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[ShinMaruku]

Let me put it in simple terms for you.

I want a efficient, minimalist store that I buy my games from, downloads and installs said games when I request, and basically stays the fuck out my way otherwise.

Ideally a kindle store for PC games.

The steam store is unwieldy, uninviting and requires a significant time investment to navigate. The reason there is such a massive Steam-gaf community is because unconsciously people have work around the limitations of the store by becoming curators, tech support and programmers on behalf of valve.

I understand what you are speaking about but that's not valve's intention. They want you in their ecosystem. Best you can do is just do the minimum to play games.

 

[Huff]

Throw your computer out the nearest window

 

[Armaros]

I agree, but insulting Valve is pretty much a recipe for disaster online due to all the worship they get. I understand that yes, they do still work on TF2, Dota 2, and CS:GO, but for someone who likes Valve because of Half Life and Portal, it just doesn't work for me. It's like they've totally abandoned their original fanbase in favor of the competitive eSports scene, something I have zero interest in. Gabe made a comment a while back about single player games dying and it really frustrates me how they seem to have taken that absolutely flawed view to heart.

And that flat organization structure is obviously flawed, yet people continue to act like it's great. If there's no pressure to get anything done, let alone done on time, then of course it's going to lead to what we see: them floundering around with half baked ideas but lacking the commitment and drive to actually see them through to the end. Management and structure exists for a reason; they're just wasting time and money on developing stuff that's never finished. But no, look at all the FREEDOM the employees have! Clearly being able to slack off and abandon ideas just because you don't feel like working on it is worth the lack of progress.

Also yes I find it absolutely hilarious that despite gamers' frequent hate of micropayments they then go on to worship Valve who has mastered the art of the micropayment. You can't even say it's all cosmetic anymore now that you can buy guns and stuff just as easily as hats.

IE: They are making and developing games I dont care about, but millions of others have.

SO THEY LOST THEIR WAY AND LOLVALVE WORSHIP.

If funny how detractors can't just state what they feel about Valve without going to attacks on people that play their current games.

 

[Ikuu]

If there's no pressure to get anything done

You can't even say it's all cosmetic anymore now that you can buy guns and stuff just as easily as hats.

Why do you think there is no pressure? What's this other stuff you can buy?

 

[Wiktor]

It's the developers choice to use the DRM on Steam. Valve provides an option, and every developer could for every game choose not require the game to be run through the client. I think I have somewhere between 15 and 20 games in my library that I can run without using the client.

Skyrim actually had to be patched because they accidently released the game DRM free through Steam.

Even DRM free games are DRM-ed to some degree though. Because you still need to activate them on Steam and can't resell the disc.

 

[Mandoric]

It's not just DirectX libraries. It's also stuff like UPlay, or Gamespy, or whatever other packages come along with the game.

DX in particular is in kind of a weird place where it's a package of libs, which would normally get the almost-silent .NET treatment, but instead gets a full installer to click through like full-blown companion apps would.

OTOH, now that I think of it, at least having to UAC through is going to be a Windows issue basically forever, so I'm not sure how you would solve seamless installs.

 

[Huff]

At least three stories though

 

[Jebusman]

Also yes I find it absolutely hilarious that despite gamers' frequent hate of micropayments they then go on to worship Valve who has mastered the art of the micropayment. You can't even say it's all cosmetic anymore now that you can buy guns and stuff just as easily as hats.

TF2 is the only exception to this.

CSGO guns that you buy are all just reskins of existing guns.

Dota2 items are all entirely cosmetic, or involve some sort of meta-gaming feature. But nothing that directly affect gameplay.

Note, calling people "Valve worshipers" does nothing to make your opinion look like anything more than petty whining.

 

[Nethaniah]

My problem with steam is that the games are way more expensive then the physical games here in Sweden especially when it comes to new games.

Same situation in holland.

 

[Seanspeed]

So basically because the gaming UX is disjointed everywhere else, we should accept it and never complain?

If I boot up my Xbox and buy a game, it downloads and installs.
If I boot up mu PS4 and buy a game,, it downloads and installs.
If I boot up my PC and Buy a game, I have to ask it to download, wait for it to download and then ask it to install.

Whether or not you feel personally its a big deal, especially considering the reasonable explanation why it does this, it is still irritating and something worth pointing out.

When you buy a game on Steam it will automatically download unless you tell it not to.

