Steam 10 years today!

[OldMan]

My fellow Villuns,

Today marks the 10th year my account has been active on Steam. I actually was a beta tester for Steam, but abandoned that ID and started my current one in December of 2003. A lot has changed in the Steam world since then, most of it for the good. I'm a DoD player from the early days of that game. I first played on a Ville server back in the DoD 1.3 days, I didn't become a forum member back then and I regret that. This community is the best!

I'm making this thread for a couple of reasons, one, I'd like to thank this community and all it's members for contributing to a hobby I've had since the early days of computer gaming. Guys, I'm talking way back, like the 1970's here. It's refreshing to find a group of like minded people that have fun, and support each other, and watch out for the other members of their community. The second reason is to let everybody voice a quick opinion on Steam and the gaming community at large. Just a bit about how they feel the gaming world is and where it's going.

I've had a great experience with Steam, I feel it's an amazing vehicle for game developers and gamers alike. Sure it's had it's hiccups, but much more often than not, it's provided me with worry free gaming and connection to other gamers. We all sometimes harp on the bad side of this hobby, but in my opinion, Steam really has it right. (This is not a paid endorsement) Thanks to Gabe, in all his rotundness, for the last 10+ years I've spent with him, and thanks to the Ville for welcoming me into the fold. I look forward to many more years of gaming and friendship.

[InBOUND HD]

[Greebo]

How did you figure out the age of your account? I think I avoided steam for a while but have no idea when I joined.

I do recall having a particularly low WON id way back when

[Will T.]

I've only been on Steam for a measly five years. It doesn't even feel that long! Wasn't 2008, like ... a few weeks ago?


As a warning, I've written a bit of an essay here. I tried to stay positive though!

VIEW CONTENT:

I think Steam has been one of the biggest and best influences on gaming as we know it today. Before Steam the very idea of being able to update a user's existing copy of a game post-launch was virtually unheard of. Now games can be not only updated after launch, but actively worked on while players out in the wide world are playing development builds on their own computers that can be updated via the Internet in mere minutes. While it isn't without its problems, both for gamers (offline mode is still a headache for some reason) and for developers (keeping a game updated requires about as much work as making the game in the first place, and if you get a strong community behind your game and suddenly decide to stop updating it, you get massive backlash from entitled players - look at what happened with Terraria), but as a whole its greater influence has been a positive one. It's an extremely convenient platform for the end-user and provides an easy option for devs looking to ship steady updates to all their users. Steam's been around for a decade now - here's hoping it sticks around for another!


As for gaming in general, I'm not quite sure where things are headed. I've noticed a lot of parallels between now and 1983 when the US game market crashed. At the same time though, we do have some mitigations in place now that weren't present then. A couple of examples:

1983: Too many hardware options on the market led consumers to stop trying to choose one and simply pass on all of them.
2013: With the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii, Wii U, Windows, Mac OS, Linux, 3DS, PS Vita, Ouya, seemingly infinite number of Android and iOS devices, and others that I can't even remember, we actually have more gaming-hardware choices now than we did in '83.
Mitigation: Most games now are available on more than one platform, meaning that one's choice of device is far less limiting than it was back then. Additionally, the differences between devices are more clearly spelled out now - in 1983, one device was hard to distinguish from another because video games were still seen as children's toys and info on hardware/software specs was not only unavailable, but seen as irrelevant.

1983: The high presence of bad and/or not-child-friendly games on the market was another leading factor in the crash as it destroyed public trust in the industry.
2013: Not since 1983 has it been as easy for independent developers to create and release their own titles. Obviously, with ease of creation and release comes the inevitable flood of garbage. As that one guy whose name I forgot once said: "90% of everything is crap." And with the sheer volume of indie games out there now, 90% is a lot. Additionally, as the gamers of the 1980s and 1990s have grown up, so have their interests - shifting the industry towards a grittier, bloodier focus as a whole.
Mitigation: Heightened software-approval processes after the crash (e.g. Nintendo's Seal of Quality) as well as the introduction of game rating systems (e.g. the ESRB) have served to both ensure that much of the garbage is turned away at the door when it comes to publishing and inform parents about which games are appropriate for their children. Not that either process works all the time (e.g. parents buying CoD and GTA for their 9-year-olds, things like The War Z and Sonic '06 getting released), but for every failure, there are dozens of successes you never hear about.


Outside of that, there are a few things I wish I could see in the game industry:

