PC Gamer has an article up about the failure of SteamOS, and it serves as a good anchor to talk about Valve in general.
“The fundamental reasons that Valve cares about SteamOS haven’t gone away, and we continue our work to expand it,” Valve said in a statement to PC Gamer. I had asked if SteamOS was still a priority, how many people were working on it, and if Windows 10 changed Valve’s approach. “The launch of Steam Machines taught us a lot about what Steam customers value in hardware. Right now we’re continuing to work on SteamOS as a product, with over 96 updates and 3,525 games released. We have many incentives for those making SteamOS titles and we see a bright future for SteamOS, especially in VR.”
The comment about VR is interesting, as the new tech is clearly Valve’s present focus. If SteamOS can provide a better VR experience than Windows, and VR technology proves itself more popular in the future, perhaps the OS has a shot of resurging with a new round of ‘SteamVR Machines’. But the success of SteamVR isn’t a sure thing, either.
The problem with Valve is that they are the technology company equivalent of a toddler – kind of cute and adorable (if they’re not yours), but easily distracted, unfocused, and kind of living in their own fantasy world. Valve wanders from left to right, never committing to anything, just doing whatever it fancies. That would be completely fine if it wasn’t for the fact that it strings partners and consumers along for the ride – only to jump off midway, leaving the ride to slowly come to a grinding halt in the middle of nowhere.
While the company devoted time and money to SteamOS and SteamVR, it let its most important piece of software – the Steam client – languish, to the point where it’s now probably the most unusable piece of software on any Windows PC. It’s slow, ugly, bloated, confusing, overly complex verging on the unusable, and in general just frustrating and cumbersome to use. In fact – and some people might balk at this – but EA’s Origin client has improved so much over the years, that it’s much nicer, cleaner, and easier to use now than the Steam client ever was. I will fight you on this.
And, of course, they left us at one of the biggest cliffhangers in gaming, and we have no Half-life 3. No Portal 3. No Left 4 Dead 3. No new IP. Nothing. We cry foul at EA, Ubisoft, and Bethesda for being unoriginal, but meanwhile, continue to treat Valve like the greatest gaming company in history, even though they haven’t released a new game and haven’t introduced a new IP in a long, long time.
It’s high time Valve demonstrates that it actually cares about its customers, by improving Steam or releasing games we actually want – or in general just by showing some damn follow-through for once, or at least being open about plans for the future so we know what we can expect before we plonk down a bunch of cash for the next shiny they’re peddling.
As it stands now, Valve isn’t showing any signs that it cares about the fans of its games, and as the competition catches up to and races past Steam in user experience, the resentment grows ever deeper. Yes, the headline is harsh, but I can’t find any sign that it’s not true.
Sure, Steam is the giant of PC gaming today – but no giant remains standing forever.
You’ll fight people over Origin vs Steam? Good, because I think you will have to.
Origin is *painfully* slow in parts. Certain pages are almost entirely unusable. It’s also a terribly badly behaved client when it needs to update anything.
Steam stays out of the way, does it’s work in the background, is generally fast, not to mention that it has a lot more content – and it has a lot of useful tools for classifying and being able to navigate your library.
Sure, the Steam client is a victim of it’s own success at times – particularly when there is a major sale on, some of the pages can become unresponsive under the sheer weight of load. It’s not perfect – but it’s the best of the bunch.
Steam is just bad, there is no way around it.
It’s very slow to open on any computer, which means that just launching a game will take 10 seconds more if Steam is not open in the background. A real pain.
It’s always consuming resources when running in the background.
The Steam interface is super bad. No HIDPI support on any plateform (this is ridiculous for any piece of software in 2017), it’s ugly and alien to all OS.
Scrolling inside Steam is slower than any complex websites on a modern browser.
Bad or missing settings, confusing interface making everything a pain…
It’s just bad. And when you think about it, we pay hundreds of dollars to Valve for this piece of poop (30% cut on every game I purchased). This is NOT acceptable, and I’m very sad that there is people to excuse such disrespect for the consumer, for such a HIGH price. Tom is not wrong, people are for too forgiving with Valve.
