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Disclaimer: My steam account is turning 21 next month, and I own more games there than I'd like to admit.
There's a lot of valid criticism of steam or valve.
The main one I'd say is the 30% cut. But that's sadly basically industry standard. For an indie dev, that's still a lot better than having to go through things like a publisher.
Oh, and lootboxes. fuck those. should be banned.
Other than that, let's go through the list:
- paved way for MT: Mobile games did that first. And nobody is forcing you to use them. But people do. So they keep coming. Solution: don't use them if you don't like them (but hint: people genuinely like them). (Although lootboxes etc are a whole different and rightfully critisized thing that should indeed be banned)
- forces you to get the mobile app: I mean, it's annoying, sure. But I wouldn't call it spyware. Personally, I'd be happier with a simpler TOTP 2FA integration. What it does do is cut down massively on account hacking
- The multiplayer API is quite nice. Personally, I don't really care much about pirated games, but I can kind of understand them not working with steam. But that's 100% on the game developer. They are the ones integration steamworks. Or any other matchmaking service.
- stopped HL3: Not really. For a long time they already stated that they will not be forcing HL3 development "just to get HL3 out". They will develop it when they have an idea and story that will absolutely be worth to tell. and it will have some accompanying tech "revolution" with it. HL:Alyx was close. I'm still surprised that they didn't use that as a base to start HL3 (or maybe they secretly do?)
- gamification: it's not really that much more gamified than having any other game collection before steam? It's just a lot more social and easier to obtain. Would I have spent this much money on games without steam? no. Would it even be possible? Likely also no. Too many indie games due to steam.
- pay for animated wallpapers/avatars: I mean... okay? Personally, I have some weird animated wallpaper, but I got that for free somewhere. and it's annoying as hell.
- Broken features: I don't really encounter any broken features. Even my Steam Link hardware box still works (although last time I tested it was a couple months ago). Even the single group chat I'm in works fine.
- Steam chat: no idea what the features are they are talking about. So no comment.
- Useless reviews: The world moved on from 5-star reviews. With almost all reviews either being 5 stars or 1 stars, it doesn't really make a difference. In the end the question is: would you recommend it? Which can be somewhat binary, or at least tending towards one direction. For details, use text
- family share: I mean, that's kind of the point. The idea is to simulate having only one copy. So you'll get booted out if someone else you're sharing with is using it.
- steam deck worse notebook: kind of. But my linux laptop also doesn't have a dedicated GPU. and gamepad controls.
- JS desktop app: oh boy, it was so much worse when it wasn't
- it's not literally an always on DRM. there's literally an offline mode. If the developer wants an online connection, annoy the developer.
tl;dr: apart from the gambling enabling, it's fine.
Imo the Steam Deck is superior to most laptops for gaming, including higher-end laptops. Does it get better performance than your i9, RTX4090 Alienware M-whatever? Almost certainly not. However, it's significantly more portable, probably has a far better battery life, has a god-tier integrated controller + keybind system, suspend mode that doesn't cause games to crash, and an OS will all kinds of 3rd party goodies like RetroDeck. And it's not very expensive either (relatively speaking).
If all you're wanting is to play games on the go, then imo the Steam Deck absolutely destroys most laptops despite its lower power. If you're wanting to do more than that, like you'll mainly be playing games at a desk/TV or you'll be wanting to use it for other tasks like programming or creative stuff, then yeah, a laptop is almost certainly better for mobile computing. However, if you just want a handheld with optional docked capability, then the steam deck is way better than any laptop imo.
The main one I'd say is the 30% cut.
My account is in a similar state, but that's where I strongly disagree. The whole 30% debacle is worthless. Basically it's the only one thing that Tim found that would seem a valid complain in customers eyes. It's not. There is no evidence that lower cut would allow anyone to create and support a platform like (or better than) Steam. Customers will not win anything if the cut would be lower.
I think people should pay more attention to actual prices of digital goods. The perceived amount of injustice is way higher in "I must pay $X to try and enjoy this game" lately than in "developer must give some amount of profit to platform creators".
Just a couple points.
No, people don't like MT, but it gets people to spend more because psychology. Like a selling point of BG3 was that it had no microtransactions, people published articles about that aspect alone.
