5 ms·

For such a large company with so many developers, it's depressing how super crappy the steam client is, on both OSX and windows. Maybe it's "good enough" but it

For such a large company with so many developers, it's depressing how super crappy the steam client is, on both OSX and windows. Maybe it's "good enough" but it's clearly unpolished, and has been for years. Things like this do NOT instill any confidence that they are competent or care. Anytime I try to do something in steam, nothing ever seems to work.

sotojuan 11y ago
I don't know how a company that can afford to hire the best of the best and probably has a lot of people who want to work there can produce such a mediocre product as well as have huge errors like what is going on right now.
- sangnoir 11y ago
  The "best" probably don't want to work on something as boring as the steam client. Given the choice of working on the Steam client, the Source Engine, or HL3 - which one would you choose? It's the downside of a flat organization where the staff choose what they work on, without being assigned tasks by management.
  - rdl 11y ago
    If I got to pick (not that I'm even a good developer, but as a PM) - the store/client hands down. Both because it is a glaring flaw now and because doing account and identity management securely is way more interesting to me than a random game.
    - hellbanner 11y ago
      Well, you should apply!
      - BuckRogers 11y ago
        I also find that to be interesting. I simply enjoy leaving no stone unturned, optimization as well as getting things right. That said, I'd never pass their interview process. I've failed many interviews because I'm more of a junior than a senior engineer. That's the downfall of only hiring the best and brightest. A bunch of cowboys leads to everyone wanting to do what a cowboy programmer thinks is cool or fun. I love writing utilities and making them user friendly as possible. I know many don't think it's possible but I love designing interfaces and dummy proofing them is one of my favorite things and I think I achieve it.
CaptSpify 11y ago
They have no incentive to care. This is a prime example of a monopoly run a-muck. There's arguably no real competitor for them, so why improve?
- em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
  for releasing games with DRM with easy to install manner, maybe there isn't a significant competitor atm. But you can go to humblebundle.com/store and buy a lot of the same games DRM-free
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    humble-bundle has ~3100 games on it (that I counted. I couldn't find a solid source anywhere). Steam has about 2x as many (source: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/There-How-Many-Games-Steam-81967.html http://www.cinemablend.com/games/There-How-Many-Games-Steam-...) IME, the steam games have much better quality, so yeah, I'd have to say they aren't really a worthwhile competitor
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    Good Ol' Games deserves a big mention as well. The entire library is DRM-free.
    - dogma1138 11y ago
      I love GOG but GOG galaxy is a clusterfuck and their library is made up of mostly (very) old games (go figure) ;) I bought The Witcher 3 on steam just because it's better with updates (GOG had so many TW3 updates issues, I got a GOG key from NVIDIA as a Titan X owner and it was just fubar). Steam is also a social platform, most of my friends are on steam which is their biggest competitive advantage which makes most other platforms kinda pointless as a platform DRM free or not.
    - sotojuan 11y ago
      I really like GOG since I mostly play older PC games anyway and don't care for the social aspects of Steam or stuff like trophies. GOG is just games.
pavement 11y ago
That's because it's not sexy work, and requires paying some salty dogs from the stateless realm of web programming and server administration to do the work all proper. Perhaps a crisis such as this will motivate some people to shell out some coin, and pay for a reasonable HTTP service, and produce some front-end web apps. I was enthusiastic about the Linux-based Steam OS, that is, until I noticed that, for whatever reason, they MANDATED a 500GB disk partition, onto which one must load THEIR disk image. Really? As if Linux users would accept such absurd demands.
- meesterdude 11y ago
  first off, 500GB? that's insane. I get the non-sexy aspect of it. But when you love something, everything matters. you're just happy to make any part of it better. Maybe that's what they need: more love of their product, and less focus on... TF2 hats.
  - pavement 11y ago
    Correction: 1TB for the default image [1] (...although, there are alternatives [2], and will probably require some technical effort to pull off) [1] https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6372-YZBN-3066 https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6372-YZB... [2] http://repo.steamstatic.com/steamos/ http://repo.steamstatic.com/steamos/
    - knome 11y ago
      I wonder how much space the average users steam games take up. It's possible they felt it better to demand space for average to high number of game installations up front rather than dealing with users that installed to small partitions and complain that steamos can't install their software. Using their regular linux client, I have more than a hundred gigabytes used between my Steam/ and SteamLibrary/ directories, and I don't even have that many games installed.
      - striking 11y ago
minimaxir 11y ago
It's worth noting that Valve infamously has a flat company hierarchy: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24205497 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24205497 (2013) The flip side of having a "no leader" organization is no assignment of responsibilities.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ChipWolf 11y ago
  I can imagine someone has to mediate disagreements. There has to be some workflow.
  - nailer 11y ago
    Not necessarily. A couple of friends of mine work for a well known flat hierarchy company and things that nobody wants to take responsibility for that would typically be handled by an HR manager - eg, the company structure has changed and all H1Bs are now working illegally - aren't handled at all. If it's not their responsibility, and they don't believe in the risk of the company getting caught, they don't care.
vacri 11y ago
Hey, don't forget linux! The steam client is also super crappy on linux :)
reubenmorais 11y ago
Steam has always been like this. When it came out, the client was worse than the competition in most technical aspects. It was slow, ugly and full of bugs, but it still ate the entire market, because it was good enough in the areas that mattered to users, like already being installed on everyone's computers, and having a relatively invisible DRM.
rdl 11y ago
Yeah, but look at iTunes. That is first party for the platform, and probably worse.
hellbanner 11y ago
Indeed. I've tried using Steam to support indie developers. Ended up uninstalling within a month both times I tried it. Hogged bandwidth, launched on start and slowed my relatively-modern computer to a crawl.. now I just buy games through Humble Bundle or direct download. I wish I could support Steam but I can't.
- NamTaf 11y ago
  My anecdotal experience from using steam for about 12 years is not this at all, excepting that it launches on boot and you can trivially turn that off in the settings. It uses bandwidth only so much as to download updates for games and you can stop games from updating though I don't really understand why you'd do that. Certainly I've never experienced it eating up resources; right now it's eating under 100MB of system resources. The only bandwidth-related frustration I've experienced is when Steam's client updates itself because it's an invisible background task and occurs at relatively random times. That can cause some frustrations when I am playing a game and wonder where the lag's coming from.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