I think both you and Thom have got misconfigured systems somewhere! I really don’t see your problem, or suffer these problems.
I’ve been using using Steam for many years and have never encountered anything you mention at all, if anything what Steam would benefit from is a upgrade to their servers not the client. There is times I notice their server is bogged down and a bit slow, but that’s hardly the fault of the Steam client itself!
You are lying. I’m sorry, but your Steam client doesn’t have HIDPI support (it doesn’t exist), and doesn’t have native widgets for performance and visual integration (it doesn’t exist).
Those things are just facts about the Steam client, and still you tell me you have a different, magical Steam client? Come on. Show me a screenshot of your Steam client in HIDPI mode under Windows.
Steam just took 20 seconds to open (I mean showing me my games list) on my Surface Pro 3. That’s bad performance for any software. I can open a big catalog in Lightroom in much less time. My gaming PC is taking maybe half that time. It’s just the way Steam is working. And no, both my PCs are clean, fast and efficient. Steam is always slow. Because it’s a slow software. And to prove me wrong? Show us a video of your computer opening Steam with a cold start, faster than let’s say 5 seconds (still a slow loading time).
You’re just tolerating mediocrity, IMO. And lying about HIDPI support and native widgets.
Edited 2017-07-10 13:58 UTC
Hahaha. My my, what a plonker!
Ha, so on my Linux machine;
Took maybe 5 seconds to load, and I have 1941 Games currently. Scrolling through the list does take it’s time.
For HiDPI in Windows I think it’s broken, or I can’t remember if under Linux I had installed a skin or something, but under Linux/Gnome Shell it DOES have HiDPI. Under Windows 10 I remember it being tiny.
Under MacOSX it’s fine as well.
Speaking about Witcher 3, they did initially mention SteamOS support… but that never came through though.
It’s an overhyped, rather boring game anyway. Linux gamers aren’t missing much.
hahahahahahaha
No it isn’t over hyped. Great Graphics, Good story, Good voice acting, plenty to do. Side quests actually are more than the usual shite like “please get this for me”. No DRM.
Also CD Projekt Red are the only games studio that isn’t doing loads of anti-consumer shite, make sure they actually tell their audience what is going on.
Edited 2017-07-10 05:52 UTC
Yup, this one’s 100% true.
Single player games are not exactly fashionable these days. You have many “play through”‘s online these days so why pay for the title.
However I do get your point and hope this type of games will not become extinct because of the online trend.
It’s like reading a good book..
Blasphemy! Be careful: not too long ago people used to be burned at the stake for that, but we don’t do that any longer and you just get voted down. Ain’t progress grand? 😉
Okay, seriously. I don’t agree with your take on Witcher 3 (which I thoroughly enjoyed) but I certainly didn’t vote you down for your criticism. In fact I might even agree with a couple of the things you explained further down but, on the other hand, try as I may, I could never get into any of the Dragon Age games. To each his own, I guess?
Oh, and we’re way off-topic so I’ll stop here and revert to full lurking mode.
RT.
Edited 2017-07-11 08:43 UTC
Steam tried but hit the wall of reality
5 years ago, Windows Store had a chance (it seemed). Microsoft looked like it could do an Apple on the PC gaming world and Valve felt threatened. So they developed SteamOS to warn Microsoft they had an alternative.
I am mostly a Linux gamer these days, because of SteamOS: I actively try to buy only Linux titles but it is getting harder compared to 4 years ago. 4 years ago, up to about 2 years ago, many big and good titles came out on Linux, like Borderlands 2, Metro, Saints Row, Tomb Raider, Serious Sam, Alien.
Lately only Deus Ex Mankind Divided.
This is my only major gripe, but I understand it.
it’s now 2017 and times changed, reality hit:
– Ther’s no money in Linux gaming (the OS is 0.72 % of all current Steam players). And Humble Bundle is a dot on the wall.
