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[bitbydeath]

Not true. PC gaming was dying due to rampant piracy before Steam arrived. And Steam doesn't gate-keep anything. The multiple stores/launchers are proof of that.

Disagree, piracy hasn't lessened.
Steam also killed physical games.

 

[ArtHands]

Sure, they thought GTFO (18k peak players at launch) or Potion Craft (10k peak players at launch) were worthy of massive free curated advertising to the Steam community at large? And those are just two examples I could find while doing google searches.

When I ran Enhanced Steam I had indie developers offer me tens of thousands of dollars to add these types of takeover banners to the Steam homepage, just for the small subset of users that used the extension. I had big publishers offer me... more. (I never took them up on these offers). I think a lot of people underestimate just how valuable this ad space is. And I also think it's naive to think that Valve is only doing this to prop up games they think are gonna be "the next big thing" so that they can get their 30% cut of sales. If your counter-argument is just "but he just said it in the video - you can't buy ads on Steam", maybe have some self reflection about the number of times in your life a large multibillion-dollar company has lied to you to make themselves look better than their competition.

Or, perhaps I'm just getting old and jaded. I don't believe them.

You're old and jaded.

 

[Topher]

Disagree, piracy hasn't lessened.
Steam also killed physical games.

I didn't say piracy "lessened". Physical games were the cause of the piracy.

 

[bitbydeath]

I didn't say piracy "lessened". Physical games were the cause of the piracy.

Which would mean it didn't fix anything and only made PC gaming worse right?

 

[Topher]

Which would mean it didn't fix anything and only made PC gaming worse right?

No, it means Valve created a place where game publishers were willing to sell their games again.

 

[bitbydeath]

No, it means Valve created a place where game publishers were willing to sell their games again.

They had many places before, Steam limited it.

 

[Topher]

They had many places before, Steam limited it.

What places? Retail?

 

[Larxia]

Wait... so Party Animals really didn't pay anything to get this massive front page spread that the vast majority of much bigger titles never get? This isn't a sold advert???

Wtf is this lol I never had such thing. The page looks completely broken actually here.

 

[bitbydeath]

What places?

Everywhere you find console game's selling today and then some.

 

[Topher]

Everywhere you find console game's selling today and then some.

Which was largely non-existent for PC until Steam change things.

 

[bitbydeath]

Which was largely non-existent for PC until Steam change things.

You must be getting your dates wrong, it launched after PS2 and PC was still massive and largely considered as its golden years back then.

 

[Mownoc]

Wtf is this lol I never had such thing. The page looks completely broken actually here.

Old screenshot I took of my steam on windows because it looked awful. It was potentially glitched lol. Not sure what the layout was meant to look like.

 

[Topher]

You must be getting your dates wrong, it launched after PS2 and PC was still massive and largely considered as its golden years back then.

No, it wasn't until the PS3 era that PC went to shit and Steam started to really become relevant. Not going to debate further, but I'll just say I disagree that things were better for PC before Steam.

You have the last word...

 

[ArtHands]

What does "usually" means when they're saying review scores is not a factor?

I believe it means it is not a direct factor, but it may majorly influence other direct factors.

Sort of like being rich doesn't help you ace an exam directly, but if you're rich you can hire a tuition teacher to help you become smarter to ace an exam.

 

[bitbydeath]

No, it wasn't until the PS3 era that PC went to shit and Steam started to really become relevant. Not going to debate further, but I'll just say I disagree that things were better for PC before Steam.

You have the last word...

Your first statement says PC went to shit when steam took off but you then ended with it wasn't better before?

Anyway, just my opinion. Additional apps required to access games is bad…

 

[Topher]

Your first statement says PC went to shit when steam took off but you then ended with it wasn't better before?

I have no idea what you are reading.

 

[64gigabyteram]

PC gaming was better before Steam arrived, it's arrival is up there with paying for online on consoles.

If steam was so bad why did so many people use it to the point where publishers started publishing games exclusively for it?

 

[BennyBlanco]

PC gaming was better before Steam arrived, it's arrival is up there with paying for online on consoles.

This such an absurd take I don't even know how to respond to it. PC gaming before Steam was going to Gamespy and downloading patches manually and doing all kinds of laborious shit. It was a mess.

 

[bitbydeath]

If steam was so bad why did so many people use it to the point where publishers started publishing games exclusively for it?

I guess it was the new cool thing.
I was hesitant moving from Dos to Windows as well.

 

[bitbydeath]

This such an absurd take I don't even know how to respond to it. PC gaming before Steam was going to Gamespy and downloading patches manually and doing all kinds of laborious shit. It was a mess.

I rarely ever used Gamespy, it wasn't required.

