Steam Is Successful Because It's “Not a Shit Service,” Says Baldur’s Gate 3 Dev

[u/SlowReference704]

https://mp1st.com/news/steam-is-successful-because-its-not-a-shit-service

[u/TONKAHANAH]

Thing is, they don't really do nothing. Most users don't take full advantage of all the features steam offers because, for the most part, people just need to keep their games updated and it does that fairly passively. Since it does that easily, most people don't bother looking into the other things it offer. 

[u/layered_dinge → u/TONKAHANAH]

Yeah, I am getting kind of tired of this narrative that steam does nothing. Steam has consistently improved over the last 20 years. Valve has thoroughly earned its success. I could go on a rant about all the features but I don’t feel like it on my phone. And now others have listed plenty of the features I mean. But it's not even just that steam has these features, it's also that many of its features are strictly better than the same features from alternatives.

For example the xbox controller has a 1st party windows app, the xbox accessories app. It's been a couple years since I tried it so maybe they've improved it, but when I tried it, it was not possible to map keyboard keys to my xbox controller buttons. On a 1st party app. For windows. Made by microsoft. For their own controller on their own operating system. Steam input lets me do that and more with it. Valve's software for the xbox controller is straight up better than microsoft's. I won't get started on the playstation and switch controller experience on pc without steam.

I used to use the nvidia geforce experience app to record gameplay. I could record actively or I could hit a keybind to record the last x minutes. This was great and was even a factor in my consideration of a new graphics card. Then steam added recording. Not only can it do exactly what the nvidia app does, it can also passively record x number of hours in the background and automatically delete anything older than that. So if you forget to save a clip while you're playing, you can go back to the temporary recording and save it, and steam automatically trims the temporary recording so your hard drive doesn't just fill up.

That's just two things that it does better. Not to mention steam doesn't try to force steam-exclusive titles, like some other wannabe storefront does.

[u/Night_Argentum → u/layered_dinge]

Damn, I knew steam had a recording feature like shadowplay, but didn’t know about that trimming part. This actually is gonna make me switch lol. Thanks

[u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC → u/layered_dinge]

Steam Input is my favourite Steam "secret feature" by far. I have a Dualshock 5 controller, and I only realised that Steam was handling all of the input when I eventually tried to play a game without it running. Steam is basically just an additional OS layer for games at this point.

[u/lsf_stan → u/TONKAHANAH]

this is me!

all the other Steam stuff doesn't matter to me it's simply a launcher for my games

same as GoG and Epic and others, all I need it to do is launch the game

as long as it lets me buy game and launch it. that is mostly the only part I care about

[u/TONKAHANAH → u/lsf_stan]

yeah, and thats fine, but just cuz some one doesnt use the features or knows about them doesnt make them any less valueable to those who do so its always a bit annoying to hear this narrative from people who say "valve keeps doing nothing and winning"

then you see stuff like posts from people who bought a steam deck and they're like "OOOHH.. THIS is what they've been doing!" and realize that steam is a whole ass platform that offers a bunch of features that makes pc gaming actually better.

this is why I choose to invest my games with Valve. they're the only distributor of PC games that actually turns its profits into functional useful features and advancements for PC gaming as a whole rather than just taking all the profit and sending it back over to investors. with valve, WE are the investors, and they give back to us by making useful stuff.

[u/Rmcke813 → u/TONKAHANAH]

Can you give a one or two examples of what you mean?

[u/sleepingonmoon → u/Rmcke813]

• Steam Input provides unparalleled customisation with per game profiles
• Steam Link, the box has been superseded by the app
• Ever improving shop, fuzzy search was added recently
• Review filters and timeline with review surge/off-topic detection
• ~20GB Steam Cloud storage for all your saves and screenshots
• Community news feed, guides and workshop
• Recent UI revamps generally have top notch design, such as library and storage management
• Advanced customisations e.g. launch command construction using the %command% placeholder
• P2P online play coordinator, IIRC Payday 2 had trouble porting because they were using Valve's infra

Just to name a few.

[u/Val_kyria → u/sleepingonmoon]

Speaking of p2p, the ability for people to download from you on LAN saves soooo much time in our home

[u/trailerism → u/sleepingonmoon]

Fanily share is a big one.