sotojuan 11y ago

I don't know how a company that can afford to hire the best of the best and probably has a lot of people who want to work there can produce such a mediocre product as well as have huge errors like what is going on right now.

sangnoir 11y ago
The "best" probably don't want to work on something as boring as the steam client. Given the choice of working on the Steam client, the Source Engine, or HL3 - which one would you choose? It's the downside of a flat organization where the staff choose what they work on, without being assigned tasks by management.
- rdl 11y ago
  If I got to pick (not that I'm even a good developer, but as a PM) - the store/client hands down. Both because it is a glaring flaw now and because doing account and identity management securely is way more interesting to me than a random game.
  - hellbanner 11y ago
    Well, you should apply!
    - BuckRogers 11y ago
      I also find that to be interesting. I simply enjoy leaving no stone unturned, optimization as well as getting things right. That said, I'd never pass their interview process. I've failed many interviews because I'm more of a junior than a senior engineer. That's the downfall of only hiring the best and brightest. A bunch of cowboys leads to everyone wanting to do what a cowboy programmer thinks is cool or fun. I love writing utilities and making them user friendly as possible. I know many don't think it's possible but I love designing interfaces and dummy proofing them is one of my favorite things and I think I achieve it.

CaptSpify 11y ago

They have no incentive to care. This is a prime example of a monopoly run a-muck. There's arguably no real competitor for them, so why improve?