– If you have a PC, you don’t need SteamOS. None of my computers run SteamOS only, why would I limit my computer to run only SteamOS if I can use it as a normal Linux PC too? This limits sales of SteamOS.
– It’s expensive for companies to also develop for Linux, so when the incentives stopped, development stopped. Maybe Vulcan will make it easier to start developing a branch for Linux again?
– Microsoft didn’t win (yet).
I will keep using Steam on Linux (not SteamOS) as much as I can. And I certainly don’t find it slow.
Lastly I don’t understand your argument about not releasing Portal 3, Half Life 3 and Left for Dead 3.
I think Valve should be commended for not trying to make some quick bucks by endlessly milking the same game.
Hence why I specifically mentioned new IP.
How is finishing the story milking a game? I’m not sure if you played it or not but as he said Half-Life 2 episode 2 ended on a huge cliffhanger. People have been waiting for ten years to see what happens and it looks like we never will because Valve is rolling in Steam money and don’t care about their own games anymore.
Imagine reading this fantastic novel and getting to the last chapter only to find out the author didn’t put the last chapter in, the book just ends on a cliffhanger and you never get to finish the story. That’s exactly what happened with Half-Life.
Edited 2017-07-09 12:26 UTC
Completing the story isn’t milking it. It’s completing it.. and the issue is they’ve strung the community along for a few months shy of 10 years now.
“I think Valve should be commended for not trying to make some quick bucks by endlessly milking the same game.”
While I agree mostly, in the case of Half-Life the series was definitely left in an unresolved place, and it is evident the original intention was to release more episodes (HL2 Episode 3) – I’d have been happy if they had left it there, but it’s a bit like having a TV series cancelled midway through.
OK, lets break this down by parts:
a) value as a company
b) the steam client
c) steam os
d) valve and VR
e) value as a game company
f) valve’s past IP
a) valve as a company is a company with a very simple vision – make money, focus on the games arena (or anything else gabe gets into), and hire fewer more talented people over becoming very large.
they were into digital distribution because Gabe wanted to be … and the hit it big with that and it became the only thing that will ever matter to their bottom line.
b) the steam client has some definite usability issues for certain use cases, but some people, like myself don’t like the world of constant change. some of us would prefer companies slowly improve things within a framework than make us learn whole new interfaces every couple of years. any major redo valve considers runs the risk of alienating more people than it pleases. and I can’t imaging anyone calling the current client bordering on unusable – it works extremely well for all of the primary use cases.
c) steam os is another story and it hasn’t gotten the attention I wish it would. but as mentioned before, the market is tiny and that’s the reason no other company has even come close to touching linux. value on the other hand has made many many games available on linux that would otherwise not be, many of which work as well or better than native linux versions. they have invested very heavily in their cross-platform compatibility libraries and porting framework and it shows. its only the OS itself that has been left to languish.
d) valve is a major player in VR, and the reason is because key people in valve want to make VR a success during their lifetime. it isn’t (yet) a major profit source … but is something they personally believe in, so they will continue to pursue it. one day some other company may make their efforts obsolete, and if so, they will have succeeded, because their goal as people is to make VR succeed, not to make valve the only source for VR.
e) valve was a game company, because that’s how it started … but game companies are made up of individuals. each great game was the vision and creation of between 1 and 10 individuals, which we helps by 10s or 100s of other individuals to bring that vision to life. some of the original game designers are no longer at valve, and at least 1 of them that is still at the company is no longer (currently) interested in doing a follow up game.
f) complaining that value isn’t doing a follow up is like complaining that orson scott card isn’t doing another ender book (although he probably is). or complaining that he should be writing more books, if he’s decided his passion is writing plays now. creates create what their passion tells them to.
