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The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

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Jan 21, 2023
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Bundles were an interesting thing when it was about gettingg a bunch of games for 30 dollars while helping charity, which was interesting. Then Humble Bundle decided to get a political stance and ruined everything. Thankfully you can make it so HB gets $0 from a Bundle purchase, which is what I always do when I get one from them. 50% for charity and 50% for the devs/publishers.
Fanatical might have interesting bundles every now and then, but anything other than that is just a waste. I admit I don't know how good Steam's coverage for currencies is worldwide, but they accept local debit and paypal in most places, so it should be fine to just get stuff from them. I don't know how these sites who sell bundles with like 12 or so low-effort bottom feeder games make a profit. I mean, it's not even a window for indies, ichtio is a better platform for that. It's even below your average dollar store experience.
 

Tacgnol

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Fanatical might have interesting bundles every now and then, but anything other than that is just a waste. I admit I don't know how good Steam's coverage for currencies is worldwide, but they accept local debit and paypal in most places, so it should be fine to just get stuff from them. I don't know how these sites who sell bundles with like 12 or so low-effort bottom feeder games make a profit. I mean, it's not even a window for indies, ichtio is a better platform for that. It's even below your average dollar store experience.

There are people that buy bundles purely to increase their steam game count as a weird flex.
 

Modron

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Wonder how those changes will affect third party sites that sell keys provided by publishers like Greenmangaming, Fanatical, and Humblebundle. The death of bundling? Lower cost preorders elsewhere going the way of the dodo?
 

Hirato

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Codex 2012 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Bundles were an interesting thing when it was about gettingg a bunch of games for 30 dollars while helping charity, which was interesting. Then Humble Bundle decided to get a political stance and ruined everything. Thankfully you can make it so HB gets $0 from a Bundle purchase, which is what I always do when I get one from them. 50% for charity and 50% for the devs/publishers.
Fanatical might have interesting bundles every now and then, but anything other than that is just a waste. I admit I don't know how good Steam's coverage for currencies is worldwide, but they accept local debit and paypal in most places, so it should be fine to just get stuff from them. I don't know how these sites who sell bundles with like 12 or so low-effort bottom feeder games make a profit. I mean, it's not even a window for indies, ichtio is a better platform for that. It's even below your average dollar store experience.
I also like that I can allocate portions to individual devs.

I've done that a few times for particularly scummy devs that made something that piqued my interest.
I got they game, they got no money, and I didn't even have to consider piracy!
Best Deal!
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Wonder how those changes will affect third party sites that sell keys provided by publishers like Greenmangaming, Fanatical, and Humblebundle. The death of bundling? Lower cost preorders elsewhere going the way of the dodo?
Also, key sellers, they are the only way to truly feel like you are browsing games in a store digitally. These homogenized price stores all over have ruined shops already.
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/portal-writ...t-valves-flat-structure-makes-it-a-challenge/

Portal writer Erik Wolpaw still wants to make Portal 3, but Valve's 'flat structure' makes it a challenge​

More people at Valve need to get behind it.

Valve's allergy to the number three continues. While the desire for a third Portal game might not be quite as powerful as the hunger for Half-Life 3 (or even just Episode 3), the mind-bending puzzle series continues to have plenty of fans eager to see it continue, including Portal writer Erik Wolpaw. Unfortunately, the likelihood of another sequel remains hard to gauge.

Wolpaw has advocated for Portal 3 before(opens in new tab), hoping to inspire action in the company to which he returned as a part-time contractor back in 2019 after a stint at Double Fine. In December he even revealed that he had a "starting point" for Portal 3(opens in new tab), but that this didn't mean Valve had committed to developing it. Four months on, it seems that not much has changed.

In an interview with Simon Parkin on the My Perfect Console podcast(opens in new tab), Wolpaw explained the difficulties in getting the sequel off the ground. "In a flat structure like Valve, there is an opportunity cost to doing anything. Whatever is going on at Valve right now requires the dedication and participation of the people working on it—and it's voluntary."

So there needs to be enough people at Valve willing to work on Portal 3. But in the meantime, Wolpaw is going to keep pushing for it and—jokingly—giving Valve a hard time. "The people who could be disturbed by it internally understand that it's just me joking around," he added.

