Ex Valve Developer Lashes out about Steam "Steam Killing PC Gaming"

Discussion in 'Frontpage news' started by Hilbert Hagedoorn, Apr 9, 2019.

  1. MrBonk

    MrBonk Guest

    Messages:
    3,385
    Likes Received:
    283
    GPU:
    Gigabyte 3080 Ti
    Steam killing PC gaming? That's rich.

    Now does Steam need a lot of change including the cut developers get compared to how cumbersome the service is and the services Valve provides developers? Absolutely. (It's still light years better than trying to navigate the clusterfuck the PSN store has been since day 1 and has never changed.).

    But it's far from the doom and gloom. Small self published games deserve to get a bigger cut, as do smaller publishers. But big companies like Ubishit are just greedy and are throwing in with Epic because clearly their own inferior service has never been able to stand on it's own legs without selling on Steam and they want that bigger piece of the pie as if they sold only on Uplay exclusively but want the bigger consumer base of Steam. (Read: Fortnite)
     
  2. LunaticWoda

    LunaticWoda Guest

    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    GPU:
    970
    So been reading Guru3d for years and years and years and finally needed to make an account just to comment on this.... The issue is Valve got lazy Gabe Newell may be the saddest thing in the gaming industry. The company cant count to three for god sake. And dont get me wrong I loved Valve and Steam for a very long time. The issue is Steam used to be most Triple A titles or upper tier indy games. And that was great! Now for the last few years it has turned into a bad online flea market for games to be tossed in to make lazy Valve money. For way to long has Valve allowed half assed games to be published allowed "early access" developers to make a quick buck and abandon the project with no consequence and no recourse for the customer. I hate the idea of having to have Epic/origin and Steam as yes its a inconvenience but at the same time, i want someone to do this better as Valve no longer deserves peoples business.
     
  3. Alessio1989

    Alessio1989 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    2,941
    Likes Received:
    1,239
    GPU:
    .
    Steam is a cancer, full-stop.
    What Steam did for became a cancer?
    - Spread of "free" to play ehm - better - pay to win (Team Fortress 2 destruction was their first experiment)
    -The spread of shenanigans publishers and fake developers (shutting down GreenLight was just an excuse, nothing has been fixed)
    - Bloatware client. Remember the Game for Windows toolbar? That was nothing compared to steam toady that will be reach more bloatware then even before in the next update (who the fùck need all that crap on a simple game list?)
    - That crap called DLC that replaced the fùckìng expansions. It's like comparing modern "art" with a Monet or a Da Vinci.
    - They failed to stop 3rd party DRMs
    - What about the Windows 10 policy update? Steam did it first. Yes steam, not South Park.

    So yes fine, have fun and remain with your fat cancer.
     
  4. Aura89

    Aura89 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    8,413
    Likes Received:
    1,483
    GPU:
    -
    A lot of people here need better things to do then make lists that contain problems not exclusive to steam (lol, because apparently, free to play games and DLC are exclusive to steam) but also create accounts just to post flamebait about who may or may not be the "saddest thing in gaming industry"

    Move along and do something better with your life.

    And anyone who thinks that DLC was caused by steam: One, no it wasn't. And two, even if it had been (again, it wasn't) even if it had though, to act like one company controls the industry is pure nonsense. Publishers always create new ways to make money, and what works is what will continue to happen. To believe any ONE company could be taken out of history and DLC and various other issues you may have with the GAMING INDUSTRY (making this clear, you don't have an issue with steam, you have an issue with the gaming industry) would suddenly not exist? Get over yourself.

    Anything that steam or any other company started would be here regardless.

    Unless you also believe if Steam never happened then digital games would never have become a thing, as i can pretty firmly state steam was the major introduction of that, does anyone here believe that if steam was erased from history, that we wouldn't be right here with digital-only games for PC, today, in 2019? No? Didn't think so. Yes? Get over yourself.

    No one company controls the industry as a whole. Fact. Stop blaming PC Industry and Gaming Industry problems on one company.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019

  5. Clawedge

    Clawedge Guest

    Messages:
    2,599
    Likes Received:
    928
    GPU:
    Radeon 570
    Why don't companies, or even small developers setup their own site?
     
  6. Fox2232

    Fox2232 Guest

    Messages:
    11,808
    Likes Received:
    3,371
    GPU:
    6900XT+AW@240Hz
    Some do. They have their own forums, community managers, auth/game/download servers... Costs money and not small amount. But for others, steam provides good platform able to handle things they may not want to deal with.
     
    Clawedge likes this.
  7. sverek

    sverek Guest

    Messages:
    6,069
    Likes Received:
    2,975
    GPU:
    NOVIDIA -0.5GB
    As Fox said, it costs money.

    Then you need to promote you site, then you need to convince your customers it's worth going through troubles and installing game THEIR way.
    So by doing all of it, developers are already have huge costs to cover and they don't even started to sell the game.