—-
valve being so rich isn’t what keeps them from investing in making games. it’s what keeps them from forcing a team to make uninspired game when they would rather being doing something else.
it has already been said before, if/when they have a great idea for another game, they will build it. (the corollary being, if not, they probably won’t).
once you accept the idea that valve is a 1000 times smaller company than companies like microsoft, and on a smaller scale than companies like bethesda as well, you would about it less like a corporate machine and more like a fairly large group of individuals who have made more money than anyone ever expected, and therefore now work mainly on pursuing what interested them.
their model is more similar to a collective of Elon Musk’s, if only he wasn’t such an slave driving jerk.
This reeks of rationalisation to me. All the things companies like EA and Ubisoft are hated for [not necessarily by you!], are somehow okay for Valve to do – not releasing any games, nickel-and-diming users with microtransactions, no new IP, flops like SteamOS – because [insert vague, emotional reasons of why Valve is special].
Why is Valve graded on a curve?
Sidenote: Bethesda is only about 180 employees – Valve has 360.
Maybe because they actually did not promise anything and they’ve just went their way eg. SteamOS, VR work, the store-that-evolves etc. ? Yeah, we all like the HL3 jokes, but c’mon… hammering that is not journalism.
Think John Carmack, got the money early, went to do his thing (engine dev, rocket science, VR), same as Valve, got HL2, then Steam, Portal, DOTA2, CS:GO, whatever. This article would be asking “why isn’t Carmack making a 3D gothic shooter now and he cares about low latency gyros and foveated views and fuel economy?”
> like EA and Ubisoft
Wrong, the thing is you treat them as “game developer”, role that was true in 2004, but not so much since, yes they got some (good) games out, but they do so much dev-ing in different areas that’s no longer the case. Yes they might have not evolved there (your points are valid), but that’s not THE WHOLE VALVE.
Regarding SteamOS, as said below, see the “Windows 10 S” and guess what ideas has Microsoft in mind looking at the Apple/Google stores? Would we get a “unsecure sources” switch or not?
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/half-life-2-episode-one-gold-two-d…
I stand corrected then.
Valve at this point is no longer a games company. It is a distribution platform.
Bethesda has load of shitty practices. They don’t provide any review copies, paid mods now (yes seriously), poor pc optimisation (dishourned 2 runs like crap and I have a 1080Ti), almost all of their games come with so many bugs that it is a running joke.
The only decent games they have pushed out recently is DOOM and Wolfenstein.
I’m not actually a valve fan at all, I refused to buy any steam software for over 5 years – buying nothing but physical copies until it finally became nearly impossible. I also think it should be illegal for any company, including them, to have secret pricing contracts with clauses not to disclose the terms.
But I did and do feel that most of the OP’s complaints were bogus .. and his “don’t care about customer’s” title was absurd.
Also, I shouldn’t have said “Bethesda” … because there is really no such (single) company. I should have said “Zenimax” which is the company that Altman created from Bethesda, that owns all 3 “bethesda” divisions as well as Id and others. That company is over 1500 people … now the “studio” which makes fallout is smaller than valve, but way largeR than the roughly 30 working on Dota 2 …
valve isn’t some great shining example of corporate behavior. they are however a very interesting experiment in a very different way to manage and run a software development company (no other company of their size is known to run the way they do).
For Steam OS, the main problem is Linux. Anything based on Linux continues to fail for pretty much the same reasons desktop Linux never took off. As for Half Life 3, have you gone back and played Half Life 2 recently? It doesn’t stand the test of time, and gameplay being interrupted by random physics puzzles is now more annoying more than revolutionary. There simply aren’t any new ideas out there to bring new life into these old franchises.
The Half-Life games themselves may not have stood the test of time but the new-at-the-time gameplay accounts for only half the popularity. Countless fans became immersed in the story, and that is why HL3 is still such a sought-after game. HL3 could come out tomorrow and feel no different from the annual COD game, and it would still be wildly successful.
“Anything based on Linux continues to fail for pretty much the same reasons desktop Linux never took off.”
Like what? Being more stable, without IP issues, and much safer from the threat of viruses and malware?
