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305 points todsacerdoti | 17 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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TehCorwiz ◴[] No.43569014[source]
No company is your friend. But Valve does a great job at being consumer friendly. Steam is a great low-pressure sales environment. It provides features that make it more enjoyable for users to play, hang out, communicate, share content, mods. It doesn't harangue you or change your settings, or the UI, or your games (mostly) without reason and warning. Things work like you expect them to in other apps, back buttons work. You can pop open multiple windows. It gets out of your way. You can even set your kids accounts to not have access to the store, something that literally no other company does. I'd love to disable the Minecraft Marketplace for my kids because sometimes they spend more time looking at things there than playing.

GabeN called piracy a service problem. And he's right. I've received games free on other platforms like Epic or EA and I've bought them from Steam just so I don't have to use the terrible apps. If I was younger or couldn't afford it, maybe I'd be sailing the seas. I bought Alan Wake 2 on Epic since it's a timed exclusive. I plan on buying it again once it releases on Steam because Epic is just so terrible. All the effort went into the store and almost none into the actual act of playing the game which is where I'm spending the majority of my time while I'm in the app!

Most companies don't care about customer satisfaction or post sales support. They have your money, why would they. Oh, yeah, repeat customers.

EDIT: Just to add a gripe about Amazon. Their games app is so bad that if you use the back button on your mouse while a screenshot is open the page changes but the image stays until you close it. If you click on a game to view the details in a long list of games and then go back it loses your sort order and position in the games listing. It's frustrating to use even just to find something to play. Steam has its own rough edges, but they're not in the golden path of discover -> buy -> install -> play -> share

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1. lupusreal ◴[] No.43572025[source]
> Steam is a great low-pressure sales environment.

Eh.. It seems very common for Steam users to have libraries of thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed, purchased at steep discounts during sales. The way Steam operates does a great job of instilling Fear Of Missing Out, and getting people to buy things they never end up using.

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2. jasonjmcghee ◴[] No.43572070[source]
> very common for Steam users to have libraries of thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed

source?

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3. SXX ◴[] No.43572296[source]
It's not like this is Steam fault. You can always return games you played under 2 hours no questions asked. Some people just like to buy stuff they dont need or hoard random things, but it's as old as humanity itself

At leastrented digital games on Steam account dont contribute to global warming, waste problems and dont use tons of electicity to mint some tokens.

I guess only major issue Steam really have to solve is ability to inherit these digital purchases if owner has died. Their license agreement dont have proper procedure for that.

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4. SXX ◴[] No.43572316[source]
I not sure about these numbers, but here is article on this topic:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/06/is-the-total-value-of...

5. ZeWaka ◴[] No.43572546[source]
> thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed, purchased at steep discounts during sales

This is more of a Humble Bundle thing than a Steam issue.

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6. vel0city ◴[] No.43572556[source]
> You can always return games you played under 2 hours no questions asked.

Within 14 days.

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7. ZeWaka ◴[] No.43572569[source]
> ability to inherit these digital purchases

They have the (much improved) Family Sharing now, which does combat that somewhat. Still not a proper solution.

8. SXX ◴[] No.43572636{3}[source]
14 days is pretty much standard cool off window for lots of services.

If you havent played game at all most likely Steam will just accept return in much wider return window especially if there some new sale has started making game much cheaper or something.

Also if for some reason game was compatible with your platform (Linux, Mac) there are cases where Valve refunded money years after due to developers breaking compatibility.

PS: Yeah in the beginning Valve was certainly forced into implementing return policy by authorities, but today their return policy is one of the best of all software distribution platforms.

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9. Cpoll ◴[] No.43573013[source]
Some quick googling: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/06/is-the-total-value-of...

Anecdotally, myself and most of my friends are in this boat, with very large "piles of shame." Humble Bundles tend to contribute greatly to this.

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10. vel0city ◴[] No.43573198{4}[source]
I don't disagree it's generous compared to alternatives and nice it's written into a standard, but it's not the "always" alluded to in the above poster's comment. There are limits other than just play time.
11. lupusreal ◴[] No.43573303[source]
It's true for nearly all of my gamer friends, and is the subject of memes in gamer social circles generally.

https://i.imgflip.com/7uzmif.jpg

https://memes.ucoz.com/_nw/86/80233222.png

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5...

https://i.imgflip.com/2fcexh.jpg

Search for "steam library memes" and you'll find lots of these. Very scientific, I know.

12. debugnik ◴[] No.43573757{4}[source]
> If you havent played game at all most likely Steam will just accept return in much wider return window

I believe late refund requests are forwarded to the publisher for them to judge.

13. ◴[] No.43573806[source]
14. lupusreal ◴[] No.43574515[source]
When I was a kid, this pattern of over-purchasing video games was very rare. When you had to go to the store and buy a game, it was very uncommon for people to buy a ton of games and then never get around to playing most of them. Even when the stores had discount bins, people would usually buy just a handful at a time and then play them until boredom (or frustration) before going back to the store. The one exception I can think of is when buying those CDs that came packed with dozens of old games from years ago, e.g. shovelware, when you hardly even knew what you were getting when you got the CD.

Also today, with gaming consoles, Nintendo's platforms, and similar, I don't think the pattern of buying lots of games and then never playing most of them happens very often.

What I'm saying is this pattern has something to do with the way Steam is structured, it's not an intrinsic property of game consumers which occurs with any kind of games store.

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15. blooalien ◴[] No.43577018[source]
> This is more of a Humble Bundle thing than a Steam issue.

And Fanatical, and (many) other Steam-friendly game bundlers, but Steam themselves also contributed to my massive game library on Steam, due to those seasonal sales bein' just too good to pass up. :)

16. jasonjmcghee ◴[] No.43596346{3}[source]
Right but 30%-60% is very different than 99%. Users paying 2x for games, not 100x.
17. SXX ◴[] No.43609022{3}[source]
Reason why people buy far more games by count on Steam is super simple. There are 80-90% discounts when on consoles there are no such discount.

Also games on Steam not tied to specific hardware generation, OS or account country. You can still play majority of games from 2010 and earlier even if they wasn't updated.