 

[bitbydeath]

I have no idea what you are reading.

it wasn't until the PS3 era that PC went to shit

^Steam era.^

 

[Topher]

^Steam era.^

I'm not going to explain a point repeatedly so you'll understand. Believe what you want.

 

[Kaleinc]

Anyone stated they sell ad space?

I never took them up on these offers

No regrets so far?

 

[jshackles]

No regrets so far?

It's easy to look back now and think "yeah, I probably should have taken them up on that and pocketed the quick cash". But it felt really sleazy and like a real gray legal area, so probably best that I didn't. No real regrets, it all worked out in the end.

 

[StereoVsn]

It's actually explained in the first few minutes of the video. Featured & Recommended is algorithmic so all the games that are shown there are personalized for each individual steam user. A game is being shown there because in the past (or currently) you played games tagged with those particular tags.

Oh, that explains the hentai connoisseur above!

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

PC gaming before Steam was going to Gamespy and downloading patches manually and doing all kinds of laborious shit. It was a mess.

Ah good ol' gamershell

 

[StereoVsn]

PC gaming was better before Steam arrived, its arrival is up there with paying for online on consoles.

That's a fucking take alright. Patching was terrible, discovery was non existent, piracy was much bigger problem. And much much more, like controller support was a coin toss. And how about multiple storefronts to purchase games due to Steams fairly lax key gen policy?

Steam made PC gaming huge to a large extent in the West (plus MMOs I would say).

In the East it's mostly F2P stuff like PubG, Crossfire, League, etc…

But even in China now days Steam is pretty huge. It's been a huge boon for PC gaming.

 

[StereoVsn]

They had many places before, Steam limited it.

How did Steam limit anything? Publishers don't have to use Steam, Steamworks and can sell physical versions.

Steam made a platform where publishers were willing to actually use and brought a ton of benefits on top. And unlike consoles since Valve allows free key generation for developers, there are a ton of storefronts to buy games that compete against each other.

 

[Filben]

Patching was terrible, discovery was non existent, piracy was much bigger problem.

I remember some versions outright not being supported or patchable (Direct2Drive); incremental patches requiring a certain version number, sometimes having separate international or regional versions where some patches couldn't apply. You had to find official or at least trust worthy sources. Sometimes archives were faulty and/or installation process wasn't always clear or at least could be different.

Man, what a wild era. Not missing it.

 

[Red5]

Sure, they thought GTFO (18k peak players at launch) or Potion Craft (10k peak players at launch) were worthy of massive free curated advertising to the Steam community at large? And those are just two examples I could find while doing google searches.

When I ran Enhanced Steam I had indie developers offer me tens of thousands of dollars to add these types of takeover banners to the Steam homepage, just for the small subset of users that used the extension. I had big publishers offer me... more. (I never took them up on these offers). I think a lot of people underestimate just how valuable this ad space is. And I also think it's naive to think that Valve is only doing this to prop up games they think are gonna be "the next big thing" so that they can get their 30% cut of sales. If your counter-argument is just "but he just said it in the video - you can't buy ads on Steam", maybe have some self reflection about the number of times in your life a large multibillion-dollar company has lied to you to make themselves look better than their competition.

Or, perhaps I'm just getting old and jaded. I don't believe them.

If they were up for sale don't you think something would've leaked by now? We're not dealing with the CIA here, stuff leak from Valve all the time, at the very least any indie dev can email Valve and ask for a quote on ad space and check their reply, or any corporate employee from the myriad of AAA devs that release games on Steam and have to deal with Steam.

When you have so many people involved the chances of keeping a thing like this a secret are next to zero.

The fact that nothing of the sort happened simply means there's ad space for sale.

 

[Red5]

Disagree, piracy hasn't lessened.
Steam also killed physical games.

Me and my friends couldn't even buy legit PC games before Steam since no one imported them. Same goes for the majority of people outside of Europe and North America where legit CD's couldn't compete with pirated ones while steam could.

They had many places before, Steam limited it.

You can buy Steam keys from many different online stores that sell at competing Steam prices.

 

[StereoVsn]

I remember some versions outright not being supported or patchable (Direct2Drive); incremental patches requiring a certain version number, sometimes having separate international or regional versions where some patches couldn't apply. You had to find official or at least trust worthy sources. Sometimes archives were faulty and/or installation process wasn't always clear or at least could be different.

Man, what a wild era. Not missing it.

Yep, "bad old days" .

 

[Arsic]

The hentai is a major part of PC gaming. The average PC gamer is on average 2x as horny as the average Console gamer, and faps 3x as much as the average console gamer.(the result of having an uncompromised browser). Ya either learn to accept it or you go back to console land.

Steam users confirmed to be obtaining their Chinese cartoon porn via Gabens store.