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Steam for PC Gaming. At first, it was just annoying DRM. But it was convenient. - Before that, you had to manually update your games in order to play the late

Steam for PC Gaming. At first, it was just annoying DRM. But it was convenient. - Before that, you had to manually update your games in order to play the latest version - Without no-cd cracks, you were required to leave a CD / DVD in your drive - with the addition of steam workshops, installing mods for certain games became easier. You didn't have to manually copy paste files. - you have one central friend list, and invite system which many PC games use. It took some time until more companies launched own launchers and fragmented this ecosystem again. - save game cloud backups became the norm. No need to manually backup a savegame folder if you want to ever reinstall a game. - the refund system is user friendly (refund if you haven't played for more than 2 hours) - steam link allows you to stream your games from a PC to other clients locally or through the internet - steam remote play together allows you to stream a game to a friend for remote couch-coop. Other player doesn't need to own the game and since a recent update, doesn't require a Steam account. - family sharing lets users easily share a whole game library with friends and family - big picture mode offers a great gamepad focused UI which is ideal for living room gaming PCs on the TV - enchanced Steam controller settings which let you configure the Steam Controller and after some updates also other controllers for each game. This even works if the game doesn't have official controller support. - compared to other launchers it is really fast…looking at you "Xbox Game Pass for PC Launcher" thing

kleer001 6y ago
It's very likely a smart business decision, but I wish Steam had a re-sell market. Even just having only a single possible sale, I think would help sort the crap from the gold. There'd be one more opportunity for profit AND people could buy games for cheap. Sure, there's an opportunity to copy games before you sell them, but I think there's ways to fix that. Sell for steam-credit only maybe? and there's plenty of opportunity for a transparent DRM. Even the threat of perma-ban for cheating. Dunno.
- pythonaut_16 6y ago
  This is one of the more interesting use cases I've seen posed for NFTs. Use an NFT when a user buys the game and then they can resell the game later.
  - aaronax 6y ago
    What is the advantage of an NFT versus a record in Valve's database?
    - Lionga 6y ago
      It's Crypto!!!1111
    - derefr 6y ago
      Open standards, sort of. People could in theory take a game license they bought through some other service supporting NFT game licenses, and move it to Steam, or vice-versa. Steam et al would essentially be crypto wallets that let you download+play the games corresponding to the licenses they held. (Better yet if they’re non-custodial, actually. Decouple the responsibilities of originating licenses [i.e. buying games] from fulfilling game installs given licenses.) Also, presuming Steam was coerced by industry/government pressure into supporting NFTs, it would also mean that you could resell the games even if Valve didn’t want to support that. As long as the game-license NFT was a regular ERC722 token, its owner would always be able to move it around—such as to someone else in exchange for payment.
      - dmingod666 6y ago
        That's a good use case, buy and actually own copies of digital assets.
      - aaronax 6y ago