Sounds like you never used Linux.
I have, have it on my laptop to format some SD cars for a dash cam, but that’s all I use it for. While 4chan is mostly trolls, they do make one argument that sums up desktop Linux pretty well: “Linux is only free if your time is worthless”. I can either hunt down fixes for problems that don’t exit in Windows/Mac land (that constantly show up), or just use Windows/Mac.
I’ve installed Linux on my mom’s computer. No more support calls from my mom again, things just work for her. My time is not worthless.
Personal anecdotes are irrelevant to marketshare, and also that “It works for me so fuck you” attitude is also a major reason desktop Linux isn’t going anywhere.
1. Report problem/suggestion to make it better.
2. Get told your opinion is worthless, you just need to think like us.
3. Rinse and repeat.
Ah, so you’re one of those people – Attempts installing and administering a distro without reading a single line of documentation, joins a forum and asks dumb questions as a result, gets told to RTFM, gets emo and throws a tantrum, gets ignored and/or banned. Rinse and repeat.
I have, it seems you haven’t. 99.9% of help forum documentation, etc. is open command line/open config files, memorize Linux command x, etc. Wasted time that could be used doing more productive things.
also your community is toxic and this is a great example. Instead of taking criticism and admitting other people might have a good point, you defend desktop Linux like someone is insulting your ugly baby.
Edited 2017-07-10 15:10 UTC
Dark2 makes a solid point and he didn’t let any cats out of the bag by voicing it. From devs down, Linux blatantly suffers from `too many chefs in the kitchen`. If you think Linux is welcoming of opinions, suggestions, critique, or isn’t fractured, you obviously don’t engage the community in any real capacity.
Also, often times manuals are written poorly and don’t properly explain things, aren’t kept up-to-date, or based on the assumption you’re already familiar with Linux. No question is “dumb” no matter how noob’ish you think it is. I’m asked Linux-related questions every single day. My replies are never sarcastic, degrading, or insulting. People ask questions because they need help. You can be a dick and think you’re too superior to help, or you can simply just help and make Linux a more friendly experience for people, thus helping Linux.
Ironically, it sounds like you’re the one who hasn’t used Linux, or at least knows very little about how to secure it. I’d be very surprised if you weren’t in the habit of doing things in Linux that compromise your security.
Linux security, like Windows security, takes a lot of proper configuration across multiple components. It’s not simply a matter of install-and-done. There are a whole lot of very naive users who don’t understand that.
This is a typical “minor detail x” argument that equates to nothing more than telling a mechanic that he’s using his wrench wrong. Also, why arey naive to expect and use software that just works? Why do you feel 7 billion people need to prove to you something? You haven’t done anything for them to owe you that. If Linux had similar marketshare to Windows, it wouldn’t matter how much effort or programming went into securing the PC, because the people that get viruses and rootkits are usually easily tricked into manually installing them anyway. Knowing how to avoid such schemes is person dependent and not OS dependent.
Edited 2017-07-10 22:44 UTC
When you lock a system down it becomes annoying to use so people, especially Linux users, have a habit of undoing the things that helped protect them in the first place. Like you said, the problem starts with the users themselves. Their behavior is the first line of defense. Linux is generally no more secure than Windows and it’s no more capable of protecting people from themselves. Linux is not magical and securing it requires the same efforts & knowledge that securing Windows requires.
Before SteamOS, I tried to make a point about low-jitter being very optimal for manycpu machines AND desktop, making games very smooth, low latency for audio, responsive os-action etc. It seems jitter is not well understood though. So while I was testing/playing ultrasmooth games by myself and my own ability, people in general did not understand the point. It was fun though. And the people at Valve are probably living their dream with SteamOS. But it just shows that again, it doesn´t mean that people will get it.
Something I did notice, was the wellknown GNU-culticness and attitude-problems in Linux-circles, which is the worst aspect of “Linux”.
