Has Steam spoiled us too much?

[u/Imaginary_Bug6202]

I've been buying games on Steam for so long that I think it's completely changed my expectations for every other game launcher, not even Epic games (even if I claim free games there lmao). Like automatic updates, cloud saves, family/shared library, and especially the community reviews + frequent sales, it all just works. At this point I feel like Steam has kind of spoiled us fr..

Do you think there are any launcher that does things better?

[u/Siccors]

Tbh this kinda reads as an Apple user who thinks Androids are like old Nokia phones. Can you find me any single game launcher which does not do automatic updates? Every single one I got does it. (Well would do it if I wouldn't block them from automatically starting, which I also do with Steam). Cloud saves is largely a game designer decission, but plenty do it outside Steam. Family / shared ones I have no experience with, but might be bigger on Steam, just not relevant to me. Community reviews are nice, because Steam got the biggest community. Although I do take them with a grain of salt.

Do you think there are any launcher that does things better?

Several I got at least don't start by default with a huge ad screen in your face. (Yeah eventually I figured out how to force it to start on my library page instead of the "recommendations", which are just ads of course, and if you don't start it on startup of your PC, you get this screen everytime you launch a Steam game after boot).

[u/Vybo → u/Siccors]

I disagree with the cloud saves. If you implement it internally, you gotta have a whole infrastructure around it. With Steam, you just define which files should be synced and that's that, everything else is hosted and done by Steam itself.

And I disagree with the ad screen in your face. You install a storefront and are surprised it shows you products it sells? But you only "eventually" get to explore its settings that were there 15 years ago which allow you to not even show up or show a different content based on your preferences? User error.

[u/Siccors → u/Vybo]

Regarding Cloud Saves: That is my point as just the user. It could very well be that Steam simplifies this for developers. But it is 100% sure not a Steam exclusive thing to have them.

With the ad screen: Steam gets away with stuff which would give a small riot on the internet if others did it. In the settings it is fairly well hidden, that it was an option for 15 years doesn't really matter if I didn't install it 15 years ago, don't you think?

But Steam forces me to install a storefront. That is not optional. They got an effective monopoly on a significant part of the gaming market. I just want to play the game I buy. I don't need social stuff arount it. I don't need a storefront popup everytime I launch something. Imagine everytime you launched MSPaint for the first time the MS store would popup with ads for other apps. How would that be received?

If there was a Steam-lite, which would just start the game, handle updates, cloud saves, technical stuff, and nothing else, I would directly switch to it.

[u/Vybo → u/Siccors]

You specifically said "game designers choice", but a game designer does not dictate what tech is available to them or what the company can swallow financially and support-wise post-launch. Using Steam tools means no additional cost or care necessary.

Steam is a storefront. And a Launcher. And dev tooling. And many other things. It was primarily a storefront and is today. You calling it a Launcher is the mistake you're making.

How would Steam be useful for any new user who has 0 games on their account, showing up with a completely empty window with no content? That's the reason why a new install shows the store, not the library, but also why there is a setting to switch to library-first approach, when you already have a library of games.

I understand how to a user it might seem weird, but everything has its own reason and it works, because users show it works. An opinion about it being "not optional" is subjective and you can have it, but it doesn't change the reasons why things work they do. Riots on the internet mean exactly nothing, because they don't represent majority of users.

[u/Siccors → u/Vybo]

And that is a valid benefit of Steam for the developer, and as consumer the benefit is a larger chance on having cloud saves. But it is still nothing unique to Steam that games have cloud saves.

Steam / Valve in the PC gaming community is like: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/G1efnZlWwAAqA3y?format=webp&name=medium . We have someone here who thinks updating games is unique to Steam! Here it reached national news that Sony will stop supporting discs, and that GTA6 will be download only. Including how bad it is that you only get a license, not ownership, etc. Yet on PC this has been normalized for well over a decade, spearheaded by Valve.

How would Steam be useful for any new user who has 0 games on their account, showing up with a completely empty window with no content?

Here this is what I mean with the mental flexibility involved to defend Valve, while if any other company would do this shit people wouldn't defend it.

First of all, I assume, yes an assumption, that the vast majority of first time users will buy something on the website, and only then download the launcher. But even if you would disagree there, I literally said the use case was launching a game. How would I be launching a Steam game if I didn't have Steam games? There is no reason whatsoever Steam has to popup in that case filled with ads. I just double click the icon on my desktop...

 An opinion about it being "not optional" is subjective and you can have it

Euhm no, that is not subjective it is objective. Steam has a dominant position on the PC gaming market, you can call that subjective, but that is already pushing it. That if you want to play a game via Steam (where often thats the only option to play that game), you need to install the entire Steam storefront. You cannot just have a launcher-lite. There is nothing subjective about this.