    With steam, developers don't have to bother with it. They just push their content on Steam and Steam does hosting, promotion, auth, security, community management, etc...
    If game isn't a hit, no biggie. There was no huge investment into distribution in first place.
    Basically no need to reinvent the wheel. Steam does everything for developers/publishers.


    As for the topic, The only thing Steam killed is CDs. Valve allows people/developers to bring their ideas on table, if community not happy with it, Valve takes care of it. And there lots of freedom with Valve.

    People got numb and seeking drama to shake things up.
     
    Keitosha, airbud7, Clawedge and 2 others like this.
  8. fantaskarsef

    fantaskarsef Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    15,698
    Likes Received:
    9,576
    GPU:
    4090@H2O
    The two of you do prove some valid points here. But not all that you mentioned actually has to do with steam... a dev abondoning their early access / greenlight game is not Gabe Newell sitting behind his desk, looking through the store, and choosing games at random that people don't suddenly get... I can see why you say that steam needs to tackle such things, absolutely. But essentially, this is a problem created by the devs abondoning their games, but Steam has to solve it... Epic's abondoning games as well, so as they say here the goat actually became the gardener in EGS' case. Non the less, I can understand why people do use such examples as a problem of Steam's store.
    But you don't have to buy any early access games at all. Just saying. So the argument is probably not as strong, since I have not bought any games on Steam that ware de facto abondoned... over the last decade, I have somehow been able to avoid such cliffs.
    So that point is indeed something I agree on with the two of you, although I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker. You can avoid it. Steam isn't abondoning games themselves on a regular basis.


    Same goes for things like free to play titles. Steam might have done one, maybe even the first, I can't tell, but so did pretty much everybody else as well. Look at the big f2p titles, they are not Valve's doing... and EGS offers f2p games as well.
    Both Steam and Epic have had f2p as their main pulling force, Steam with Counterstrike, Epic with Fortnite.
    So while this might be an issue, and I don't like such games either, they're present in both stores (and cash cows as well). If anything, this is an issue of both platforms. But nobody forces people to play such games... I haven't played any f2p title in the last fifteen years. So I honestly don't have a personal opinion on this, I never supported such a business model with micro transactions myself. If anything, I always played such games "for free".


    Bloatware client - oh yes s pot on. I wish there was a modular client or some form of "participating" like with client betas where you can choose and pick. That is really a good thing, since most things in steam people don't even need or use.


    Uhm.. steam did not create DLCs. I'm not sure why it should be steam to blame for devs and publishers liking their DLC policy. And a well done DLC is not different from an expansion of old... so I don't really understand how it's Valve's / Steam's blame that DLCs are now a thing - it's a problem, I agree, but as @TalentX posted yesterday (the video on cost of products etc.), this thing is common with all publishers... again, do not buy them if you don't support it is what comes to my mind, something people seem to have forgotten about as an option. Vote with your wallet, as they say.


    Why should Steam stop 3rd party DRMs? It's a DRM platform. That point I certainly don't know why you should think that steam should stop DRMs since their platform was built around this in the first place, and it's not like anybody else (besides GOG? Humble?) does it different. (And it's just the same with EGS, so again Epic won't save anybody in that regard.)


    Please @Alessio1989 , I'm not sure what you mean by your last point, could you please elaborate?
     
  9. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

    Messages:
    15,140
    Likes Received:
    1,743
    GPU:
    GTX 1080 Ti
    That has nothing to do with Steam or the launcher you're using though, that's the publisher of the game.
     
    lmimmfn, Keitosha, Aura89 and 2 others like this.
  10. H83

    H83 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    5,465
    Likes Received:
    3,003
    GPU:
    XFX Black 6950XT
    Of course but digital platforms enable and make it easier to pull this kind of "tricks". This is not a direct dig aimed at Valve, i´m only highlighting potential issues/dangers of moving everything into digital and always online platforms, nothing more.
     

  11. Aura89

    Aura89 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    8,413
    Likes Received:
    1,483
    GPU:
    -
    There were multiplayer games before the "digital age" that didnt have dedicated servers and shutdown their service making the game unplayable.

    This has nothing to do with digital download games and has only to do with multiplayer games that only provide servers through themselves and do not provide dedicated or peer to peer type servers.

    You could say this type of multiplayer only games have increased, but this is not in relation to digital only games, as literally, they have zero to do with eachother. Developers and publishers have their reasons as to why they create games with multiplayer servers only provided through them, but being a digital game on a digital online service is not one of the reasons.
     
    airbud7 and Fox2232 like this.
  12. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    17,017
    Likes Received:
    7,353
    GPU:
    GTX 1080ti
    All the complaints are just ignorant gasbagging.

    Steam isn't just a market.

