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I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

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Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#71

Post by atmavatar »

nerdjon wrote: post #44

It is always interesting seeing the mostly blind loyalty that Valve seems to get for no real clear reason. Don't get me wrong, I love their games (when they bother to make one) and my Steam Deck. But lets not pretend that Valve is our friend either and their main goal is anything but to make money. While I think that going so far as to delete my Steam library is a fairly extreme situation, I do think supporting a div…

I wouldn't call it blind loyalty.

I've used Steam almost since its inception, and by and large, it stays out of my way while playing, lets me install any game I've purchased historically without any trouble, and provides download speeds that approach my fiber's max limit when I do install a game. For me, it just works™. I've yet to have a bad experience with it.

Sure, I also use GoG semi-regularly, particularly because it's also been relatively painless to use but also because the often overlapping sales on both frequently result in games I'm interested showing up cheaper on one store than the other (but not always the same one). However, it started off pretty niche, and CD Projekt Red publishes their really big games to other stores (much to their credit), so I won't fault someone for not having used GoG yet.

I've also dipped my toes a little in the EA store, but only because there have been a few games I've wanted which required it. It struck me as an inferior experience to Steam and GoG, and I admit a particular distaste in the handful of cases where games bought on Steam/GoG still ultimately require launching the EA store before the games themselves load. If this is someone's first experience outside Steam, I totally understand retreating back to familiar territory.

I won't dispute if someone else claims having a bad experience with Steam - I just haven't shared it. However, I do find hate because "they want to make money" puzzling. Every store does.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#72

Post by nerdjon »

atmavatar wrote: post #71
nerdjon wrote: post #44

It is always interesting seeing the mostly blind loyalty that Valve seems to get for no real clear reason. Don't get me wrong, I love their games (when they bother to make one) and my Steam Deck. But lets not pretend that Valve is our friend either and their main goal is anything but to make money. While I think that going so far as to delete my Steam library is a fairly extreme situation, I do think supporting a div…

I wouldn't call it blind loyalty. I've used Steam almost since its inception, and by and large, it stays out of my way while playing, lets me install any game I've purchased historically without any trouble, and provides download speeds that approach my fiber's max limit when I do install a game. For me, it just works ™. I've yet to have a bad experience with it. Sure, I also use GoG semi-regularly, particularly beca…

I would say what you are describing is also not blind loyalty. But there are very much people who do have blind loyalty. I agree on not hating them just because they want to make money, but there are people that seem to act like Valve is their friend and somehow this saint for gaming as if they are a non-profit or something. I guarantee you they are not working on SteamOS out of the goodness of their hearts and it is more about their ability to retain control and fend off Microsoft more heavily pushing their store (yes I know you can run anything you want on SteamOS but that does not change that for most users the Steam store will be the easiest option for them).

We see a little bit of it on HN, but look at the comments on the Gist itself. This was also shared on /r/steam and the comments there. Or the fact that this is currently sitting at "flagged" on HN for no valid reason I can figure out.

There are a (seemingly) rather large subset of gamers that any talk of using another store is immediately scoffed at. Dare have to be critical of Valve/Steam (except for them not putting out games anymore, everyone seems to be in agreement that it sucks) and people try to pivot to all of the good things they have done as if that just makes whatever bad behavior they are doing justified.

Edit: Seriously, go look at some of the more recent comments on the gist attacking this guy and tell me there is not blind loyalty to Valve. Some of these responses are seriously unhinged.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#73

Post by rpdillon »

Johbii wrote: post #32
shmerl wrote: post #23

GOG is DRM-free indeed. Others like MS Store and Epic? Lol, they aren't better than Steam in regards to DRM. I prefer GOG, but it's cool that Valve are advancing Linux gaming.