Windows 10 atleast has a 1ms latency target, where earlier windows OSs had “10 ms”. (from their technical papers).
I have already used lower on linux though. And that reminds me of early machines like Amiga, and probably others (Atari? RiscOS?) that responded quite instantly on keypresses and soundevents etc. How they got it so right back then, and windows still has higher latency, is beyond me.
Edited 2017-07-09 15:21 UTC
Down at Silicon Ranch, it’s much easier to corral 5 electrons than it is to corral 5000. When there’s less electrons aimlessly wandering around, it’s easier to control them and send them to where they need to go.
it’s 16 ms. can be less, but usually around 16ms. windows are not a rtos so they do not guarantee any deadline.
it can be 1ms if you mess with system timers (quite ugly).
win 8 or 10 are supposed to change this with high resolution timers and events but i did not checked it yet.
“How they got it so right back then, and windows still has higher latency, is beyond me.”
Most machines of that era had little or no software isolation – which would result in insecure virus-ridden collapses in today’s environment.
Further, they had little need to abstract hardware, as the hardware was defined by the manufacturer.
What is wrong with the Steam Client? Works for me. Hundreds of games for many years. Both Windows and Linux. Origin is better how? Their game library sure pales by comparison.
I applaud Valve’s efforts to support Linux. What happens when Microsoft and/or Apple locks out Steam one day? Of course they’ll claim it’s for your safety.
Don’t get me wrong … I would love to see Half Life 3. But perhaps it’s just a matter of more time? John Carmack : “Done when it’s done”. Have some patience. Get out more.
I honestly haven’t noticed any huge changes to the steam client in the 8 years I’ve been using it.
Edited 2017-07-09 18:45 UTC
SteamOS =/= Steam Client for Linux
Big Picture?
But posting something just for posting something is still crap. Posting something based on feeling while referring to it as being technical is crap. Caring more about the surface (look, feel) rather than the functionality is crap. Using logic, analysis rather than just spouting something isn’t popular.
Not that it’s new – the phrase “It’s better too look good than to be good” have been used since the 80’s at least. Steam doesn’t actually look that good but is still popular as it is actually good. It’s not perfect, sure.
The SteamOS initiative is what allows me play a multitude of mainstream games on my chosen operating system. 1% of users looks like a low number, but that’s many thousands of happy users.
There’s practically no market for Steam machines and SteamOS. Many of us already knew these were efforts destined to fail, basically dead-on-arrival because the numbers weren’t there. “Many thousands of happy users” *is* a low number, it doesn’t just look like it. Nobody should be shocked this high-risk/high-investment exercise flopped. Even those who stuck their head in the sand and convinced themselves Steam machines & SteamOS was going to be a revolution don’t seem surprised.
I don’t care. It changed the industry somewhat, with many companies offering Linux ports of their games. It changed the way I game, with so many more titles available for me. It’s definitely not a failure for a lot of people and you can’t simply ignore that. Change happened.
I agree with this. SteamOS and and the macOS port of Steam created an escape hatch from Windows, should that platform fail (or should MS do stupid things), and that’s a great thing.
While your comment falls within the realm of possibility, it’s hilarious you think of SteamOS as a real alternative to Windows, and that there’s any concern of Windows failing as a platform. It’s like someone in Nebraska buying a boat because they’re worried rising oceans will turn his house into beachfront property.
Reality isn’t shaped by whether or not you care. I didn’t change the industry at all. Any industry support there was for it vanished as quickly as it came. The pie is no different today than it was pre-SteamOS. SteamOS may have changed the way you and a minuscule number of other people game but you’re wrong that that can’t be ignored. There simply isn’t enough of you to make SteamOS or Steam machines sustainable. It’s easy to ignore you – it’s already happening, hence why nobody is doing any real investing, not even Valve at this point.
Valve said themselves their focus is updating the Steam client and selling controllers. They had to clarify that SteamOS hasn’t been abandoned and they hope they can resurrect SteamOS in the VR space. And I’ll predict right now that effort is going to fail too. The truth is in the numbers and there’s simply no getting around it.