    It's also

    a controller emulator
    mod repo
    linux client and wine replacer.
    match making service
    lobby
    cloud saves backup
    community market,
    forums
    advertising platform
    VR platform

    Steam won't dump your product off its services after the profits are gone,

    Epic is known for dumping anything that doesn't get them a profit (unreal tournament)

    So no, I don't and will never approve of the underhanded tactics at play to get content on the epic store, because it won't ever get to being the platform that steam is.

    Epic Games won't see it through.

    the portion of profits is nothing considering the service provides versioning and doesn't charge publishers again to push updates. Publisher greed is at play, and small developers that can't get ahead are pricing themselves out of business and haven't the business sense to be selling games on any platform.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
    ezodagrom, fantaskarsef and Solfaur like this.
  13. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

    Messages:
    15,140
    Likes Received:
    1,743
    GPU:
    GTX 1080 Ti
    Those are features that were added to Steam over years. EGS is new still, features have been announced and also can have more features added in the future.
     
    airbud7 and fantaskarsef like this.
  14. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    17,017
    Likes Received:
    7,353
    GPU:
    GTX 1080ti
    The advertising, match making and lobby services, versioning platform and policies were there from the start.
    User visibility of the updates selections may have been added later but, but the features that justify the service fee's have only been expanded upon.

    Theres a brief look at the versions over the years here
    https://www.pcgamer.com/au/steam-versions/

    I don't trust Epic to follow through, their history precedes them where it comes to pursuing an idea and the list of games that have been canned by them which were anticipated is a strike against them, and I trust any company that'll do anything to get a look in even less. Its very much dirty market politics, and using the standard rate to attack the primary game market place is fairly weak. The previous commenters have been correct in that other app stores do the same, if not worse in their policies. Iirc Google makes you pay to list updates as well as taking a cut.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
    fantaskarsef and Solfaur like this.
  15. Redemption80

    Redemption80 Guest

    Messages:
    18,491
    Likes Received:
    267
    GPU:
    GALAX 970/ASUS 970
    Do we need all that, or is it just bloat?

    I was recently informed that EGS is not required to play the games, which would explain the lack of cloud saves etc..
    Does that mean it's not a launcher or a DRM solution, just a store?

    Not sure how true this is though, will test with something free later on.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2019

  16. vbetts

    vbetts Don Vincenzo Staff Member

    Messages:
    15,140
    Likes Received:
    1,743
    GPU:
    GTX 1080 Ti
    I would say what one would consider features or bloat is subjective. Some people may like the broadcasting tools in Steam, I never use them though so for me it's useless.
     
    fantaskarsef, Aura89 and Embra like this.
  17. Redemption80

    Redemption80 Guest

    Messages:
    18,491
    Likes Received:
    267
    GPU:
    GALAX 970/ASUS 970
    Yep, so the complaints from some about features or lack of are not as important to many of us.

    I use cloud saves and nothing else. But would prefer if Steam was not be necessary at all if I had the choice.
     
  18. Aura89

    Aura89 Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    8,413
    Likes Received:
    1,483
    GPU:
    -
    The complaints of "bloat" when defining bloat as features you don't care about will never be fixed.

    From a company side, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

    Add more features? Certain people will rejoice, saying how awesome it is they finally have it. Others will complain, saying it's bloat because they specifically will never use it and make it sound like because they don't want it, no one should.

    Remove features? Certain people will rejoice, saying how they finally don't have to "deal" with features they don't use. Others would complain, saying they used those features, likely threaten to boycott the company, and find other companies products to use.

    The one way to make everyone happy? Features, features features! ....In a modular way. Have a program that allows you to install what you want, aside from the core program. But i don't expect that something like this will happen, how many things are built heavily into the main core program, how much more time and effort it would take to create, how much more resources the program would need with the pieces of it that you want, there's a lot of factors that could make this not a good idea.

    I prefer to be of the state of mind of: Don't take away the features i like, add as many features as you want to appease everyone as that's your job, and lets all be on our way.
     
    airbud7, Redemption80 and Solfaur like this.
  19. Redemption80

    Redemption80 Guest

    Messages:
    18,491
    Likes Received:
    267
    GPU:
    GALAX 970/ASUS 970
    I don't necessarily disagree with that, but are these additions bumping up store costs, and can we get the option to disable them for something more minimalist?

    The irony is that while I find 90% of Steam to be unnecessary bloat, I'm actually a big fan of GFE and I have Steam loving friends who consider that bloat.

    I was initially shocked that EGS launched without cloud saves, and i still am. But then I heard that it's essentially just something similar to what EA Download Manager was and then got disappointed that it will no doubt become bloated with features I will probably never use.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2019
  20. XenthorX

    XenthorX Ancient Guru

    Messages:
    5,037
    Likes Received:
    3,408
    GPU:
    MSI 4090 Suprim X
    I assume that now we'll get all the Epic store bashers trying to discredit anything this guy said by attacking him. Let's see and catch up with the thread...
     

Share This Page