And you dont need to 'ask' it install afterwards. When you click 'play' it does it automatically and only takes seconds in the majority of cases.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I agree, but insulting Valve is pretty much a recipe for disaster online due to all the worship they get. I understand that yes, they do still work on TF2, Dota 2, and CS:GO, but for someone who likes Valve because of Half Life and Portal, it just doesn't work for me. It's like they've totally abandoned their original fanbase in favor of the competitive eSports scene, something I have zero interest in. Gabe made a comment a while back about single player games dying and it really frustrates me how they seem to have taken that absolutely flawed view to heart.

And that flat organization structure is obviously flawed, yet people continue to act like it's great. If there's no pressure to get anything done, let alone done on time, then of course it's going to lead to what we see: them floundering around with half baked ideas but lacking the commitment and drive to actually see them through to the end. Management and structure exists for a reason; they're just wasting time and money on developing stuff that's never finished. But no, look at all the FREEDOM the employees have! Clearly being able to slack off and abandon ideas just because you don't feel like working on it is worth the lack of progress.

Also yes I find it absolutely hilarious that despite gamers' frequent hate of micropayments they then go on to worship Valve who has mastered the art of the micropayment. You can't even say it's all cosmetic anymore now that you can buy guns and stuff just as easily as hats.

A mass of assumptions and pre-emptive victim complex all in one big dumb post!

You don't know what goes on inside Valve. You don't know what they're working on. You don't know what becomes of their projects.

You can be dissatisfied with their current output all you want, but calling something "flawed" just because you don't like it is nonsense.

You don't even seem to realize you're contradicting yourself. That same flat organization structure produced the games that you *do* like, yet now that they haven't put out any single player content in a while, suddenly it's broken?

On micro-payments, it's hard to criticize them existing in games that are more free-to-play than just about anything else. They don't go past cosmetic stuff in DOTA2. I don't play TF2 anymore, so I can't comment on that.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

My problem with steam is that the games are way more expensive then the physical games here in Sweden especially when it comes to new games.

That's a problem with digital downloads in general in the EU region. Consoles suffer from this too. I will never understand the EU digital download tax, but people are buying the games anyway so the companies will charge that much.

 

[terrisus]

It's the developers choice to use the DRM on Steam. Valve provides an option, and every developer could for every game choose not require the game to be run through the client. I think I have somewhere between 15 and 20 games in my library that I can run without using the client.

Skyrim actually had to be patched because they accidently released the game DRM free through Steam.

Hence why I have specified "Games which use Steam DRM."

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Why single out Valve about stuff like this though, at that point you just seem like a person with an agenda.

Excuse me for thinking a thread discussing the drawbacks of the steam client was a place to complain about the drawbacks of the steam client.

Or, just maybe, it's not disjointed at all in its current state and the problem is with you wanting something completely unreasonable that no one who understands what is actually happening would ever want.

Its only unreasonable because the way the system has been set up, someone has already pointed out that this something valve themeselves dont like and someone else has pointed out thay hopefully this wont be a problem with SteamOS

Dude, just stop. He's giving you a serious answer, and you're jumping to the defensive like he just insulted your mother.

Your examples were wrong because they did not function even close to how Steam functions. That's it. It's a misunderstanding of how it needs to work. You can complain about it. People will still call you out on how petty/erroneous it is.

It seems like you guys are jumping to the defensive. I stated my issues with the steam client and instead of accepting that there may be things that others may not be happy about, you and others have jumped up to basically say my user experience is wrong and I shouldn't be unhappy about it.

Yes there is a valid technical reason and as I said before, fair enough. It doesn't stop what I find an irritating issue not to be one.

 

[Jebusman]

and others have jumped up to basically say my user experience is wrong and I shouldn't be unhappy about it.

Yes there is a valid technical reason and as I said before, fair enough. It doesn't stop what I find an irritating issue not to be one.

It's entirely an issue with you and your understanding, or lack thereof, of how the system works, along with some inflated and unfounded expectations. You can find it irritating all you want. But people here are going to tell you that you're being petty and why the fact that you find it irritating is stupid.

If you're given an explanation as to why it works, a valid reason why it works and needs to work that way, and always has and (likely for Windows) always will, still calling it an "issue" is disingenuous.

 

[Nethaniah]

The extra installs is not a problem that is exclusive to steam / valve so why blame them for something they probably want but cannot fix?

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

When you buy a game on Steam it will automatically download unless you tell it not to.

And you dont need to 'ask' it install afterwards. When you click 'play' it does it automatically and only takes seconds in the majority of cases.

I have recently downloaded my entire library and I can honestly say that maybe 10% of my games take a few seconds to launch the first time. The majority take a minimum of a minute and a half to launch if not longer. Is it a deal breaker? No. But its something that annoys me.