Have you taken 2 minutes to compare the game market for Linux before and after SteamOS? The difference is huge. There’s nothing to debate: I’m not saying that it made an absolute dent on the industry, I’m just saying there were relevant changes that have affected many people, including myself, and that nowadays is very easy to be a gamer in Linux. You can’t deny that.
No matter how much you pretend otherwise, the numbers don’t lie. That `huge difference` you’re talking about only applies to a vastly small & insignificant number of people. I’m not saying it isn’t huge *to you*, but I am saying it isn’t huge. It isn’t anything. Alienware, the biggest supporter of Steam machines by far, confirmed sales are a tiny trickle and their focus is on Windows 10 machines, which are doing great. Valve had to state publicly they haven’t abandoned SteamOS. When the creator and biggest supporter don’t even agree with your assessment, something is wrong.
I never said it was huge in absolute terms, of course it wasn’t. But it was a start and the world is a better place because of it.
Linux was not meant for phones, now it’s the majority; Linux was not meant for servers, now it’s the majority; Linux was not meant for laptops, now Chromebooks are surpassing Mac sales in the US. I’m not saying it will conquer all the markets, but you’ve got to keep an open mind. 🙂
It’s all off topic. Valve (does not make games anymore). It does not make games for Linux, or PC or Mac anymore for that matter. Steam might have made Linux games more mainstream by giving developers a outlet to showcase and develop games for Linux (and other platforms), Valve is not responsible for the games created.
Your all talking like Valve has some magical say in what games end up on what platforms.. they don’t. And this is a perfect example of what is wrong with Valve and it’s user base as a whole. They are a PR nightmare who don’t communicate to their users that they are just a distribution company. Basically an APP store taking a cut. Then it’s users degrade in a forum like this talking about Half life, witcher and linux vs windows and miss the point entirely.
They could care less if your shitty Linux or PC has “insert game name here or native client”, so long as they get their 10% cut of the game purchase. These guys are as bad as the Apple App store, but their communication and user support is worse. Thats the point. They don’t care about their customers because they’re making money hand over fist. So stop talking about games and platforms because they can’t control that. Start talking about customer service and user experience, then refuse to spend money with them when then don’t listen. Thats how things will change.
Lets also be clear… Valve is using HTC VIVE hardware and oculus rift software and bringing those titles to steam, but in a user friendly way that makes using and launching these titles easy for the average user using the steam interface.
Again.. an app store for VR games where they take their cut. They are not developing anything except a VR steam os launcher..
Edited 2017-07-10 20:43 UTC
>Claims Steam is the most horrible piece of software on the PC
>Forgets about iTunes
Valve is primarily about their market platform. They have innovated in many ways on that – from buying Portal 2 on PS3 and getting a free PC copy, to now supporting additional controllers (PS4 and XBox One) out of the box on their platform. The innovation they are doing is all around the Steam platform, and it’s all to break free of limits imposed by legacy business models.
This article ignores all that to make a binary assertion about what they don’t care about.
Other than the steam client itself being a disaster, i really wish they would fix their store. The signal to noise ratio in there is just as bad as the app store or google play, and for events like their summer sale, you had to wade through page after page of shit to find something nice that didnt just happen to be on the front page.
I would kinda like a “Hide everything but AAA games and very ambitious indie games” button.
Valve doesn’t make games anymore, most of their developers that built half-life and portal are gone. They are a software distribution company. (and a young one) still learning. That’s their business model. But honestly, their game IP and the steam client aside, I don’t think that’s people’s real frustration with the company.