Still hoping for an official GOG Linux client

I use Heroic on my Steam Deck and System76 machine with GOG, works beautifully.

https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#74

Post by red-iron-pine »

eschatology wrote: post #3

Weird outrage

plenty of other publicly traded companies pushing platforms to compete, all of whom have an incentive to submarine in anti-valve marketing.

like, steam sucks, but man the other platforms are worse. steam, for all it's misery and crashes, mostly stays out of my way.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#75

Post by ethbr1 »

weberer wrote: post #64
close04 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about Linux? Steam has supported Linux since 2013, and is notably the only big store that does. Steam is a big contributor to making games run on Linux but it's not some magical sauce unique to Steam. Unless you're talking about the store client software itself having better support, I haven't used any of the first party store clients on Linux. My GOG games run fine on Linux with Heroic Launcher. But the bigge…

I'm talking about his complaint that Steam does not have any contingency plans for running games on old hardware due to them not supporting old versions of Windows. You can install Linux on that hardware, so I'd say that's a good enough contingency plan.

* Assuming that game is supported on Linux

While compatibility has improved a lot, it's difficult to argue it's on par with a game on as-released hardware + OS.

There will always be gaps or altered functionality in compatibility.

And unfortunately, because of the recency bias of popularity, there won't be large enough player bases to justify corporate fixes.

It needs to be a priority despite finances (e.g. GoG) or community driven (e.g. Kaldaien and the moding community).

And it seems fair for the latter to be pissed off when Valve intentionally creates extra work for them, because either Valve doesn't care or it makes business sense for them.

And if nobody cares... troublesome games just disappear. Which seems tragic.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#76

Post by spacemadness »

cmcaleer wrote: post #24
lastdong wrote: post #8

I must admit that the Steam client is quite slow and bloated. Having used it for many years, I often avoid launching it. Epic has replicated these same issues. Consequently, I end up using GOG instead.

Bloated is one word for it. The difference in the battery life of my MacBook when Steam is running (and doing nothing) versus Steam not running is incredible, it’s the difference between my battery sometimes lasting one working day and comfortably lasting two.

The client is awful on MacOS. It’s even more power hungry and slower than XCode.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#77

Post by spacemadness »

reedf1 wrote: post #13

> I buy games from Epic Games Store , Microsoft Store and GOG precisely because those stores have no bloated features unrelated to DRM crammed down your throat. Absolutely unhinged opinion.

I figured that I was reading yet another gamer plea to just use GOG due to lack of DRM and instead we got… this. The MS store even has a weird save game format so you can’t transfer game saves between stores.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#78

Post by 47thpresident »

cmcaleer wrote: post #24
lastdong wrote: post #8

I must admit that the Steam client is quite slow and bloated. Having used it for many years, I often avoid launching it. Epic has replicated these same issues. Consequently, I end up using GOG instead.

Bloated is one word for it. The difference in the battery life of my MacBook when Steam is running (and doing nothing) versus Steam not running is incredible, it’s the difference between my battery sometimes lasting one working day and comfortably lasting two.

If you use an Arm mac, the mainline release is still using Rosetta. You can switch to the beta release which improves battery life and performance.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#79

Post by const_cast »

ethbr1 wrote: post #75
weberer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about his complaint that Steam does not have any contingency plans for running games on old hardware due to them not supporting old versions of Windows. You can install Linux on that hardware, so I'd say that's a good enough contingency plan.

* Assuming that game is supported on Linux While compatibility has improved a lot, it's difficult to argue it's on par with a game on as-released hardware + OS. There will always be gaps or altered functionality in compatibility. And unfortunately, because of the recency bias of popularity, there won't be large enough player bases to justify corporate fixes. It needs to be a priority despite finances (e.g. GoG) or co…

> While compatibility has improved a lot, it's difficult to argue it's on par with a game on as-released hardware + OS.

Agreed, but at this point Wine is a better Win32 implementation than Win32. You typically have more success running old programs under Wine than under new versions of Windows.

Re: I Deleted My Steam Account After 20 Years

#80

Post by const_cast »

ekianjo wrote: post #50
lastdong wrote: post #8

I must admit that the Steam client is quite slow and bloated. Having used it for many years, I often avoid launching it. Epic has replicated these same issues. Consequently, I end up using GOG instead.

its running Chromium under the hood, its like Electron on steroids

I think most of the UI is native, with web views shoved into various corners. I think the application might still be 32bit, but I'm not sure as I run it as a Flatpak.
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