our own servers, public and private, it was great playing for hours, chatting away, quite often becoming very friendly with some of the people we met. Holiday sales were always awesome, we would all chip in and get several copies of the games we wanted, another great social endeavour.

    However, fairies, pixies and wonderful meadows of flowers aside, I come back to Steam now, install CS:GO and immediately I am bombarded with micro-transactions, buy this imaginary key to open this imaginary box that MIGHT have something imaginary cool in it. ... Something you would expect on a free mobile game or free MMO. But hang on a second, I paid full price for this game, I've paid full price for every single one of your games, loyalty much?

    Delving further in, now Steam is full of games with micro transactions, it's full of free MMOs and a big topic of discussion with my partners parents at the moment is the adult content being allowed on Steam recently, now for me this is no big issue (being an adult, quite possibly a heathen too) but their youngest son is severely (is that ok to say?) autistic and something as simple as this to you or me is likely to cause an issue, and from what I gather he's an avid Steam user himself.

    So I suppose the question is, has living under a rock for all these years left me backwards thinking, confused and prudish whilst the rest of the world has moved on or are some things just moving in the wrong direction?
     
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  2. Hex

    Hex Paul?! Super Moderator

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    This is very much not just a Steam issue. It's prevalent across all platforms :( After the massive hoo-ha with EA and Battlefront II though a lot of triple A studios are making a big thing of not having microtransactions now. Will have to see if that lasts. The thing is, people buy them. Pure and simple. It works, it makes them loads of money, that's why they do it.
     
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  3. fix-the-spade

    fix-the-spade Multimodder

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    No it's not you, the general model for the gaming business has gone from selling games to selling portals for micro transactions, that are usually gambling based (spend X to open the box!).

    It's a very sad state of affairs.
     
  4. adidan

    adidan Guesswork is still work

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    Yeah many games publishers have be on this bandwagon for a while.

    As for adult content, there's always been 18+ rated games available but parents seldom seem concerned about this and as an adult I want access to 18+ games.

    Can those under 18 see adult content? I mean steam accounts need your age so I'd be surprised if you can see them without actively subverting the system and if that's the case the parents should oversee that.
     
  5. Canon

    Canon Reformed

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    That's true, having been around a bunch of young guys recently and listening to the way they talk about games they certainly don't feel that they're being duped into spending any more money than needs be, not at all.

    I'm glad it's not just a case of turning into senile old prune.

    That's true, the child in my case is actually about to turn 18, due to condition this may still be a problem, although I know that's a debate for a completely different forum. I guess it's crap like XXX Poker etc. I just don't get it.

    Something I forgot to mention in regards to Counter Strike in particular is the total lack of server selection, what happened to being able to save your favourite servers. This auto matchmaking nonsense just will not do! Nothing is safe.. :sigh:
     
  6. Xlog

    Xlog Minimodder

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    Eh, its cosmetic and does not influence gameplay in any way, so personally I don't care. If that the price we pay for continued support for the game - so be it. It becomes the problem then games start becoming pay to win or cosmetics get before actual gameplay/bugfixes (i.e. PUGB).

    Steam was full of "adult content" from the start - pretty much all Valve games are 18+, the problem is that "adult content" in most people minds only cover nudity and sex.

    In some ways things are moving to the wrong direction - but the problems is that the market, in general, rewards such direction. In others - its backwards/prudish thinking, but that can be said for any entertainment media.


    CSGO still has server browser - (Browse Community servers in Play menu). The problem is that market demands some sort of "one click" matchmaking system and for long term player base - some sort of player progression/reward system. And in general, you cant have one without the other. At least they didn't pull full COD and got rid of Dedicated servers.
     
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  7. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Depends on the game.
    Since the whole ESRB / Pegi and so on age rating system does not apply onSteam it is essentially down to the developer to request an age verification before accessing the store page (or enough people reporting a game so Valve adds it).

    There is however a way to massively reduce the chance of some stuff showing up:

    Open Steam, go to top left corner, click on steam, click settings, click view account details, click preferences and you have the option to filter out games based on tags.
    (also helps to get rid of the Early Access Trash)
     
    Last edited: 21 Jun 2018
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  8. Pete J

    Pete J Employed scum

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    Unfortunately game delivery sites such as Steam have all gone down hill.

    Steam is now bloated to the gills with utter tripe. The few gems are buried under a mound of ever growing manure.

    Origin is almost sensible, but doesn't allow multiple logins and forgets your login details pretty much every day - at first, a minor annoyance, but it builds into a massive issue. Takes ages to update on my systems too, and there seems to be an update every day too.

    Windows store - is just bad. One particular gripe I have is that it can't seem to handle stop-start downloading. Which is great when you're trying to download 150GB of Gears of War 4 at 1MB/s.

    Uplay, never really used.
     
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  9. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    With Steam you can make it good enough to be an ok experience through effort, while with uplay, origin and windows store you just have to suffer (or not use them).

    Besides the tag filtering I had mentioned earlier, some other "hacks" to make steam better:

    See games you don't like? Don't just ignore them, access the store page and hit the not interested button.

    Have friends on steam, the store algorithms place a rather high value on their libraries and recommendations (while having gaming related friends on discord or in some game specific friend list works for a game it doesn't feed the store algorithms).

    Follow high quality curators, best way to filter them down to your preferences is to look at the store pages of games you love, then look which curators are most common among those recommending the games, then look at each of the specific curator pages to filter out the con artists who just recommend everything.

    "Learn" how to read user reviews, by which I mean actually read them, do not ever take the thumbs up / down rating as gospel.

    When it comes to discovering gems among the mass of indie games, youtube and twitch are your best bet.
    Simply put the devs of those games don't have the financial power and industry contacts to get coverage by traditional games media so youtube and twitch are your best bet.

    And finally, don't bother to find the list of actual game releases (thankfully pretty convoluted to access, as it is pure unfiltered trash).

    And when it comes to old games, stay away from steam, check first if they are available on gog.com (although they are more and more branching out into current games as well).
     
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  10. GeorgeStorm

    GeorgeStorm Aggressive PC Builder

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    Just the way the market has gone, people will buy things so people will make things.

    +1 to gog, always try to buy there if I can.
     
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  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    That's nowt new. I played Sam Fox Strip Poker on the Commodore 64. Won, too.

    It was distinctly underwhelming.
     
  12. Canon

    Canon Reformed

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    I always thought the box of dirty floppys for the Amiga just had some food spilt on them..:eeek:
     
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