 

[Lomax]

Honestly at this point I think the Steam/Valve connection is holding both sides back. Steam obviously has terrible customer service, in large part because of Valve's style of hiring and not wanting to add a dedicated customer service team. Valve on the other side has to manage and develop Steam while trying to be a game development company as well. Both would be better off if Valve would spin off Steam as a separate company, or at very least a wholly autonomous division.

I have recently downloaded my entire library and I can honestly say that maybe 10% of my games take a few seconds to launch the first time. The majority take a minimum of a minute and a half to launch if not longer. Is it a deal breaker? No. But its something that annoys me.

This, at worst, is a flaw of PC gaming, not of Steam. Steam is orders of magnitude better than every other DD service out there. Origin and uPlay still download installers which then go through the entire install process just like off of a disc. As everyone says, your complaint is misguided. If you want to say that's a flaw of PC gaming, you might have an argument. But Steam is by far the best when it comes to this aspect you are complaining about.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

The extra installs is not a problem that is exclusive to steam / valve so why blame them for something they probably want but cannot fix?

Because I only have steam installed on my computer. There is no agenda here. The horror stories of uplay anf origin are enough to make me not even bother with them.

 

[Seanspeed]

I have recently downloaded my entire library and I can honestly say that maybe 10% of my games take a few seconds to launch the first time. The majority take a minimum of a minute and a half to launch if not longer. Is it a deal breaker? No. But its something that annoys me.

I have no idea why its taking so long for you. :/

 

[Drencrom]

You're not the only one being held hostage by Valve...

 

[Jindrael]

I agree, but insulting Valve is pretty much a recipe for disaster online due to all the worship they get. I understand that yes, they do still work on TF2, Dota 2, and CS:GO, but for someone who likes Valve because of Half Life and Portal, it just doesn't work for me. It's like they've totally abandoned their original fanbase in favor of the competitive eSports scene, something I have zero interest in. Gabe made a comment a while back about single player games dying and it really frustrates me how they seem to have taken that absolutely flawed view to heart.

First of, I think insulting anything online is not a good way to go about things. Criticism on the other hand is not something, that should be shunned or anything like that.

On the game-development front Valve isn't that active anymore, yes that's correct. But it's nothing more than a business decision from Valve and there are lots of other examples of game franchises being dropped, so it's definitely not something Valve specific in my opinion.

And that flat organization structure is obviously flawed, yet people continue to act like it's great. If there's no pressure to get anything done, let alone done on time, then of course it's going to lead to what we see: them floundering around with half baked ideas but lacking the commitment and drive to actually see them through to the end. Management and structure exists for a reason; they're just wasting time and money on developing stuff that's never finished. But no, look at all the FREEDOM the employees have! Clearly being able to slack off and abandon ideas just because you don't feel like working on it is worth the lack of progress.

I agree that some of the things Valve puts out for steam are half-baked and not fully thought through (see Greenlight).
Them wasting time and money isn't really a problem for me, it's not like I pay for the privilege to use steam or the free features(even when they are halfbaked) they put out.

Also yes I find it absolutely hilarious that despite gamers' frequent hate of micropayments they then go on to worship Valve who has mastered the art of the micropayment. You can't even say it's all cosmetic anymore now that you can buy guns and stuff just as easily as hats.

I have to admit I don't know about any guns you can buy, you are probably talking about TF2/CS:Go.
On the Dota side, there really isn't anything wrong with the micro-transactions, it's cosmetic and nothing game changing.

 

[ghostjoke]

Because I only have steam installed on my computer. There is no agenda here. The horror stories of uplay anf origin are enough to make me not even bother with them.

You are aware you literally just said you're ignorant to digital distributed pc gaming? This is the problem and why people are getting on your case. You're blaming steam for a universal and understandable way of how pc gaming works. Granted if you did this with uplay or origin you would not be getting this backlash but still, don't try to argue from a position of ignorance.

 

[Nethaniah]

Because I only have steam installed on my computer. There is no agenda here. The horror stories of uplay anf origin are enough to make me not even bother with them.

The joy of MS directx gaming, maybe someday it will get better with this stuff.

Valve pushing linux is a good sign, slow as hell though.

Valve can be critised for a lot of stuff, this install thing is not one of them.

 

[Jebusman]

I have recently downloaded my entire library and I can honestly say that maybe 10% of my games take a few seconds to launch the first time. The majority take a minimum of a minute and a half to launch if not longer. Is it a deal breaker? No. But its something that annoys me.

This speaks more to the idea that your HDD is not keeping up. Still entirely outside of Valve's hands at that point.