-Fewer arguments over pointless topics like hardware choices. The whole "PC/Mac/Linux/Xbox/PS4/Nintendo Master Race" thing has gotten old. It's fanboyism plain and simple, and it's time to grow up and abandon it. A lot of devs are sick and tired of listening to it, which is actually the reason why you'll never see a lot of the sequels and new IPs you might want to. These attitudes are actually holding the industry back.
-Game reviews which are actually based on the merit of the individual games and not hype, franchise, or the opinion of whoever is loudest. Game reviews have lost all credibility in my eyes in recent years as there are virtually no reviewers in the world anymore who actually base their reivews on the games themselves. New CoD game comes out riddled with bugs and crashes? 90 out of 100, because it's CoD. New Sonic game comes out that's polished and a ton of fun to play? 30 out of 100, because it's Sonic. New Mario game comes out? 100 out of 100, because it's Mario and clearly you don't need to know anything else to know how good it is. If anyone calls a game in a popular franchise terrible or a game in an unpopular franchise good, they'll be torn apart for it rather than opening people's eyes to the idea that people can have different opinions of things. Games should be rated based on the games themselves as individual experiences, not simply because they're a part of a popular/unpopular series or because some vocal group out there says people should think a certain way about them.
-An overall better understanding by gamers of how game development works. In my last two years at DigiPen, I have learned more about games and game development than I had in my 15 years of gaming prior. There is a divide between players and developers that I hope will one day disappear. A lot of people cite issues and annoyance in a game as laziness by the devs when in fact that aspect of the game might be the best the devs could come up with after months of painstaking experimentation and design work to get around an engine limitation or to satisfy an order given by the executives that sign their paychecks. People will whine about bugs as though the devs were too dumb to fix them when in fact many bugs are entirely the result of computers being idiots (one of my favorite stories is about a project in which I tried to add a HUD to a game, and friction and lighting stopped working as soon as I did, all for no real reason - computers can do strange things sometimes, and there's often nothing that can be done about it except work around their screw-ups). Gamers demand sequels to games and moan about "Why don't the developers just drop their current project and make Game X?" when in fact most AAA developers have zero say in what games they make - they are entirely at the whim of the executives above them, who unfortunately often have little to no understanding of gaming at all (it's true!); they simply go where the money is. (This is why there are so many Call of Duty games: they sell well, therefore the execs like them because they make money, so they order that more be made!) While games like Minecraft and Steam's Early Access titles try to raise the curtain on game development by showing off various milestones in development, one can only learn so much by seeing the periodic progress of others. 99% of the process is still hidden, and I hope that one day it won't be.

TL;DR version:

I like Steam as a whole and think it has been a great influence on gaming, introducing the world to the now-commonplace ability to patch games via the Internet and an easy way to keep one's games organized without the need to keep track of hundreds of discs. Without Steam, a lot of what we now take for granted in terms of game distribution and content delivery wouldn't be possible.

There are a lot of aspects of gaming today that I see as eerie parallels to the conditions that led to the American Video Game Crash of 1983, but there are also a lot of systems in place that prevent those problems from having the same effect now that they did then.

The three big things I'd like to see happen in the gaming world going forward are:
- The end (or at least heavy reduction) of pointless fighting over which hardware is best. This argument will never have a winner and its continued existence is hindering gaming as a whole.
- Honest, merit-based game reviews. Most reviews now are based purely on hype and whether the game belongs to a popular series or not. I'd like to see games rated based on individual merit with a complete disregard for public preconceptions or what franchise they're from.
- A stronger understanding of game development by gamers. Game development is an entirely separate world from gaming as gamers know it, and I feel that it would be beneficial to both gamers and developers if the players truly understood what went into making their favorite playthings. Not even Steam Early Access or Minecraft's release-while-still-in-alpha model can reveal even a whole 5% of the process.

[OldMan]

How did you figure out the age of your account? I think I avoided steam for a while but have no idea when I joined.

I do recall having a particularly low WON id way back when

Hey Greebo!

Your Steam profile page has the date that you started your Steam account, there is a badge for it now. It tells you Month, Day and Year.

[Greebo]

Ah - I had to mouse over the badge. Got another 9 months to wait (Sept 6, '04)

I would like to echo Oldman's sentiments. I'm incredibly grateful for this place. Whenever I got pubbing on other games (BF4 for example), it's never the experience I get when I play here. I'll occasionally stray to other games but this is always home.

[The Domer]

Apparently I've been a member of steam since December 8, 2007. Dang I didn't even know it was around a full 5 years before that!

[Rumps]

Cheers to Steam, Oldman, and the rest of you Villuns. I checked mine and it's at the 5 year mark, but my first account that I gave to my wife is only a year shy of your's Oldman. Can't wait to see these Steam Boxes coming soon and how they play out.

[Jesus_Faction]

I joined steam the day they turned off WON. I despised steam for many years.

[chaffe[seagreens]]

welcome to the 10 year club. I joined back in September!

[Flash]

I hit 10 years back in September. Steam has my join date as the same day that Steam publicly launched. I'm pretty sure I beta tested Steam and CS 1.6 but who knows at this point.

I remember the Friends list as being the main feature I was really looking forward to. Back then everyone I played with congregated on GamesNET IRC and it was really easy to lose touch with people who got busy in real life.

I'm a DoD player from the early days of that game. I first played on a Ville server back in the DoD 1.3 days, I didn't become a forum member back then and I regret that. This community is the best!

I feel this way as well!

[Zork Nemesis]

I got my 6 year badge on November 22nd, though I didn't officially own any Steam titles until I got The Orange Box for Christmas.

[Cpt._Keyes]

Sep 22 2003 it has been a while

[MasterChef]

Hard to believe it's been that long now. Sept 15 2003 is my Steam date. I joined the old Ville forums Aug 10 2003.

I joined steam the day they turned off WON. I despised steam for many years.

It is a bit funny how things can change. I also remember hating steam for a while too. And now, I can't imaging gaming without it and am to the point that I try to buy most of my games on steam.

[Plinko]

I'm only at 9, I had taken a break from PC games after spending years obsessively playing CS and DoD. I am pretty sure I signed up to be prepared for the HL2 release, buty I can hardly remember now.