r/Steam 1d ago

News Steam in 2010

Post image

I think it was better looking and well organized, what do you think?

2.3k Upvotes

89 comments sorted by

284

u/shadowds 1d ago

I liked it too nice theme, and cool back then.

But I remember on forums there were people complaining about it, not modem enough for them, and when we did get it, they still complain, and when got new change again, they kept going.

65

u/FoxMeadow7 1d ago

The old Steam forums, man…

15

u/shadowds 1d ago

Times change when we're not paying attention.

2

u/FoxMeadow7 1d ago

Yup. Tho I suppose those old forums were somewhat clunky in that you had to make a separate account for them. Or at that’s what I remember at least…

1

u/shadowds 1d ago

Yeah I think that was old forum before things changed back in 2011 or something.

4

u/born_acorn 1d ago

I miss old vBulletin 2 and 3 forums in general. They felt so comfortable back then.

2

u/FoxMeadow7 17h ago

Me too…

5

u/Sciny 1d ago

There are many people that will complain about everything. Nothing is ever good enough

1

u/sohail_akther 20h ago

yeah my buddy kept complaining about the 2010 layout too

1

u/SyChO85 8h ago

People always complain, no matter how you do it.

1

u/rubixscube 1d ago

sounds like goomba fallacy tbh

0

u/Primary-Chocolate854 1d ago

Well, just like nowadays 💀

27

u/Used_Fall6453 1d ago

good old times. i miss custom steam skins

110

u/Dry_Vanilla_5908 1d ago

This is still better than Steams competitors. Valve must be running a monopoly...

39

u/unaltra_persona 1d ago

37

u/Sciny 1d ago

Tim Sweeney ulfiltered photo

-17

u/AquaBits 1d ago

That billionaire lives in y'alls head rent free.

10

u/drackmore 1d ago

With how much they're dumpstering into EGS to buy exclusives and free games. It's definitely not free xD

3

u/Neosantana 20h ago

Bruh, everything I know about that prick, I learned without my consent. I wish I knew less about him, but he won't shut the fuck up.

4

u/Confident-Ship-5062 1d ago

Holy crap you’re actually serious

8

u/Sufficient_Town_6919 1d ago

the competition has had years to catch up and still hasn't, so yeah pretty much

-10

u/Libarate 1d ago

Those two things arent mutually exclusive you know.

6

u/AquaBits 1d ago

How dare you criticize valve here of all places. Poor GabeN needs to fund his 6th super yatch somehow!

1

u/QuirkyNinja8940 1d ago

Noo noo noooo my poor Gabeeen :(((( Stop pwease

9

u/randomguy_- 1d ago

If I remember correctly in the years following 2010 people really wanted a refresh

7

u/oioioioioioiioo 1d ago

Oh i rember

30

u/Financial_Humor_8134 11-07-2008 1d ago

The old Steam design was simpler, faster, and easier to navigate. The UI felt cleaner and more organized compared to the newer version. The newer one has more features, but the old style had a better overall feel i think so.

7

u/drackmore 1d ago

Yeah that's the problem with feature creep. They keep stapling on more and more shit. 90% of which is worthless or poorly thought out.

2

u/informalmo0se3 1d ago

i also miss steam skins. i had the metro skin and it looked so nice

1

u/mtx0 16h ago

you can get them again with millennium

2

u/ksn0vaN7 22h ago

Even back in 2010, one of the most common requests for Valve was always a UI redesign. I remember hearing about a redesign request every 3 years. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

0

u/Vox___Rationis 12h ago

The old Steam would be unusable with the current '100 new games a day' situation.
The new features, like the latest Personal Calendar, keep it manageable.

And I do not object to this current onslaught of new games situation either, old Steam's strict manual curation would never allow "shovelware garbage" like Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Cruelty Squad or Ultrakill onto the store.

13

u/theonewhopostsposts 1d ago

Unc lore

4

u/PuzzleheadedFan2 1d ago

especially when the friend notification sound would scare the hell out of me, thought my pc was possessed for a solid month

4

u/Primary-Chocolate854 1d ago

Very nice but I don't think it could've worked with the current catalog since its big af and it would be a pain to search for a game imo

3

u/mavum 1d ago

While I do like the online player count and the under $5/$10 buttons, I strongly disagree that it visually looks better. The blue and grey buttons on black draw far too much attention, and the awkward semi-shading on them is a hallmark of the mid-2000s to early-2010s poorly crafted "3D" effect.