A source of frustration for fans is that there have been long periods of time where Valve hasn't seemingly been developing anything else, so why not Portal 3? Or Half-Life 3? But Wolpaw defends his employer.

"Valve is not a giant company. I think people sometimes think it is because of the outsized influence of Steam, but it's not really that many people. It takes manpower to keep Dota going, it takes manpower to keep CSGO going. And the freeform nature of Valve means that there are a lot of experiments that simply fail. So things are happening—if you were inside Valve, you would think that stuff was always going on, because it is."

And Valve has clearly been busy lately, what with the launch of the Steam Deck and development of Counter-Strike 2(opens in new tab). And there's Steam itself, which remains the most important piece of software Valve has ever designed or maintained.

"As much I enjoy the things I worked on at Valve and my time at Valve, and it's important to me, if I had to choose between Valve's games and Steam—which I feel is the most democratising technology that ever came out, to allow people to create games, game creators to actually make games and get them in front of people—I guess I would choose Steam," said Wolpaw.

So there will always be things competing for attention at Valve. "It's a manpower problem," said Wolpaw. "You have to pick what you're going to work on and time is limited."
 

Caim

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Kinda funny how a company with a few hundred employees whose worth is around $10 billion is still run like a small studio.
 
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Kinda funny how a company with a few hundred employees whose worth is around $10 billion is still run like a small studio.
The priority is to keep Steam, the client, running. It's a real triumph that it works as well as it does, and it's as flexible as it is. People take it for granted but it's great.
 

cvv

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Codex+ Now Streaming!
That flat structure of theirs sounds fun on paper and the employees must have the fucking time of their lives lounging around in beanbags, sipping artisan latte. But I have this insistent feeling if all companies worked like that civilization would've fallen apart decades ago.
 

Caim

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It would be frustrating to work at tbh.
Yeah, that's why it's kinda funny that they're making so much money essentially doing nothing.
The priority is to keep Steam, the client, running. It's a real triumph that it works as well as it does, and it's as flexible as it is. People take it for granted but it's great.
I wonder what percentage of employees is actually involved with keeping Steam running, how many are actually updating the games (you could probably fit the people who do actual work on TF2 in a pair of sedans with room to spare).
That flat structure of theirs sounds fun on paper and the employees must have the fucking time of their lives lounging around in beanbags, sipping artisan latte. But I have this insistent feeling if all companies worked like that civilization would've fallen apart decades ago.
They're located in Bellevue, Washington, so that should tell you what kind of people work there.

Though it would be monumental to watch Valve collapse under its own dead weight, without it being a Gaben joke.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth

A complete walkthrough of Valve's forgotten text-based adventure game based in the Half-Life 2 universe, Half-Life 2: PHP, easily both the most forgotten and hardest Half-Life game around!
 
Joined
Jan 21, 2023
Messages
3,001
It would be frustrating to work at tbh.
Yeah, that's why it's kinda funny that they're making so much money essentially doing nothing.
The priority is to keep Steam, the client, running. It's a real triumph that it works as well as it does, and it's as flexible as it is. People take it for granted but it's great.
I wonder what percentage of employees is actually involved with keeping Steam running, how many are actually updating the games (you could probably fit the people who do actual work on TF2 in a pair of sedans with room to spare).
That flat structure of theirs sounds fun on paper and the employees must have the fucking time of their lives lounging around in beanbags, sipping artisan latte. But I have this insistent feeling if all companies worked like that civilization would've fallen apart decades ago.
They're located in Bellevue, Washington, so that should tell you what kind of people work there.

Though it would be monumental to watch Valve collapse under its own dead weight, without it being a Gaben joke.
Being the guy who is in charge of looking after the app and having it up all the time is like being the vampire killer in your town.
Have you seen any vampires around? No? that's it.
 

