13
votes
I'm ever more annoyed with Steam
I still think it is effectively the best possible version of a mainstream game platform that can realistically exist under current conditions and I think it is better that it exists than if it didn't. In particular their desire to not be reliant on Windows means the Linux gaming is in significantly better place than it would have been otherwise. They simply constantly remind me how low absolute bar the best possible version of the worst possible kind of game store platform is.
My non exhaustive list of problems in no particular order is
- Inability to filter by addtional EULA/DRM/account needed. Steam is already about all of what I am willing to tolerate. Not letting me hide these products is only wasting my time.
- Review system heavily biases towards positive and kills nuance.
- Inability to turn off game updates. For me personally this is the single biggest problem I have with the platform
- Related is inability to go back to previous game version.
- Refund window is a bad joke. For some kinds of games it is fine, for others it does not even allow to get out of tutorial. Sadly it is still better than a lot of other platforms
- I'm seeing more helpful recommendation features that are not possible to turn off - Calendar
- The wishlist/sale feature is extremely effective in enticing impulse purchases. Features that would limit this are of course not implemented. For example setting wishlist alerts only for below a certain price
YSK, this is developer dependant, some games allow it, others don't. Paradox games for example allow you to walk back to previous versions
Well kinda. It's not just a simple "allow older versions" checkbox. Some developers upload old versions as "beta" versions. Then the steam client allows you to opt in to a beta version. It's a good workaround, but it's a workaround nonetheless.
Uh, didn’t know that. Always assumed it was a normal versioning system
For the technically inclined, you can downgrade most games using depotdownloader and goldberg emulator. This assumes the developer hasn't blocked downloading old manifests from steam, and that there's no real drm (goldberg emulator shims steam specific APIs so you can launch games without steam).
7 Days to Die lets you walk back the major point releases to over a decade ago.
This.
You can order by “less than $10” and “less than $5” or so, but that’s manual, and you need to be looking at the list. I like your idea of allowing us to get notified when the sales fall below a certain price much better.
As someone playing on Apple Silicon, I’d like Valve to... have pity on us and improve our side of things? Please?
Same! I can't help but feel that proton built for macOS and Metal would absolutely kick ass. Base model Apple silicon processors pack quite a punch, and the pro/max processors are so crazy good.
The parts already exist, even. WINE works on Macs, DXVK/MoltenVK exist and are used by things like XivOnMac (more modern wrapper for Final Fantasy XIV than the official one)...and Apple even made the Game Porting Toolkit. If Valve gave a damn, they'd have Proton on MacOS.
Valve is working on a Proton for ARM - although it's undoubtedly meant for Steam Frame. Maybe somehow-someway it can be used for Apple devices? Or allows development for such a thing? One can hope
There's probably something in the works once FEX really takes off. Also Gamehub had a MacOS beta if you're willing to put up with that, and I have to assume there are enough MacBook Neos in the wild for someone to get some sort of bridge working.
I believe the current setup for the Mac side of things is to use Crossover. It's made by CodeWeavers who contribute to WINE and I've read that Valve contracted them to work on Proton for Linux. It's a bit of a pricy setup though as its a $75/yr subscription or a $500 lifetime subscription. Gamehub is a new workaround too. Andrew Tsai's channel does a great job of focusing on gaming on Mac and he's got a ton of useful videos: https://www.youtube.com/@Andytizer
I've never tested it, but if you set updates to only download on launch and only launch games using a third party launcher like playnite, would games still update?
Can you explain this in a little more detail?
I believe they still update. Steam will refuse to launch anything that isn't updated. The only workaround is if the game doesn't use steam drm, and you can launch the executable directly with steam not running. If it does use steam drm, launching the game will launch steam to confirm ownership and update it.
Probably at least partially because they still just use a "Thumbs up/Thumbs down" system meaning that a lot of reviewers ends up hitting the thumbs up, and then leaving qualifiers in their reviews like "I like this game but you should know these things before picking it up: xxx" but then all you see on the store page is "very positive." Especially a problem for niche games where the player base is much more likely to rate a game positively because they are more invested in the health of the genre.
A star system or 1-10 rating system would probably allow for more accurate ratings.
Looks like a list of things that would just hurt their business. Do any other online stores, not just games stores, even implement such features?