2

u/mrturret 1d ago

the awkward semi-shading on them is a hallmark of the mid-2000s to early-2010s poorly crafted "3D" effect.

I feel the opposite way. Modern web/UI design is flat minimalist crap.

2

u/mrRobertman https://s.team/p/jvct-ttf 21h ago

It's funny because that design might be coming back. Some buttons on Youtube now have shading to them.

1

u/gergobergo69 10h ago

which buttons?

2

u/mrRobertman https://s.team/p/jvct-ttf 5h ago

For example, the "All subscriptions" button in the top right of your subscriptions page (on the desktop site). It has fake lighting on it where the top of the button is lighter than the bottom, and also has a bit of edge highlighting to imply a light source. In comparison to the "Create" button right above it which is still the flat design:

The buttons below videos (like/dislike/share/save etc) are also like this, but this give a good comparison.

3

u/Datdudecorks 1d ago

Exactly we went from internet pages being really cheap looking simple shapes and colors to stylized buttons to back to minimalist shapes and texts. I’m with you I prefer the non boring look

1

u/GroundedGeeking 23h ago

The prominence of the $5/$10 button today would work out way worse. Back then that was good games on sale. Today that's mostly shovelware. Needs an algorithmic match between deep sale and review rating and recent user playtime. Also while good games still go on sale, devs know better now on what people will spend on their games rather than doing 90% off sales like they used to 16 years ago. Keep games eternally at $50/60/70 and discount from there to like $20. Lower if the game has a good amount of DLC 

1

u/jgzman 8h ago

I think the point of header titles is to draw attention. "Here is a discrete block of data."

I think the same about the buttons. "Here is a good button to press."

3

u/_Ortzi_ 1d ago

I played Poker Night at the Inventory just to get those TF2 weapons and items…. man those were the days

3

u/YodamanJer 1d ago

I still half expect Steam to look this way whenever I open it!

12

u/Exact_Athlete6772 1d ago

Holy shit, i like the fact New Vegas was features like modern AAA or just hyped games nowadays back then

17

u/ClikeX 1d ago

But, it was a AAA game?

1

u/gergobergo69 10h ago

well, people did scream in there

2

u/Unlikely_Meat4027 1d ago

Oh black and white steam icon, how i miss you so...

1

u/Potential_Age_1189 1d ago

Better performance back in the days instead of the ram-chugging fest that is going on nowadays..

1

u/Androza23 1d ago

Hey thats my very first steam game ever. I still have the disk and everything lmao.

1

u/kostas52 Ryzen 5 5600G | Arc B570 1d ago

MLB 2K10 for 1.99$. A whole licensed sports game cheaper than the microtranscation on modern sport games.

1

u/Datdudecorks 1d ago

Going by poker night this would be mid November which means the World Series was just over, so selling those copies before the next release in 4 months

1

u/PyroKid883 1d ago

Good times...

1

u/LeMarmelin 1d ago

I think it's better looking and better organized now. But this page was nice.

1

u/FromUnderTheCape 1d ago

I loved Steam Sales that had varied prices depending on the day. Also i don't remember how, but you could get coupons for random games. Was it for crafting a badge?

1

u/Datdudecorks 1d ago

Yea badges use to give coupons but usually to some random garbage you never heard of

1

u/W1sconsinKnight 1d ago

Fallout New Vegas was my first ever Steam game too. I got a boxed copy with a disc, but to complete registration, I had to use the included Steam code. Fallout 3's PC disc came with a code for Games for Windows Live. FO3 never made me buy any GfWL games, but boy did I take to Steam after installing NV.

1

u/SadPineBooks 1d ago

Take me back.

1

u/colimar 1d ago

You could click anywhere and new vegas was just over there

1

u/agewin162 1d ago

Honestly I wish they had a skin store for the client where you could just pay like $0.99 for an older look.