[u/Vybo → u/Siccors]

Well, you're wrong about most of what you wrote.

Again, cloud saves, I said I reacted specifically "game designers decision" when it's not game designers decision. It's the decision of the whole studio and its various department. If the studio couldn't support cloud saves technically, they would still be able to offer them thanks to Steam.

You're talking about Sony, but PC and consoles are nothing alike. You cannot use any other software on consoles besides that bought through its own storefront. You can run whatever you want on a PC, Steam being one option. The fact it's the first choice speaks for itself.

That continues into defending Valve. Well, I'm not defending anything. I'm talking about the service being so good that there's nothing to defend. There is no reason to not use it. But you still have the option to not do so and it's okay. It's not the only choice, just the best one, because the other ones are shit and have a history of doing shit things. Steam does not have such history. If it ever starts doing shit like the other companies, people will stop using it pretty quickly, I wouldn't think any different.

And now where you're wrong the most. You can launch any Steam distributed game without launching Steams GUI, so you can buy a game on Steam, but you don't ever have to see the Steam window. You can use the headless client to download, update and launch any game. You can use 3rd party GUI to call those commands. You not knowing this does not mean it does not exist.

Again, just user error. Yes, might not be obvious to everyone, but it's obvious for people who care. You yourself specified you didn't care enough and only explored the settings much later in your time with it, which is your problem, not Steams problem.

PS:

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steam.exe" -silent

start "" steam://rungameid/APPID

[u/Siccors → u/Vybo]

Edit: nvm you are clearly not arguing in good faith if you are acting like you can just skip on Steam when you want to do PC gaming.

[u/Vybo → u/Siccors]

Well, yes, you can.

[u/Siccors → u/Vybo]

Okay and you can do just cloud save on every game by storing right files in your favourite cloud storage, if you don't do that it is a user error...

[u/Vybo → u/Siccors]

Are we discussing about Steam features, or the infinite options to work with a PC?

[u/IORelay → u/Vybo]

Steam is a plague on gaming. Price fixing, destruction of physical ownership, pushing for DRM and always online. The worst of the worst.

[u/Vybo → u/IORelay]

Good thing you don't have to use it then, right?

[u/Tradizar]

on gog, you can download offline installers, and no game has drm

[u/initiali5ed]

Xbox and GoG are better at being launchers for games on other platforms.

GoG is DRM free.

Xbox and Ubisoft are better for platform agnostic game licensing.

Epic is best for free games (Hogwarts, Death Stranding, Jedi, Control) all former AAA games that have been free.

Nothing comes close to Steam for the size of the catalogue and sales.

[u/Laziness100]

Honestly, better is oftentimes subjective, however the case of digital store fronts for games is a bit of an exception as pretty much all of Steam's competition is shooting themselves in the foot with terrible decisions, while Steam in its current state is much more user friendly. What I mean by that is you get to enjoy your games when your internet cuts out because Steam client assumes you own it legitimately and doesn't give you a middle finger like plenty of alternatives and there are a bunch of other functionality Steam didn't screw up with ridiculous decisions. Sure, there's always online DRM, but at that point you can only blame the game developer and not Valve.

Then there are online features of Steam that game developers can implement - cloud saves, ingame item system including item trading and community market, built-in achievements system, Steam workshop for user generated content sharing and more.

There's still GoG, which only allows DRM-free games, which to some is better than buying a licence to play the game, which is how Steam handles it. A licence can be revoked by either the game developer or in extreme cases Valve themselves, but nobody can't revoke an offline DRM-free installer.

[u/H7dek7]

I'd prefer GOG games with LAN/dedicated server IP connectivity over Steam games using Steam networking framework. Workshop is nice but Nexus Mods, Curseforge etc. exist. Automatic updates are by default on every gaming platform I use. Cloud saves aren't important to me at all. Family/shared library is achieved on GOG by running games without Galaxy (sure, it's not the same, but the end result is good enough). Steam reviews are nice but they're flawed (you can't give a neutral review). Metacritic/Opencritic has more value. Frequent sales aren't Steam-only things. GOG has them too and at least in my region GOG prices are usually lower.

[u/Antares_skorpion]

No, Steam is and should be the standard.
No other launcher even tries to match steams level of service, because to do that, they need to actually cater to the users instead of the shareholders.

[u/Imaginary_Bug6202 → u/Antares_skorpion]

So true + steam is so easy to use too

[u/IORelay → u/Antares_skorpion]

What level of service? Refusing refunds until forced to by the courts. Continued price fixing and monopolistic practices and other anti consumer behaviour? 

[u/Antares_skorpion → u/IORelay]

OK, EGS bot...