Ever other platform is just ass. I have played games on Epic, Battlenet, Ubisoft and the EA launcher but they all barely have basic functionality. Meanwhile steam has:
good UI (store & settings)
no forced ads
reviews
discussions
workshop
player stats
a lot more settlings / options
Steam seems to be the only one that actually puts any effort in providing a good user experience. It’s more than just a store / launcher and noone else is even trying to compete.
These conversations are always so weird. People are here going “yeah, Steam is the best client, but maybe it’s fine to have some competition on PC storefronts” and this army of borderline religious devotees just crawls from under the ground to tell you how when Steam does ads they’re not ads, they’re the Good Word of Gaben bestowed upon us.
Of fucking course Steam isn’t advertising soda, they sell games. It’s still an advertisement… just because it’s relevant to the platform you’re on doesn’t mean it’s not an advertisement.
Still think it’s a bit different, steam is essentially a store so I’m expecting to see a promotional banner when I walk in. Windows is a “paid” product that shows you more ads on something you already “own”.
Don’t forget non-profitable free-to-use features such as:
Steam Link
Cloud storage for saves and screenshots
Over the internet couch co-op (I don’t remember the name.
And there’s probably more that I’m forgetting. These things cost Valve money to make and maintain. Only a small portion of users actually use these features and yet it’s not locked behind some subscription or whatever and instead can be used by all users of the platform.
They cost money to make, but the only one of those that costs them a significant chunk to maintain is cloud saves. As far as I can tell their streaming solution is strictly peer-to-peer, in the vein of Moonlight or Parsec.
And all of those are definitely profitable for Steam via… well, look at this thread. Their technological advantage on the client feature set is worth billions to them. They are in the process of spinning it off into a separate hardware platform and OS. That’s Microsoft money they stand to make, on top of all the Microsoft money they are already making.
I mean, those are cool, don’t get me wrong, they have by far the best feature set in the PC market, and arguably in all of gaming… but it’s not a gift, it’s either feature parity with competitors or investment in their market position.
Ever other platform is just ass. I have played games on Epic, Battlenet, Ubisoft and the EA launcher but they all barely have basic functionality. Meanwhile steam has:
Steam seems to be the only one that actually puts any effort in providing a good user experience. It’s more than just a store / launcher and noone else is even trying to compete.
What do you mean “no forced ads”? It throws up a separate window with store sales every launch?
Those are promotions, really. Not advertisements. Steam is showing me relevant video games that are available, not a sale on Coca-Cola.
I fail to see the distinction. If I want to just play a game, it’s still getting in my way.
Turn it off then and quit complaining about something so insignificant.
Up until this thread, I had tried several times to find out how to disable it. That setting name is obviously obfuscating itself.
“notify me about promotions and new releases” is confusing?
I am screaming at the reality distortion field. I can feel my molecules being pulled into a million parallel realities just reading this.
Then stop reading. Some of you people are really aggravating.
Who people? Reality people?
These conversations are always so weird. People are here going “yeah, Steam is the best client, but maybe it’s fine to have some competition on PC storefronts” and this army of borderline religious devotees just crawls from under the ground to tell you how when Steam does ads they’re not ads, they’re the Good Word of Gaben bestowed upon us.
I don’t even like the Epic store.
Of fucking course Steam isn’t advertising soda, they sell games. It’s still an advertisement… just because it’s relevant to the platform you’re on doesn’t mean it’s not an advertisement.
Turn it off in the settings if it annoys you…
I did turn it off. That doesn’t really have anything to do with my comment though.
Go to any other storefront and see if you can turn off the ads
You can turn that off.
https://majorgeeks.com/content/page/disable_steam_popups_notifications.html
You can turn that off, you know
Removed by mod
Still think it’s a bit different, steam is essentially a store so I’m expecting to see a promotional banner when I walk in. Windows is a “paid” product that shows you more ads on something you already “own”.
Don’t forget non-profitable free-to-use features such as:
And there’s probably more that I’m forgetting. These things cost Valve money to make and maintain. Only a small portion of users actually use these features and yet it’s not locked behind some subscription or whatever and instead can be used by all users of the platform.
They cost money to make, but the only one of those that costs them a significant chunk to maintain is cloud saves. As far as I can tell their streaming solution is strictly peer-to-peer, in the vein of Moonlight or Parsec.
And all of those are definitely profitable for Steam via… well, look at this thread. Their technological advantage on the client feature set is worth billions to them. They are in the process of spinning it off into a separate hardware platform and OS. That’s Microsoft money they stand to make, on top of all the Microsoft money they are already making.
I mean, those are cool, don’t get me wrong, they have by far the best feature set in the PC market, and arguably in all of gaming… but it’s not a gift, it’s either feature parity with competitors or investment in their market position.
Theres also steamvr link to make meta’s quest headsets better and also all the steam for linux stuff like proton and gamescope