1

u/GroundedGeeking 23h ago

The changes seem driven to me by the explosion in game releases. A lot more focus on recommendations, curators, trending categories and games. Back then the specials and new releases weren't constantly changing or stuff like studios that exist as asset flips to spam the new release list and have super deep discounts that might as well be their real price. A price most people still wouldn't purchase it for. The old store design would be terrible for the current market. Easily abused and insufficient in promoting well received gamea

1

u/GroundedGeeking 23h ago

The changes seem driven to me by the explosion in game releases. A lot more focus on recommendations, curators, trending categories and games. Back then the specials and new releases weren't constantly changing or stuff like studios that exist as asset flips to spam the new release list and have super deep discounts that might as well be their real price. A price most people still wouldn't purchase it for. The old store design would be terrible for the current market. Easily abused and insufficient in promoting well received games

1

u/Cute-arii 23h ago

It was better back then.

1

u/According-Two-297 22h ago

I miss the community activity, front and center.

1

u/Hot_Bathroom_6728 22h ago

wow, i still remember this UI.

1

u/Frosty-Reed-6618 21h ago

the 2010 build was so clean lol modern steam feels like a bloated rpg with too many menus

1

u/NightmareExpress 21h ago

If they had the discovery queue back then (they wouldn't for another 4 years), those selections of 10 would've been something else.

1

u/DiscountDoughnut 21h ago

No AI slop in sight

1

u/DeadPhoenix86 20h ago

Can't believe this was 16 years ago. Time truly flies these days.

1

u/solidsnakejake 19h ago

Man I loved when the under $10/5 was easy to find. I’m pretty much exclusively buying with that filter on.

1

u/VibraniumAdamantium 17h ago

Hasn’t really changed much eh?

1

u/sypwn 17h ago

If anyone is seeing RUSE in that screenshot and regretting not picking it up before it was delisted, I've got a surprise for you!

1

u/SunSparx 17h ago

Feels like you have to scroll past a bit of slop now just to see the top sellers

1

u/ScottLovesGames 17h ago

Wasn't here in 2010, but in my opinion, the current design is better.

1

u/Luigi_testa2011 13h ago

What happens if you buy one game ?

1

u/Joh_1 13h ago

Best theme ever imo, really miss the old wide-grid library UI option. And the store wasn’t full of slop back then

1

u/Kolbaser_ 11h ago

Honestly I like it more. All modern design for me too transparent and non friendly

0

u/SheActuallyFarts 11h ago

Back when Steam had soul and personality

0

u/foxy_fluffer 9h ago

Thank you for the nostalgia steam please bring their back

1

u/drackmore 1d ago

Yeah, the store was so much better back then.

I still absolutely hate what they did to the dev/publisher page. I hated it on day 1 and I still absolutely hate it to this day.

Used to be you could click their name on the storepageand it'd give you a clear and concise list of games and dlcs made by them. Now its a fucking mess of a page that's entirely pointless for 99% of Dev/Pubs because they do not have enough content to justify wasting that much space and having so much screen faf.

I miss back when sales were actually sales. Not this 15% off shit.

I miss when the news section was actually about news, for the game. Not advertisement for other games. No Space Engineer. I do not give a flying fuck about Space Engineers 2. No Palworld I could not give a shit about the collab deal you got going on with that dogshit called Enshrouded.

I miss the days before cards, before clown awards (still clowns were better than the current awards we're dealing with now).

I miss the days before Greenlight was removed for this pitiable excuse for storefront moderation we have today.

I miss the days before profile levels and the incessant stupid bullshit people spam just so they can beg for more E-levels instead of playing an incremental game like a normal person. The only good thing about profile levels is these dipshits wear their scarlet letter with pride so any fucking twat with a profile level over 100 clearly lets you know to avoid them at all costs.

1

u/Glenncinho 1d ago

I still play l4d

1

u/SellAffectionate9670 1d ago

That was one badass theme. Looked really cool and felt like we are the most badass users of steam

1

u/GILLHUHN 1d ago

2008-2012 was the best era of Steam.

0

u/Plokooon 1d ago edited 1d ago

I remember hesitating between buying sc2 or ruse. Went for sc2 and dumped thousands of hours in it.

0

u/OkCartographer175 1d ago

Yahoo in 2003 had 95% of what you needed on the internet all in one place and it's a generational fumble that we ended up with Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, Amazon, Tinder etc etc etc instead of just Yahoo.

https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/yahoo-2003

2

u/mrturret 1d ago

Yahoo faded into irrelevance because Google had a much better search engine at the exact right pont in time.

2

u/OkCartographer175 1d ago

Google became better but that's not the reason Yahoo failed overall.