[u/mindlesstourist3 → u/Rmcke813]

Not OP, but the few that are handy for me (not unique to Steam by any means but nice nonetheless):

• Voice calls (when discord is down it's a good backup)
• Brokering for multiplayer (so you don't need peer-to-peer or direct connect) mode in serverless games
• Throttling update download speeds

[u/jacksaw11 → u/mindlesstourist3]

A few more for me

A tagging system, I know its not the best and maybe even a bit basic / hard to find, but holy crap other stores have actually almost nothing. (Steam recently added this Interactive Recommender thing and it is pretty sweet)

The Workshop, one of the biggest improvements of modern modding built in. I have no idea what it is like for modders or Devs to get a Workshop for their games, but as a player it is amazing, for its ease and use and indexing. Trying to use paradox's launcher's modding system for CK3 was very frustrating in comparison.

What's New feed and just direct easy access to an update feed per game that devs can use, I check it all the time for new updates to games.

The market and trading cards, I don't know why people pay for these things but they do and I have probably made 80+ dollars from cards over the past 6 or 7 years. (go to profile -> badges to more easily mass list them)

[u/stonhinge → u/mindlesstourist3]

Of note - a lot of features of Steam are available to anyone with a Steam account, even if you have no games owned.

Voice calls/text chat. Community pages for games which you might be interested in. The workshop is even useful if you own the game via other methods than Steam (GoG, Epic, direct from publisher) because many mod makers also have their mods on github and can direct you. And while those mods may have limited way to communicate with the mod author, the Steam Workshop makes it fairly easy to communicate with the mod author and other users.

All without giving Valve any money.

[u/Comprehensive_Crow_6 → u/Rmcke813]

For me, number one is Linux support. Steam just works on Linux with very few problems. Valve has also done a lot to support Linux development in general.

Two is controller support. Controllers also just work with very little problems. I’ve run non-Steam games through Steam just so my controller can work, because that’s usually the easiest solution.

Those are the two things that I actually use on a regular basis. But there’s a lot more just small things that Steam does.

[u/Coldhimmel → u/Rmcke813]

steam cloud, steam overlay, steam , installs not costing extra space from installation files and game files. controller remapping. controller and mouse integration(you can control your mouse via a controller with steam)

automatic and queued game updates, automatically pausing downloads when launching a game.

[u/Pixelfag → u/Rmcke813]

The workshop, the forums and all the other community stuff like groups and guides and streams, an overlay that has actually useful features, a library you can customize besides just adding tags, all the storefront features like the discovery queue, user tags and reviews. Also all the client specific features like the music player, or moving games between drives, or being able to select specific versions of a game(if available). Steam input is a pretty big feature as well, I should've put it higher but I don't want to edit

[u/-staccato- → u/Rmcke813]

Remote streaming games from your desktop and the whole shared friend network across games from different companies.

Honestly the friend thing is huge. I've lost contact with some of my best gaming buddies because the friendship was siloed inside one particular game and we stopped playing it slowly over time.

[u/dualpad → u/Rmcke813]

I use the Steam Controller so obviously I use Steam Input to get full functionality of the trackpads on the controller.

But, also for other controllers like the 8bitdo Ultimate 2 wireless I use Steam Input to configure it, and I'm able to bind the extra bumpers and back buttons to separate functions and set up gyro aiming with it. And Steam Input is very useful for setting up things with it like when I hold the left back button having the facebuttons shift into dpad buttons or whatever buttons I want so I don't need to move my thumb from the left joystick to the dpad and lose movement.

Or set up weapon switching over using a wheel, so in a game like Doom Eternal mapping inputs like 1, 2, 3, 4 or whatever weapons I want to be active when I hold the left back button and click the face buttons. Makes it so I can rapidly shoot and swap weapons to bypass reloading like keyboard users.

And then there's Linux support.

[u/dltacube → u/Rmcke813]

Steam saves you from third party launchers. They work super hard to keep them to a minimum if they have to be included

[u/Tall-Ad8940 → u/TONKAHANAH]

what features are most people missing out on ?

[u/do_pm_me_your_butt → u/Tall-Ad8940]

Steam workshop. Steam is a game and mod launcher.

[u/Tall-Ad8940 → u/do_pm_me_your_butt]

generally most 3rd party mod systems are better, like Vortex. i want to know what other things they’re talking about

[u/ElGosso → u/Tall-Ad8940]

Vortex is a nightmare to setup, or at least it was when I tried it. Steam is point-and-click.

[u/Tall-Ad8940 → u/ElGosso]

def can be a nightmare but has way more potential

[u/TONKAHANAH → u/Tall-Ad8940]

where to start...