        OK, so when the game starts up it needs to see some proof that you own a license for it. So it needs to see proof that you own an NFT. I am not aware of the technical details of various NFTs but I'm going to assume that you prove ownership similarly to how it can be done in Bitcoin--signing a transaction/message with a private key that corresponds to the public key of the asset in question. I would be happy to learn of some other way to do this! An issue here is that this does not prove unique ownership. I could share the private key with other people, and everyone could play the game at the same time. Admittedly, these would have to be trustworthy people since I imagine that the holder of the private key would be able to transfer ownership. Maybe you could sign a bunch of messages ahead of time and distribute those to your friends? That could be averted by having the game require a random number and/or datecode to be part of the message. Maybe the game can require a transaction to be posted on the NFT chain saying that you have started playing the game at x time, and eventually a corresponding stopped-playing message. So it would not let you play if it sees that a previous session hasn't been closed? Is your play time now publicly logged? It isn't intuitive to me (as someone with solid familiarity only with how Bitcoin works) how this could work. I would love to see a more technical analysis.
Macha 6y ago
> - the refund system is user friendly (refund if you haven't played for more than 2 hours) Well, depends on your expectations. * It wasn't first (that was Origin) * It wasn't there for a long time after the store launched * It doesn't meet minimum requirements of consumer law in places such as the EU or Australia. The rest I agree with though.
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  > It doesn't meet minimum requirements of consumer law in places such as the EU or Australia. I'm in Australia. What consumer laws do we have about games?
Kagerjay 6y ago
I forgot how annoying things were before steam. Manually patching and update games, making sure the disc you bought had a key that wasn't already used. That being said, I do miss the little game guides that would come with your game. Starcraft 1 comes to mind. It told you what every unit did and it was a handy little reference companion that was wedged between the frontpanel of the CD cassette
- Loughla 6y ago
  I also (even though it was a form of DRM) miss some of the cd keys that existed. My first, favorite game was Hillsfar on windows 3.1 or DOS, I don't remember which. To play you had to have the little spinner 'secret decoder'. It seemed part of the game, but was obviously just to keep people from playing pirated copies. But I miss that kind of neat little gee-gaw that used to come with games.
- Nition 6y ago
  Steam actually has a built-in feature for games to upload manuals, where they get a dedicated link[1]. Hardly any games bother though. [1]In the current version of Steam, if there is a manual, it's at: Right click the game->Properties->General tab.
anderspitman 6y ago
Yeah but I want to be able to only buy one disc, take it out after the game starts on PC 1, and pop it into PC 2 for multiplayer.
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
> - Without no-cd cracks, you were required to leave a CD / DVD in your drive Speaking of which, prior to Steam, I'd definitely consider "Making an ISO of your favorite game and mounting it as a virtual drive using DaemonTools" to be a 10x innovation.
- Farbklex 6y ago
  Oh yes. Been there.
- GiveOver 6y ago
  Still have all my ISOs backed up somewhere, and a .txt file with the serial codes in. You never know!
  - abandonliberty 6y ago
    Is there an OS these games run on that can run on modern hardware or be emulated now, with good enough support for 3d drivers, etc.?
- 12ian34 6y ago
  thanks for reminding me about DaemonTools!
- poushkar 6y ago
  Thanks for reminding me about this! I've just experienced a huge nostalgia rush! Oh, I wish I could go back 15-20 years back just for a day!
- alexchantavy 6y ago
  Ha, and you'd have to sometimes turn on DaemonTools' securom defeat. CloneCD was also probably the best way at the time to reliably make isos. Slightly related, but moving from doom9.net dvd-rip tutorials (make vob, encode to DiVX for decent size) to simply using Handbrake and h264 was awesome.
no_one_ever 6y ago
I want to piggyback off this comment and also throw in HL:Alyx for VR Games. I was honestly blown away by how good VR felt, VALVe did an amazing job and I think/hope it sets the standards for all other VR Games.

