this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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The biggest thing that valve did that kept them in everyone's good graces is that steam's core functionality hasn't had any major changes in years. Dare I say, more than a decade.
It's a platform where you buy games, download them, and play them.
In the early days you still had to deal with all the bullshit, including third party launcher installs and crap to get things going, and over time, valve simplified all of that, making it easier than ever to take advantage of the core function of steam: buying, downloading, and playing games.
Literally the only improvement I can absolutely, positively credit them for, is making that entire process, easier, simpler, and quicker, than ever.
Sure, you can chat to people, track achievements, comment on your profile, comment on your friends profiles, buy and sell cosmetics on the market thing, even voice chat and I think they have a way you can stream your game to friends.... Not sure on that last one.
It's like Facebook, FB marketplace, FB messenger, discord, Twitter... And a bunch of other services, all huddled together to make a bastard child with the entire PC video game industry.... That's steam.
But the core mechanic that was always the main reason why steam was great, remains the same.
I think you might be underselling how important things like the steam workshop and steam's multiplayer support are.
Games like Starbound or Don't Starve benefit a lot from the workshop.
While insert any party game gains a lot out of steam's multiplayer support and friend list.
Also, while I don't use Linux myself, Steam is one of the main reasons why Linux Gaming is a thing.
I don't mean to, I wasn't exactly looking at a comprehensive list of steam features when I wrote that. I'm sure I missed several of steam's very good features from what I listed.
My main point was, and still is, that the core thing that made steam stand out, has more or less stayed the same throughout its existence. You log in, buy, download, and launch games right from one really easy to use program, it manages all the particulars about product keys and saves, etc. So you can focus on playing the game rather than trying to get the game running.
There's a ton of other really good features that steam and valve in general have introduced, and I'm not trying to diminish the impact of those things.
While other games stores are pulling crap like exclusives to their platform, and requiring dumb shit like invasive spyware "anti-cheating" rootkits, steam has kept the basic formula the same, and doesn't restrict any major publisher from deploying something on their platform. Other developers will still delay making their games available on steam for one reason or another, but steam has been fairly neutral in what's published.
I am aware of some exceptions, so I'm not going to say it's entirely universal that anyone can publish anything to steam, but it's fairly rare that steam is preventing a game from being available on the platform.
That core purpose of steam has always been good. All the other stuff is almost always also good, but the core purpose of having steam installed is the same, or better then, when steam was first released.