Feels like the Steam Deck gave them a boost in, I don’t know if it’s morale, creativity or something but it’s there. Amazing little machine, I love it. And to see Steam’s UI finally getting some much needed love and tweaks is fantastic.
MacOS getting a “no longer feels awful to use” update? Hell yeah. Even if I don’t play on it, I like to have the client.
Notes especially looks to be a fantastic features. It’s a simple thing and I could take notes anywhere. But having them in-game is another thing.
As always, Steam continues to be the best gaming platform ever. While others are just like: “Fuck you, this is where you must buy our games now”, Steam provides valuable features that would make you want to buy it here over another place. Sure, I love the DRM-free nature of GOG but the work Valve keeps on putting in stuff like Proton and Linux makes me stick with them in the end.
I honestly love Steam. They did some mistakes in the past, sure, but they keep doing amazing stuff. They stand out in this industry of ridiculous greed and they’ve earned my trust, which is quite hard these days. And while I am always cautious, I think they’ll keep it until the day Valve does a 180 and announce: “We’re going public” and it’ll be all downhill from there, as it always happen when great companies who make amazing products goes public.
I dread this moment but hopefully, it’ll never happen. They’re already swimming in money, so… Can’t see why they’d do this. But still. I keep it in the back of my mind.
I worry that when Gabe Newell eventually retires or dies that some MBA shitheads will take over Steam and then it’ll decline like so many other things lately :(
If piracy is even still a thing by then. The major pirate sites are dropping one by one and drm software is getting better and more insidiuous with every year, as well as always-online games. It’s a losing battle at this rate…
Hopefully he has a good successor lined up. There’s definitely people out there with that quality first mindset. Quality costs a lot, a poor product costs you everything. That’s been beaten into my head my whole life by my father who is a recovered MBA goon with decades of experience watching the ebb and flow of many businesses in his little corner of the world (tools and fasteners).
Only thing I wish they would finally implement is the ability to prevent certain games from updating when modding them…
It’s currently a real pain to deal with.
Like you I would love to use GOG more but Valve’s contribution to gaming is just that much bigger.
For as long as I can remember there was a setting that was wrongly phrased, It lead users to believe it disabled updates but in reality it had the same effect as the current “Only update on game launch”.
Same tbh, I don’t want to see it but I think it’s a hard pill to swallow that eventually it’s gonna go down the same route other massive companies have. It is amazing it held up so well this far, probably thanks to Gaben himself.
My biggest fear is steam workshop tbh. So many games depend on it that it’s become synonymous with modding for many users, which hurts games not on steam or mods not on the workshop. I know I’m preaching to the choir here but such massive centralization and monopolization can’t be good. Especially since the steam workshop isn’t even that good - it lacks many features that other mod portals or managers have, like version control, preset switching, virtual installs, or even something as simple as mass subscribe/unsubscribe or a sortable list.
I don’t think we have anything to worry about with Steam. It’s privately held, so they aren’t bound by investors or shareholders squeezing them to wring out infinite growth and ROI every quarter
Gabe passing away doesn’t inherently mean anything. Gabe is very smart and I’m sure he’s picked his “heir” to the Valve/Steam business very very carefully. He’s had a wonderful vision of PC Gaming for the last few decades and I doubt he’d pick some bean counter just looking to wring wallets in the way every other company does.
Valve has a pretty unique flat structure that could protect them from a corporate buyout, even more if Gaben decides to transfer ownership into an employee trust and turn it into a full co-op when he leaves.
Well I don’t know what any of that means but let’s hope it works out? ^^ Sounds like a democracy and I’m not sure that’s a good way to lead a business. I kinda trust Gaben, I don’t necessarily trust his employees or inheritors.
There was a time when I would avoid Steam versions of games as much as I could because of the bad interface and frequent crashes, but they continued to improve the platform year after year until it became a model of what a games platform should be.
I’d still slightly prefer to buy on GoG due to it being DRM free but I recently got a Steam Deck so the ease of use begins to tip the equation in favour of Steam again.
Feels like the Steam Deck gave them a boost in, I don’t know if it’s morale, creativity or something but it’s there. Amazing little machine, I love it. And to see Steam’s UI finally getting some much needed love and tweaks is fantastic.