kleer001 6y ago

It's very likely a smart business decision, but I wish Steam had a re-sell market. Even just having only a single possible sale, I think would help sort the crap from the gold. There'd be one more opportunity for profit AND people could buy games for cheap. Sure, there's an opportunity to copy games before you sell them, but I think there's ways to fix that. Sell for steam-credit only maybe? and there's plenty of opportunity for a transparent DRM. Even the threat of perma-ban for cheating. Dunno.

pythonaut_16 6y ago
This is one of the more interesting use cases I've seen posed for NFTs. Use an NFT when a user buys the game and then they can resell the game later.
- aaronax 6y ago
  What is the advantage of an NFT versus a record in Valve's database?
  - Lionga 6y ago
    It's Crypto!!!1111
  - derefr 6y ago
    Open standards, sort of. People could in theory take a game license they bought through some other service supporting NFT game licenses, and move it to Steam, or vice-versa. Steam et al would essentially be crypto wallets that let you download+play the games corresponding to the licenses they held. (Better yet if they’re non-custodial, actually. Decouple the responsibilities of originating licenses [i.e. buying games] from fulfilling game installs given licenses.) Also, presuming Steam was coerced by industry/government pressure into supporting NFTs, it would also mean that you could resell the games even if Valve didn’t want to support that. As long as the game-license NFT was a regular ERC722 token, its owner would always be able to move it around—such as to someone else in exchange for payment.
    - dmingod666 6y ago
      That's a good use case, buy and actually own copies of digital assets.
    - aaronax 6y ago
      OK, so when the game starts up it needs to see some proof that you own a license for it. So it needs to see proof that you own an NFT. I am not aware of the technical details of various NFTs but I'm going to assume that you prove ownership similarly to how it can be done in Bitcoin--signing a transaction/message with a private key that corresponds to the public key of the asset in question. I would be happy to learn of some other way to do this! An issue here is that this does not prove unique ownership. I could share the private key with other people, and everyone could play the game at the same time. Admittedly, these would have to be trustworthy people since I imagine that the holder of the private key would be able to transfer ownership. Maybe you could sign a bunch of messages ahead of time and distribute those to your friends? That could be averted by having the game require a random number and/or datecode to be part of the message. Maybe the game can require a transaction to be posted on the NFT chain saying that you have started playing the game at x time, and eventually a corresponding stopped-playing message. So it would not let you play if it sees that a previous session hasn't been closed? Is your play time now publicly logged? It isn't intuitive to me (as someone with solid familiarity only with how Bitcoin works) how this could work. I would love to see a more technical analysis.

Macha 6y ago

> - the refund system is user friendly (refund if you haven't played for more than 2 hours) Well, depends on your expectations. * It wasn't first (that was Origin) * It wasn't there for a long time after the store launched * It doesn't meet minimum requirements of consumer law in places such as the EU or Australia. The rest I agree with though.

brokenmachine 6y ago
> It doesn't meet minimum requirements of consumer law in places such as the EU or Australia. I'm in Australia. What consumer laws do we have about games?

Kagerjay 6y ago

I forgot how annoying things were before steam. Manually patching and update games, making sure the disc you bought had a key that wasn't already used. That being said, I do miss the little game guides that would come with your game. Starcraft 1 comes to mind. It told you what every unit did and it was a handy little reference companion that was wedged between the frontpanel of the CD cassette

Loughla 6y ago
I also (even though it was a form of DRM) miss some of the cd keys that existed. My first, favorite game was Hillsfar on windows 3.1 or DOS, I don't remember which. To play you had to have the little spinner 'secret decoder'. It seemed part of the game, but was obviously just to keep people from playing pirated copies. But I miss that kind of neat little gee-gaw that used to come with games.
Nition 6y ago
Steam actually has a built-in feature for games to upload manuals, where they get a dedicated link[1]. Hardly any games bother though. [1]In the current version of Steam, if there is a manual, it's at: Right click the game->Properties->General tab.

anderspitman 6y ago

Yeah but I want to be able to only buy one disc, take it out after the game starts on PC 1, and pop it into PC 2 for multiplayer.

AdmiralAsshat 6y ago

> - Without no-cd cracks, you were required to leave a CD / DVD in your drive Speaking of which, prior to Steam, I'd definitely consider "Making an ISO of your favorite game and mounting it as a virtual drive using DaemonTools" to be a 10x innovation.

Farbklex 6y ago
Oh yes. Been there.
GiveOver 6y ago
Still have all my ISOs backed up somewhere, and a .txt file with the serial codes in. You never know!
- abandonliberty 6y ago
  Is there an OS these games run on that can run on modern hardware or be emulated now, with good enough support for 3d drivers, etc.?
12ian34 6y ago
thanks for reminding me about DaemonTools!
poushkar 6y ago
Thanks for reminding me about this! I've just experienced a huge nostalgia rush! Oh, I wish I could go back 15-20 years back just for a day!
alexchantavy 6y ago
Ha, and you'd have to sometimes turn on DaemonTools' securom defeat. CloneCD was also probably the best way at the time to reliably make isos. Slightly related, but moving from doom9.net dvd-rip tutorials (make vob, encode to DiVX for decent size) to simply using Handbrake and h264 was awesome.

no_one_ever 6y ago

I want to piggyback off this comment and also throw in HL:Alyx for VR Games. I was honestly blown away by how good VR felt, VALVe did an amazing job and I think/hope it sets the standards for all other VR Games.