em3rgent0rdr 11y ago
for releasing games with DRM with easy to install manner, maybe there isn't a significant competitor atm. But you can go to humblebundle.com/store and buy a lot of the same games DRM-free
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  humble-bundle has ~3100 games on it (that I counted. I couldn't find a solid source anywhere). Steam has about 2x as many (source: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/There-How-Many-Games-Steam-81967.html http://www.cinemablend.com/games/There-How-Many-Games-Steam-...) IME, the steam games have much better quality, so yeah, I'd have to say they aren't really a worthwhile competitor
- dragontamer 11y ago
  Good Ol' Games deserves a big mention as well. The entire library is DRM-free.
  - dogma1138 11y ago
    I love GOG but GOG galaxy is a clusterfuck and their library is made up of mostly (very) old games (go figure) ;) I bought The Witcher 3 on steam just because it's better with updates (GOG had so many TW3 updates issues, I got a GOG key from NVIDIA as a Titan X owner and it was just fubar). Steam is also a social platform, most of my friends are on steam which is their biggest competitive advantage which makes most other platforms kinda pointless as a platform DRM free or not.
  - sotojuan 11y ago
    I really like GOG since I mostly play older PC games anyway and don't care for the social aspects of Steam or stuff like trophies. GOG is just games.

pavement 11y ago

That's because it's not sexy work, and requires paying some salty dogs from the stateless realm of web programming and server administration to do the work all proper. Perhaps a crisis such as this will motivate some people to shell out some coin, and pay for a reasonable HTTP service, and produce some front-end web apps. I was enthusiastic about the Linux-based Steam OS, that is, until I noticed that, for whatever reason, they MANDATED a 500GB disk partition, onto which one must load THEIR disk image. Really? As if Linux users would accept such absurd demands.

meesterdude 11y ago
first off, 500GB? that's insane. I get the non-sexy aspect of it. But when you love something, everything matters. you're just happy to make any part of it better. Maybe that's what they need: more love of their product, and less focus on... TF2 hats.
- pavement 11y ago
  Correction: 1TB for the default image [1] (...although, there are alternatives [2], and will probably require some technical effort to pull off) [1] https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6372-YZBN-3066 https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6372-YZB... [2] http://repo.steamstatic.com/steamos/ http://repo.steamstatic.com/steamos/
  - knome 11y ago
    I wonder how much space the average users steam games take up. It's possible they felt it better to demand space for average to high number of game installations up front rather than dealing with users that installed to small partitions and complain that steamos can't install their software. Using their regular linux client, I have more than a hundred gigabytes used between my Steam/ and SteamLibrary/ directories, and I don't even have that many games installed.
    - striking 11y ago

minimaxir 11y ago

It's worth noting that Valve infamously has a flat company hierarchy: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24205497 http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24205497 (2013) The flip side of having a "no leader" organization is no assignment of responsibilities.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ChipWolf 11y ago
I can imagine someone has to mediate disagreements. There has to be some workflow.
- nailer 11y ago
  Not necessarily. A couple of friends of mine work for a well known flat hierarchy company and things that nobody wants to take responsibility for that would typically be handled by an HR manager - eg, the company structure has changed and all H1Bs are now working illegally - aren't handled at all. If it's not their responsibility, and they don't believe in the risk of the company getting caught, they don't care.

vacri 11y ago

Hey, don't forget linux! The steam client is also super crappy on linux :)

reubenmorais 11y ago

Steam has always been like this. When it came out, the client was worse than the competition in most technical aspects. It was slow, ugly and full of bugs, but it still ate the entire market, because it was good enough in the areas that mattered to users, like already being installed on everyone's computers, and having a relatively invisible DRM.

rdl 11y ago

Yeah, but look at iTunes. That is first party for the platform, and probably worse.

hellbanner 11y ago

Indeed. I've tried using Steam to support indie developers. Ended up uninstalling within a month both times I tried it. Hogged bandwidth, launched on start and slowed my relatively-modern computer to a crawl.. now I just buy games through Humble Bundle or direct download. I wish I could support Steam but I can't.

NamTaf 11y ago
My anecdotal experience from using steam for about 12 years is not this at all, excepting that it launches on boot and you can trivially turn that off in the settings. It uses bandwidth only so much as to download updates for games and you can stop games from updating though I don't really understand why you'd do that. Certainly I've never experienced it eating up resources; right now it's eating under 100MB of system resources. The only bandwidth-related frustration I've experienced is when Steam's client updates itself because it's an invisible background task and occurs at relatively random times. That can cause some frustrations when I am playing a game and wonder where the lag's coming from.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]