Caim

Arcane
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The priority is to keep Steam, the client, running. It's a real triumph that it works as well as it does, and it's as flexible as it is. People take it for granted but it's great.
I wonder what percentage of employees is actually involved with keeping Steam running, how many are actually updating the games (you could probably fit the people who do actual work on TF2 in a pair of sedans with room to spare).
Being the guy who is in charge of looking after the app and having it up all the time is like being the vampire killer in your town.
Have you seen any vampires around? No? that's it.
I reckon that there's a bit more to the job than to just check if Steam is still up, since they do all sorts of promotions and there's the occasional update, but I doubt that they need all of Valve for that.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
You can pin windows on top of the game now, useful for reading notes and such: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/3686801719529689367
Steam Desktop Update
Steam Client Beta has just been updated with new features and improvements

Hello! We’ve just updated the
Steam Client Beta
with new features and improvements to the Steam Desktop experience. We’re excited to get these features into your hands for testing, so please check it out and let us know what you think. Here's a quick overview of what's new:


fe79997c99b1de3969883bea2ec789bdb5aabe50.png



Big changes under the hood...
Some of the biggest changes in this update aren’t immediately visible; much of the work went into changing how we share code across the Steam Desktop Client, Big Picture mode, and Steam Deck. These changes also mean a quicker implementation and iteration of new features. One example of this is the new Local Network Transfer update, which shipped simultaneously in the Steam Client and Steam Deck.

And small changes everywhere else
This update also brings targeted visual and usability improvements across Steam - we've gone through and updated dialogs, menus, fonts, and colors. The main Steam header, Settings, and the game server browser are just a few examples of spots with refreshed UI.

In-Game Overlay
We’ve overhauled the In-Game Overlay completely. Originally created to be a quick way to chat with friends or check on game-related questions or content, we’ve built a brand-new user interface, adding new utility and allowing for more customizability.


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The new
toolbar
gives you access to anything you may need in the middle of a game – friends chat, achievements progress, guides, discussions, a browser, and more. We've picked a couple windows by default, and you can pick and personalize the pieces of content you’d like to see in your overlay - settings are saved between games. This toolbar can be switched between an icon view and a list view in Settings.


2d139b6d7dc5e801c0c4e5ecff4b48d3cad676b9.png



The
Game Overview
is your one-stop shop to see what’s going on with the game since you last played it. For example, it shows what achievements you have in progress, which friends are playing the same game, top guides, news, and more.


10b2609c2afd1a08e9d37d44b3a5b7fe6919c6b2.png



The new
Notes app
lets you jot down... notes about the game that you’re currently playing. It comes with rich text formatting, the ability to have multiple notes per game, and can even be used in offline mode. These notes are saved per game and are synced across to any other PCs you are logged into, and are also accessible outside the in-game overlay, on the game details page.


b11401f1057a23a4c63b26846b854c702867b926.png



We've also added the ability to
pin windows
from the overlay, so that they can appear on top of the game while in-game. Opacity level is adjustable, and only the contents of the window will be pinned - excluding the title bar and other extraneous UI. This new functionality is available for Notes, Guides, Discussions, and the web browser (yes, you can watch movies while you play games if you really want to).


73f6ea6dd72d1eaf59216e96b3569c6deba99d7e.png



Notifications
Steam Client notifications are now richer and more useful. The green button only lights up when there's truly something new for you. The tray view is limited to new notifications, and there's a "View all" page with a historical view.


53909d41c5ff7ce1a463bba9a616cd31329ca7c5.png



Screenshot Manager
The screenshot manager has been completely refreshed - it's responsive, you can choose from large or small thumbnails, view recent screenshots rather than by game, and you can manage online screenshots as well as local screenshots.


6a226fca0cbb390690f9505a5f0d52ad0398594e.png



Mac & Linux:
The technical work in this update also makes it possible to enable hardware acceleration for the Mac & Linux versions of Steam, bringing them up to par with Windows. You should see snappier animations, scrolling and more responsive UI. Linux users can try the new client out today! For Mac users, you will have to wait a couple weeks as we are hard at work getting the client ready for public testing.

Feedback
These features are all now available in the Steam Client Beta, which you can opt into by following these instructions. Work on these features is ongoing, and we would love to hear what you think. Any feedback and bug reports are appreciated – please share them in the forums.
 

Bad Sector

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The notes feature is useful, at the past i used to run a server in localhost with wiki i was opening in the overlay's browser to take notes in games.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
lol.png


Well, this is a new one for me. I got warned for responding with the word "yawn" to a topic that was posted like 10 times already.
 

oldbonebrown

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I've been locked out of my account and the captcha you have to go through to get any support only gives me error messages
very funni haha
 

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