5 Star reviews still are good because you can still do the 5 or 1 star review, but you have the option to add some granularity if you choose, which is objectively better. A 3 star review still gives me information about the thing. Worst you could argue is that it reduces simplicity which... Are you seriously telling me you can't handle a number from 1 to 5?
Maybe not all that important, but broken features are there. However the competition doesn't have many of those features at all which means comparatively, those features are much more broken elsewhere. At least that's how i like to look at it.
No, people don't like MT, but it gets people to spend more because psychology.
That's... actually not 100% true. People don't like microtransactions when they don't feel like it was worth the cost. Most of the time that's true; microtransactions tend to be expansion content that was parted out and sold in pieces. However, sometimes microtransactions make sense, or are even preferable to larger expansions. For an example: single levels that don't thematically fit into an expansion, officially-distributed community-content (like Warframe's Tennogen program), or if you want something from an expansion but don't want to pay for the whole thing.
Now, all of these reasons can be sketchy and open to scrutiny (did the level actually not fit a theme? Is the community creator getting a decent cut? Is the single item priced proportionally to the cost of the whole expansion?), however if done correctly, they can give the consumer more options.
That said, I dunno if microtransactions are really worth it. On the one hand, they can give consumers more options, but on the other hand, they tend to be used to milk the consumer.
I think you misunderstand family share. I've used it and it's basically if you share with someone else then whenever you are online and playing any one of your games then the other person cannot play any of your other games. So you're playing game A, well the other person can't play game B, C, D, E, etc. from your library. That's what anon is talking about. Steam is introducing Steam Families that is supposed to fix it but I haven't tried it since I gave up on family sharing long before it was announced, I went back to pirating to share games.
It makes sense when considering the old concept of "Family computers". Then familily share would allow each person in the family to have access to their own saves and achievements. Though I agree the system could use an update
Maybe, but I was thinking how back then if I wanted to borrow Spore or Oblivion from a friend then I could physically trade the discs with them. Nowadays it is more acceptable for everyone to have their own computer or gaming system assuming there aren't financial constraints. My new problem with the new Steam Families is that it limits you to one group of 6 people and you have to wait an entire year after leaving a family to create or join a new one. Supposedly what initially made me pissed off enough to pirate again has been fixed.
It's been a while since I used family share, but I'm fairly certain that it was done on game level, not account level. Did that change at some point?
It was account level, if I went offline then the other person would get a notification from steam that said something like "Hooray, X's shared games are now available for you to play!"
https://lr.vern.cc/r/Steam/comments/wrwvs1/how_do_you_remove_this_notification/
If you're talking about the new steam families beta then yes that is when it was changed to be game level not account level.
What is this about a mobile app? I've half considered running steam, but I'm on Graphene, don't want anything google, and don't want anyone's apps, and especially anything with network access. Requiring anything on mobile is ridiculous nonsense to me.
Android is designed so that users can be completely ignorant of security and OS best practices. They do this by making every app developer the equivalent of a full user on the device. Even with a ROM like Graphene, Android is on untrusted hardware. Asking me to place any app on my device is like asking to make them my roommate and live in my house. Maybe people are cool with that, or enjoy the feeling of their head in sand. I imagine most are simply ignorant of what I am talking about and how the system works in the real world.
Im… not sure? Maybe to trade the cards you get? I have steam and no mobile app, soooooo
yup they need the mobile app specifically because there was trade frauds happened before, with cs items that costs hundreds. They can't just go with using a normal TOTP because the mobile app is also a 2 factor approval for every single trades you are attempting to make.
I think you can go without mobile app and use only e-mails, but it will cause the items to be held for days which people who trade frequently will not want to trade with you as their inventory moves fast.
Thanks for the info! Thats not a feature of steam ive interacted with, but it makes sense. Though would be mice if they implemented other 2fa options
About forcing their app, while it's not necessary (you can use mail guard or extract the OTP key to run just the OTP generation); the improvements it makes to account security is top notch. I have a 2007 dated Steam account that had its username password combination leaked way back when i used the same username password combo everywhere. After setting up Steam Guard; I never had to change anything off of it. It used to just generate OTPs with its app; now it also shows where were login attempts made to your account, occasionally I get "yo this random fuck from China tried to login your account; is this you" notifications on my phone which i can pretty much ignore.
My old accounts on other platforms have really different stories, but on none of them i was able to call the account safe without changing its credientials at all.