 

[serversurfer]

but it's 2014 and Steam still doesn't recognize or utilize multi-core processors

lol Seriously? I remember Gabe bitching about the PS3 because he didn't feel like he should need to learn how to thread his code.

Anyway, in that same rant, he also had no love for MS, since they weren't doing anything to help him improve his billing system, which was the only thing he was concerned with at the time. So yeah, I'm not too surprised he's "become" more of a publisher than a developer. Making games is hard; collecting money is easy.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

I have no idea why its taking so long for you. :/

No idea. My games are on a hybrid drive and my OS is on a SSD. Dunno.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

This speaks more to the idea that your HDD is not keeping up. Still entirely outside of Valve's hands at that point.

My HDD is a Hybrid HDD. Doesn't have problems with anything else.

 

[Jindrael]

I have recently downloaded my entire library and I can honestly say that maybe 10% of my games take a few seconds to launch the first time. The majority take a minimum of a minute and a half to launch if not longer. Is it a deal breaker? No. But its something that annoys me.

Just a question to you, would you have been bothered if the download of your entire library would have take roughly 10% longer but you wouldn't have had to wait a few seconds to a minute when starting a specific game?

 

[Shrike Alvaron]

First of, I think insulting anything online is not a good way to go about things. Criticism on the other hand is not something, that should be shunned or anything like that.

I just want to reply to this since I didn't expect my post to blow up (and I don't handle debating well), but I suppose the worship thing doesn't really apply here and I'm more thinking of Reddit where there's the whole fountain of memes that spring up around Gabe and where he apparently can do no wrong. Sorry if I offended anyone here!

 

[MickeyKnox]

My HDD is a Hybrid HDD. Doesn't have problems with anything else.

A hybrid doesn't magically give you SSD speeds for shit you have on the platters.

 

[Jebusman]

My HDD is a Hybrid HDD. Doesn't have problems with anything else.

A hybrid HDD means nothing in terms of what you're trying to do. The SSD part is only used for mirroring commonly accessed files in order to increase overall read speed. Write speed will still be held to the limits of the slow moving part, and the low I/O it has as well.

So if there is something else on the computer that is taking up access time on the disk, it's going to take a long time to install even simple things.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Excuse me for thinking a thread discussing the drawbacks of the steam client was a place to complain about the drawbacks of the steam client.

No one's saying there isn't room for improvement, but bringing up things that are out of Valve's hands is pretty much nonsense.

Its only unreasonable because the way the system has been set up, someone has already pointed out that this something valve themeselves dont like and someone else has pointed out thay hopefully this wont be a problem with SteamOS

It probably will be less of a problem for a lot of games, since they won't use DirectX. It still won't solve the problem of any companion software a developer wishes to bundle.

It seems like you guys are jumping to the defensive. I stated my issues with the steam client and instead of accepting that there may be things that others may not be happy about, you and others have jumped up to basically say my user experience is wrong and I shouldn't be unhappy about it.

Pointing out factual inaccuracies that are being used as the basis for unfair criticism is not necessarily "jumping to the defensive."

Because I only have steam installed on my computer. There is no agenda here. The horror stories of uplay anf origin are enough to make me not even bother with them.

Maybe try them? I'd rather just have most things on Steam, but neither Uplay or Origin are all that bad for the most part. Uplay has even started letting you play certain games before they've finished downloading. Either way, don't rely on hearsay. Just to think that someone reading your posts would be turned off from trying Steam.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Just a question to you, would you have been bothered if the download of your entire library would have take roughly 10% longer but you wouldn't have had to wait a few seconds to a minute when starting a specific game?

No. Because steam downloads at a frightening fast pace for me. By far and large the thing im most impressed about. Last weekend I downloaded close to 100 games in the same time it took my PS3 to download 8.

Id be fine to wait an extra 10% each download personally.

 

[SaberEdge]

Steam has improved quite a lot over the years from my perspective. I still see areas that could improve, but overall I have had a very positive experience using Steam.

 

[corrosivefrost]

That's what happens. I'm confused by what you are talking about.

He's bitching about the fact that games run "first time setup" things on first launch.

 

[Jebusman]

No. Because steam downloads at a frightening fast pace for me. By far and large the thing im most impressed about. Last weekend I downloaded close to 100 games in the same time it took my PS3 to download 8.

Id be fine to wait an extra 10% each download personally.

Just to be clear though, if the install time per game wasn't the average 1-2 minutes you were seeing, but was only somewhere in the realm of 5-15 seconds each time, would you still have that much of a issue with it?

