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Why nobody bothers to improve their game platforms, while Steam improves despite being THE leading platform (Valve revamped soundtrack feature)
- Thread starter Arthands
- Start date
Indeed, I wish as I was pretty generous here. Wasn't there a better library view in 2011 and the possibility for custom grid ? Yeah I think so. I take that back. 2009 it is.
To be fair on console the platform tends to get better with each console lifecycle, so you don't see the same progressive iteration there.
I don't use Steam but on Playstation there's not actually a lot that I feel I want, that I don't have in terms of operating system functionality. I'd really like to be able to gift games to my friends, that seems like quite a rudimentary feature with obvious benefits to the platform holder, but that aside I don't want for much. If someone told me they were improving the sound track feature on PS4, I can't say I'd care. Maybe I'm being silly, but why would you even buy a soundtrack on these platforms and not a music distribution platform like Amazon, Itunes, or simply listening to them on Spotify?
I don't use Steam but on Playstation there's not actually a lot that I feel I want, that I don't have in terms of operating system functionality. I'd really like to be able to gift games to my friends, that seems like quite a rudimentary feature with obvious benefits to the platform holder, but that aside I don't want for much. If someone told me they were improving the sound track feature on PS4, I can't say I'd care. Maybe I'm being silly, but why would you even buy a soundtrack on these platforms and not a music distribution platform like Amazon, Itunes, or simply listening to them on Spotify?
EGS is really bad, not sure what positive things you can say about it to be honest.
Steam UI is a great idea but horrible execution for me, and it didn't address the biggest problem with the platform. And neither did the addition of a separate soundtracks section rather than soundtracks awkwardly being handled as DLC for their given game.
Steam has a curation problem. Valve aren't short of the cash to properly moderate their own platform and cull the masses of terrible asset flip games that hit their platform daily. The fact that some of the homophobic, sexist, racist content on Steam even manages to get through the net and onto the service is a disgrace.
Most of this stems from the admirable effort of Greenlight to attempt to open up game publishing to as many as possible. But it's clear neither Greenlight or its successor are working, and Valve are clearly unwilling to put the effort in to make them work and keep their platform consistently high quality.
And all of this isn't even going into the frankly ludicrous cut Steam takes from all game sales simply through the virtue of having a defacto monopoly on digital distribution.
Steam has a curation problem. Valve aren't short of the cash to properly moderate their own platform and cull the masses of terrible asset flip games that hit their platform daily. The fact that some of the homophobic, sexist, racist content on Steam even manages to get through the net and onto the service is a disgrace.
Most of this stems from the admirable effort of Greenlight to attempt to open up game publishing to as many as possible. But it's clear neither Greenlight or its successor are working, and Valve are clearly unwilling to put the effort in to make them work and keep their platform consistently high quality.
And all of this isn't even going into the frankly ludicrous cut Steam takes from all game sales simply through the virtue of having a defacto monopoly on digital distribution.
You mean the same cut Sony, Microsoft, Google, Apple and Nintendo take? Why do all these threads end up the same way?
I might be in the minority but the steam library layout along with other store layouts are garbage
Wish I could go back to the old library layout.
Origin and Uplay have been getting worse over time, from the perspective of someone that adds their games to Steam as "non-Steam Games" to take advantage of features like Steam Input (to use a controller of my choosing) and Steam Link/Remote Play (to stream to other displays).
They used to integrate fairly seamlessly, but now the experience is much worse. Origin even removed features that made it integrate well (quit Origin once the game exits).
EGS games used to work just fine without the client but now requires that games are launched via it directly.
You forgot to say that Steam is "bloated" with features like these, and that you prefer more "lightweight clients" like EGS - even though EGS actually runs horribly on lower-spec systems, while Steam is fine.
Wait until you have more than five games on either service and you'll start to appreciate Steam more.
The EGS library is already terrible to navigate if all you did was claim the games they've been giving away over the past year.
EDIT: Okay, it's not worth arguing over. I don't need an anxiety trigger from people jumping down my throat because they disagree with my interpretation of a multimillion dollar gaming platform. Do and say what you wish.
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Steam has had gifting for a long time afaik. It's just restricted for cross region gifts so that people don't abuse region pricing.
Amazon and iTunes don't offer lossless music and also can't include art/liner notes. The only comparable platform is Bandcamp and Steam is often a cheaper solution because of pre-order bundles, sales, etc. I'm not gonna go out of my way to buy a soundtrack on Steam, but for the ones I already have, this is a pretty big improvement in usability.
If I want to listen to music I'll use Spotify.
GOG 2.0 has improved more than Steam has in years imo.
GOG 2.0 has improved more than Steam has in years imo.
I guess if you have no other way to listen to music on your computer Steam can let you do that now...
I can't believe it took them this long to stop treating soundtracks like DLC to be honest. I'm always happy when devs allow more people to legally buy soundtracks for their games. (Although to be honest most people just take the music from the files lol)
I can't believe it took them this long to stop treating soundtracks like DLC to be honest. I'm always happy when devs allow more people to legally buy soundtracks for their games. (Although to be honest most people just take the music from the files lol)
Come on, really? There are a million ways of improving discoverability built-in into Steam. Most of the "asset flips" are effectively invisible to normal users since they don't get to the top new releases page. And all the stuff about race to the bottom, etc. can be found elsewhere. Indies having to discount their games to 1 dollar on the Switch in order to get featured, ring a bell?
Free games every week on EGS, leading to people just waiting for games to be free there instead of buying them. And the stuff about "very few people buy games full price on Steam..." would require some receipts if you have them, by the way.
Uhm?
This is wrong on so many levels.
MHW base sales were huge at release and MHW Iceborn sales are still huge.