This is what i’ve seen…
(1) – Forced updates that break games. GOG has had the option to not install an update, or roll back an update that broke a game for a few years. I spent two months not being able to play Skyrim and Witcher over a forced update. This needs to be addressed. I can’t tell if game makers are forcing them to do this, or this is some self imposed thing that Valve is doing with Steam. There is nothing more frustrating than getting all your mods installed and having an update break your game.. (Im looking at Skyrim and Fallout 4)
(2) – Faceless support through a forum. The perception is that they don’t care because the fact is, when there is a problem on my xbox or playstation I can call Microsoft or Sony… You can’t do that with Valve. The online steam forum is just full unanswered questions by people asking for help help. To make matters worse, the bullying by other pc users belittling the users asking the questions makes the experience outright horrible. Valve seems to be relying on the users helping users model but it’s not working. Just look at how fast these comments spiraled into off topic witcher mud slinging… it’s 10x worse on Steam.
(3) – Multi-player on your home network with a single game. The limitation of one instance of a game at the same time for multi-player games is frustrating. And only one instance of Steam running at the same time sucks too. Myself and my kids all use the same login for steam on different PC’s. (I still can’t figure out family sharing).. but it sucks that if we’re all on the same network inside a house we can all do multi-player together.. This isn’t just me either, most of my friends scratch their head at family sharing and setting up multiple instances of playing too.. it’s just not obvious or easy to set up. I usually just end up disconnecting one PC from the internet to I can play Witcher or Skyrim, and letting my kid connect to the internet to multi-player with friends.. it’s just a wonky limitation.. and It should be easier..
(4) – Inconsistencies in platforms.. (I’m not talking about games.. you’re not getting Witcher on Linux… Thats the Developer, not Valve, they can’t do anything about what games they offer on each platform..) I’m talking about the consistency between all the clients on desktop and mobile. It still pisses me off that I can get to my wishlist on my mobile phone without drilling down into my account and clicking a super hidden link. I think someone said native platforms.. but yeah.. native platforms and a clean UI. My biggest grip is the stupid add your phone number screen that is still popping up even though I put my phone number in over a year ago..
These are the (fixable) things that make people angry. It’s also makes people angrier when the company stays silent and doesn’t publicly address any of the issues.. especially with they have millions of users…
Apparently they do care.
http://steamcommunity.com/games/70/announcements/detail/
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I was an early adopter of Steam Machines – owning both an Alienware and a Cyberpower Syber – both good machines for what I wanted them for. My kids played on them both for well over a year – but certain things still were missing they wanted – not the triple A titles – but things like Roblox wouldn’t work at all, or work properly with things like Wine.
Valve can do better with compatibility and making channel inroads. But the client I had no issues with. It was better then the Xbox One, better then navigating windows 10. It also diffused one issue I have with young kids that are gamers – it closed one game when they went to the next one.
As far as the client on Windows – it’s not a disaster. I don’t know why it’s slow for you – it certainly isn’t on any of my machines. The worst part of the Steam experience isn’t steam at all, it’s the abomination of Windows 10. I don’t know why people like it so much – if anything is bloated and has more unnecessary inconvenience, it’s Microsoft’s latest version of their OS. SteamOS, or even Steam on Ubuntu is much, much, much more streamlined. I don’t have issues with it from a usability standpoint – my issues are more centered in content. It has a lot, but not some key pieces I need for my kids. If it did, I would have them both off Windows 10 in a heartbeat. I’ve thought of downgrading them to Windows 7 – but it’s only a few years before Win 7 goes the way of WinXP.
I would love to see Valve put their full weight behind SteamOS. Yes, the client could use improvement, but comparing it to Origin is laughable. Origin is basically a launcher and updater. It has none of depth of the Steam Client. It doesn’t really do living room well, the updater take a lot longer then Steam does – one beauty of SteamOS is the updater is blazing fast for OS and Client – espeically if you are going to compare it to not only Origin updates, but also Windows updates. It’s almost like comparing a skyscraper to a shed.
You can knock a Valve for a lot of things – but the Steam Client – even with some of its obfuscation, is still the best gaming platform on the planet. If they ever fix the depth of content with SteamOS – they may be on to something. It was great to use – and at some point I may go back to it. Sorry fan boys, windows 10 sucks.