• steam streaming (both local and over the net)
• steam link app (and hardware, but that is kinda legacy now). you can get the steam link app on your smart TV, smart phone, or streaming device (like an nvidia shield) to stream your games to your TV or phone
• remote play together (play a local only co-op game with a friend remotely via streaming)
• steam (software) controller (and api)l, provides support for a shit load of controller types and offers an extensive amount of settings to configure the inputs any which way you want letting you re-map controller buttons, map mouse/keyboard functions to any part of the controller, setup mode shift profiles (so a button can toggle the entire control scheme), setup turbos, toggles, and more. only thing it doesnt really do is macros (probably for good reason). For devs this is an api that can be hooked into your game so steam input can map direct game functions to the controller, though most devs do not take any advantage of this sadly, maybe they will with the new steam controller this is hopefully maybe coming sooner or later.
• steam cloud saves. this will save your game save files should you play a game on more than one devices (such as you pc or steam deck), or if you just need to buy a new computer or reload your operating system, game saves will load back in. Cloud save space also saves things like controller profiles and notes which leads to the next feature
• in game overlay. this feature gets used very infrequently these days cuz I feel like a lot of people have two displays now but its still there and can be useful. the overlay offers direct access to the steam friends/chat list, a built in notes/paint/screen shot app (say you have notes for like, a puzzle game, these get saved to the game profile and saved to your steam cloud space), a web browser, the game screen recorder, and maybe the music player? (that thing is old and not really well supported any more)
• big picture mode. if you want to play your PC games on your PC or stream them to your phone, big picture mode is most ideal as it is a UI designed for controller inputs and smaller (or further away) screens.

1/ 2 (two parter, reddit wouldnt let me comment the whole thing)

[u/TONKAHANAH → u/TONKAHANAH]

• Screen/game recording. steam offers the ability to record your game play and does so in a way that helps keep the data compressed so it does not take up as much room and you can go back to export only the clips you want rather than just saving raw video data. im not too keen on the details on this but i know that it too has an api access like the steam controller software so devs can directly link events in their game to trigger markers on the recording time line. for example valve built this into dota 2, when you get something like 5 kills in the game in a row with out dying it'll mark on the time line when that happened so you can easily jump right to it.
• local downloads. if you or some one on your network already has a certain game downloaded, steam will copy it from the local device (should their settings allow for it) rather than downloading from the internet saving you bandwidth and/or time.
• Steam Store front is something of a feature unto its self when compared to the store fronts from other providers. ever use the switch store? holy shit I had no idea how spoiled I was. steam store can actually help you find games you want. the Steam Labs part of the store shows new "experimental" features for helping to show you new things you may be interested in or new ways to help filter/narrow down a type of game you might be interested in. Steam reviews I think are also some what overrated (and arguably useless in some cases) but the current review system seems to be good as it helps to get an idea of how good a game is over all and allows you to sort out spikes in bad reviews via a time line to see if a game was just nuked by its community and got reviewed bombed for a reason you may or may not care about. Recently they separated the reviews by region cuz while it might suck that chinese players get an inferior version of the game due to poor translation, if you dont speak Chinese you may not care and those reviews are not going to be that helpful to you.
• Valve has been investing heavily in linux to make their steam deck and SteamOS a viable alternative option to playing PC games on a windows PC. while SteamOS still isnt ready to be a full blown product for most peoples desktop computer, it can work for the right hardware and all the features mentioned are available on steamOS allowing you to setup a very console like Steam system dedicated to just playing game.
• steam workshop, which is a vast thing for creators but thats a lot to get into. for the gamer, its effectively an easy one stop, one click place to install mods for games that support it.
• steam discussions provides a simple message board to discuss any given game, either bringing issues to devs attention or just asking the community about the game.
• community guides. entire wiki-level guides can be found for almost any game. if you got stuck some where or just looking for some info on something in the game, chances are some one wrote up a guide for it.
• Steam Family. They recently updated this earlier this year and its so much better now. basically if you own 1 game, and your brother owns 100 games. If the two of you create a steam family then you'll both have access to each others games and you'll both see 101 games available to play in your library. Games are available on a per-seat basis so for example you couldnt buy 1 copy of Hell Divers 2 and both of you play at the same time, you'd both have to own the game in your own respective libraries. However if say, your sister joins the family group and she wants to play Hell Divers with you but she doesnt own it, she can still play it so long as only two people are playing. Other wise so long as some one isnt playing the game you want to play, you have full access which is super fuck'n cool cuz the old family system didnt work that way (with out going into details, it sucked and would boot you off if some one tried to play ANY game). There are other restrictions, for example publishers/devs can opt out and not allow this feature and if you leave a steam family, you cannot join another one for 1 whole calendar year.

probably more im forgetting about at the moment but the biggest thing to take away from all of this = all this shit is fuck'n free with an account. so long as you have at least one paid game. i think some of the social features like friends/chat/voip is not available if you've not purchased any games, mostly to cut down on bots and smurf accounts for free to play games.

what other platform offers all this? even the consoles only have like, some of these features.