RDR2 is in the top selling list since its release and only had 20% off.
Daemon X Machina is in the top selling list as is the newest Dead Cells DLC.
Temtem was there at release.
This is nonsense, there are full price releases topping the charts all the time. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.
Maybe OP should have focused more on that instead of putting a ridiculous "steam is literally the only one updating their store!" disclaimer
This is the internet, people will latch onto the hyperbole first if there's one around and here we had a spicy one for sure.
It downloads FLAC files to your PC. You can do whatever you want with them.
This update now makes soundtracks their own category rather than DLC items for games that you had to own first.
It puts them all in one location, adds better integration and a nicer display for albums, instead of having to manually pull the files out of the game directory.
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or trolling any more.
This is why so many PC gamers abandoned ResetEra entirely.
Well, here in ERA when someone makes a thread about a new Steam feature, it is mostly ignored.
Steam has over 40k games but when a game gets removed people notice right away, while on EGS Oxygen Not Included and EGS exclusive Paranoia gets removed and nobody notices for literal weeks.
Having significantly less games than your competitor doesn't automatically mean you'll have better visibility when your store's discovery tools are horrendous.
yep, this thread would have gone under in 5 mins if the title didn't mention the word "leading"
Why do some people have such hard-on against options?
Shocking.
If you think this, then you really have no idea what you are talking about.
Shocking.
SteamLink 2015
SteamLink App for TVs 2017
SteamLink App for Mobile 2018
Proton 2018
New SteamChat 2018
SteamTV 2018
New Update of SteamPlay 2018.
Steam Publisher/Developer Pages 2018.
SteamVR 2015
SteamBroadcast 2014
Steam Controller Customization 2015
New 18+ Policy for the store 2018.
Sure. "For some reason (EGS) helped making all of that. All that stagnation.
In B4 "I do not use all of these features!"
Yes, they charge for online play. That's kinda neither here or there though, when the point really is that they're all drowning in ecosystem money relative to the other publishers that are trying to stand up a platform late game against the foothold Steam already has.
They absolutely do improve at (and above) the rate of Steam however, even if the nature of the generational resets means that they can also lose some of the progression during generation changes. Steam's main two UI revamps (Big Picture and the recent UI refresh) were stuck in development seemingly forever, with not a lot to show for the time upon release. XB1 is on like, it's 4th major UI overhaul so far? Each with notable library and platform feature accompanying them.
There are definitely things Steam has pushed forwards on that the consoles lack, but this thread is citing something like sonudtracks moving from being DLC, to purchasable stand-alone. Meanwhile I can subscribe to a service and stream games direct to my mobile from either console platform without requiring my own hardware to facilitate it. There's stuff like Mixer being built directly into the UI seamlessly, with the ability to share the controls with your viewers. There's platform-wide LFG functionality for all games. Hell, MS even has Gamepass, plus Game Bar and a ton of other advancements on PC all materializing over the last few years from the ground up. To act like Steam is making all these major improvements within their ecosystems and other platform holders aren't comparatively requires being extremely selective.
You can play your own music through Spotify if you want. Spotify definitely doesn't have everything and stuff gets removed once in a while for whatever licensing reasons.
I wasn't talking about features... Just saying Steam is ugly AF.
Yeah it's super weird. Reminds me bit of the Netflix on Switch discussion tbh "why would I want it when I can already use other devices for it?". Though personally I'd be more likely to listen soundtracks on Steam than watch Netflix with Switch. This seems like a fine addition, that will definitely get some use even if not from the majority of active Steam users. It's still another useful feature in the service for those who want it, nothing has been lost because of it. So the negativity is surprising.
I have so many games on both. EGS design looks better. Steam is hideous.
Epic Games has like 2-3 times more employees, Ubisoft has like 20 times more, EA has around the same, Blizzard like 10 times more... And guess what all of them have unlimited money like Valve. Shocking right :D
Well, OP framing the title and post that way and leaving the actual subject of their thread in parenthesis probably wasn't the best idea.
Ask indie devs who don't get spotlight on console manufacturer events how they feel about console stores :D
Even your list has a giant gap from 2015 to 2018.
Yes Valve has done stuff. But I am just arguing they have suddenly done a lot of front facing stuff very quickly in the last year. And its been great to see Valve be more public and communicative.
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A lot of the 2018 thing (and well current 2019 thing) is based on continuous improvement on some of the previous projects that keeps improving (such as Steam Link progression).
Steam is the only PC-based platform that has consistently added features and functions that meaningfully improve the experience of gaming on PC. GOG is making an interesting move with Galaxy that has potential to do the same. Every other competitor seems content with the bare minimum of functionality while some of them can't even pass that lowest of bars.
Regarding MHW, that doesn't mean all of those sales were directly from Steam, as the post suggested. I'm not claiming I'm in any majority but I certainly don't buy day one/pre-release games from Steam when I could get them up to 20% off elsewhere.
For RDR, I'm not sure if the top selling list only counts games bought from Steam directly or not.
Top Selling list is only through Steam (and is revenue based instead of copies based, so higher priced games have an advantage).
I have no idea and have been wondering this for awhile. EA, Ubi etc have so much money while their platforms are terrible in comparison.
A30% cut is so huge a number I really don't think investing in your platform is a bad deal.
A30% cut is so huge a number I really don't think investing in your platform is a bad deal.
More like 2015 -2016
Jan(?) 2017 - Steam Input
Jun 2017 - Steam Direct
Aug(?) 2017 - OpenVR
Mai 2018 - Steam Link for Android
Aug 2018 - Proton
2017 was also the year we first got glimps of one of that quickly released stuff last year like the revamped library, cf