MacOS getting a “no longer feels awful to use” update? Hell yeah. Even if I don’t play on it, I like to have the client.
Notes especially looks to be a fantastic features. It’s a simple thing and I could take notes anywhere. But having them in-game is another thing.
As always, Steam continues to be the best gaming platform ever. While others are just like: “Fuck you, this is where you must buy our games now”, Steam provides valuable features that would make you want to buy it here over another place. Sure, I love the DRM-free nature of GOG but the work Valve keeps on putting in stuff like Proton and Linux makes me stick with them in the end.
I honestly love Steam. They did some mistakes in the past, sure, but they keep doing amazing stuff. They stand out in this industry of ridiculous greed and they’ve earned my trust, which is quite hard these days. And while I am always cautious, I think they’ll keep it until the day Valve does a 180 and announce: “We’re going public” and it’ll be all downhill from there, as it always happen when great companies who make amazing products goes public.
I dread this moment but hopefully, it’ll never happen. They’re already swimming in money, so… Can’t see why they’d do this. But still. I keep it in the back of my mind.
I worry that when Gabe Newell eventually retires or dies that some MBA shitheads will take over Steam and then it’ll decline like so many other things lately :(
I am prepared to pirate every single game I bought on that platform if that comes to happen =/
If piracy is even still a thing by then. The major pirate sites are dropping one by one and drm software is getting better and more insidiuous with every year, as well as always-online games. It’s a losing battle at this rate…
That means I have finally time to play through my backlog.
Hopefully he has a good successor lined up. There’s definitely people out there with that quality first mindset. Quality costs a lot, a poor product costs you everything. That’s been beaten into my head my whole life by my father who is a recovered MBA goon with decades of experience watching the ebb and flow of many businesses in his little corner of the world (tools and fasteners).
Only thing I wish they would finally implement is the ability to prevent certain games from updating when modding them…
It’s currently a real pain to deal with.
Like you I would love to use GOG more but Valve’s contribution to gaming is just that much bigger.
I noticed that that other day. I might be crazy, but I swear that it use to be a feature.
For as long as I can remember there was a setting that was wrongly phrased, It lead users to believe it disabled updates but in reality it had the same effect as the current “Only update on game launch”.
Same tbh, I don’t want to see it but I think it’s a hard pill to swallow that eventually it’s gonna go down the same route other massive companies have. It is amazing it held up so well this far, probably thanks to Gaben himself.
My biggest fear is steam workshop tbh. So many games depend on it that it’s become synonymous with modding for many users, which hurts games not on steam or mods not on the workshop. I know I’m preaching to the choir here but such massive centralization and monopolization can’t be good. Especially since the steam workshop isn’t even that good - it lacks many features that other mod portals or managers have, like version control, preset switching, virtual installs, or even something as simple as mass subscribe/unsubscribe or a sortable list.
I don’t think we have anything to worry about with Steam. It’s privately held, so they aren’t bound by investors or shareholders squeezing them to wring out infinite growth and ROI every quarter
The bus factor of that is 1 though. If Gabe Newell gets hit by a bus all bets are off.
Gabe passing away doesn’t inherently mean anything. Gabe is very smart and I’m sure he’s picked his “heir” to the Valve/Steam business very very carefully. He’s had a wonderful vision of PC Gaming for the last few decades and I doubt he’d pick some bean counter just looking to wring wallets in the way every other company does.
Valve has a pretty unique flat structure that could protect them from a corporate buyout, even more if Gaben decides to transfer ownership into an employee trust and turn it into a full co-op when he leaves.
Well I don’t know what any of that means but let’s hope it works out? ^^ Sounds like a democracy and I’m not sure that’s a good way to lead a business. I kinda trust Gaben, I don’t necessarily trust his employees or inheritors.
I’m soo excited for Counter Strike 2. Glad they’re going full steam ahead with it after their vacation.
Totally agree.
There was a time when I would avoid Steam versions of games as much as I could because of the bad interface and frequent crashes, but they continued to improve the platform year after year until it became a model of what a games platform should be.
I’d still slightly prefer to buy on GoG due to it being DRM free but I recently got a Steam Deck so the ease of use begins to tip the equation in favour of Steam again.