Edit: Also don't PS3 games, even downloaded, still have an install time to them? It's sort of masked as part of the download time since it all happens under the same menu, but it's still a separate "Download" then "Install".

 

[Stevey]

Steam/Valve is the only reason to own a gaming PC IMO.

 

[Ramenman]

What the hell did I just read?

Yeah I have no idea, the "new features" like workshop greenlight early access, queue, whatever etc are all stuff you don't even have to pay attention to.

I don't even know what some of them are. I just know their name.

 

[Jindrael]

Edit: Also don't PS3 games, even downloaded, still have an install time to them? It's sort of masked as part of the download time since it all happens under the same menu, but it's still a separate "Download" then "Install".

If it is the same as on Vita: Yeah, you download the title and when it's done, it opens a little popup box with "installing" and installtion bar, for a few seconds.

 

[neogaffer1]

The whole products that are halfway done is the same problem Google had a while ago. They ended up killing a lot of them and refocusing their efforts on stuff they actually wanted to support. The most famous of these products was Google Reader--a lot of people used it as a RSS client but didn't use the social aspect it had, so Google axed it and all the users/clients spread to other services. I feel like at some point Valve is going to have to go through the same thing and ax a lot of these unused products, and I can't help but feel that any single player game in development outside of HL3 won't see the light of day (if there are even any). I don't think anyone will disagree with me when I say the chances are that if HL3 ever does come out, it will be the last non-F2P/only multiplayer game that Valve puts out.

 

[theusedversion]

I've been referring to them as greedy scumbags and I don't see any reason to stop. It's clear their main motive is figuring out how to get as much money from gamers as they can get away with. This wasn't always the case. Now they're just a shit company in my opinion.

 

[Stevey]

I've been referring to them as greedy scumbags and I don't see any reason to stop. It's clear their main motive is figuring out how to get as much money from gamers as they can get away with. This wasn't always the case. Now they're just a shit company in my opinion.

Really?

Where would you be without STEAM?

 

[Nethaniah]

I've been referring to them as greedy scumbags and I don't see any reason to stop. It's clear their main motive is figuring out how to get as much money from gamers as they can get away with. This wasn't always the case. Now they're just a shit company in my opinion.

Wat.

 

[Crimsonclaw111]

I've been referring to them as greedy scumbags and I don't see any reason to stop. It's clear their main motive is figuring out how to get as much money from gamers as they can get away with. This wasn't always the case. Now they're just a shit company in my opinion.

So what do you think of Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc.

Shocking news: companies like money.

 

[Seanspeed]

No idea. My games are on a hybrid drive and my OS is on a SSD. Dunno.

I have an SSD for my OS and a regular old HDD where my games are installed to, so its very strange that you're getting such long install times.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I've been referring to them as greedy scumbags and I don't see any reason to stop. It's clear their main motive is figuring out how to get as much money from gamers as they can get away with. This wasn't always the case. Now they're just a shit company in my opinion.

Greedy fucking scumbags with their truly free-to-play games and massive discounts.

Making things so cheap that I can't control myself and buy everything! They don't love me! They're just after my money!

 

[Jebusman]

I've been referring to them as greedy scumbags and I don't see any reason to stop. It's clear their main motive is figuring out how to get as much money from gamers as they can get away with. This wasn't always the case. Now they're just a shit company in my opinion.

In all seriousness, it's a business' job to figure out how to extract the most amount of money from your consumer base, while causing the least amount of anger.

It's always about pushing the line and seeing how far you can go. I don't think they've made some of the best decisions as of late, but shit company is a little far.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Just to be clear though, if the install time per game wasn't the average 1-2 minutes you were seeing, but was only somewhere in the realm of 5-15 seconds each time, would you still have that much of a issue with it?

Edit: Also don't PS3 games, even downloaded, still have an install time to them? It's sort of masked as part of the download time since it all happens under the same menu, but it's still a separate "Download" then "Install".

The PS3 install times are fucking awful in comparsion to steam. There isnt even a comparison there. Even worse when your HDD is full...games can take 30 mins+ to install.

And yeah, if it was within the realm of 5-15 seconds each time, I dont think I would of even noticed.

 

[Jebusman]

The PS3 install times are fucking awful in comparsion to steam. There isnt even a comparison there.

And yeah, if it was within the realm of 5-15 seconds each time, I dont think I would of even noticed.

Then I'm thinking this might be more of an issue with your HDD, or the processes on your computer taking up it's time, rather than a fault of the client itself. I know you want to sing the value of your Hyrbid HDD, but there has to be something that's eating up the harddrive's time, causing the first run installs to chug along slowly.