The Valve and Steam Platform Discussion Thread

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/3638379690025890182

New DLC Discovery Hub with Steam Labs Experiment 15
A new personalized hub to explore available content for the games you play

Today's new Steam Labs experiment is a store hub designed to help you find new content to enjoy in the games you already play.

You may have missed or forgotten about exciting add-on content for your favorite games, and this hub is designed to help you explore what is available and find ways of getting more of those great games. Whether it is individual character skins, content packs, new game modes, or huge expansion packs, there is probably something of interest to you.

Check out your personalized DLC hub here: https://store.steampowered.com/dlcforyou

This entire page is personalized around you and filtered down to the games in your library, so you'll need to be signed in to Steam to make use of it. Here are a few key details of this experiment:

• Most Popular DLC For Your Games
  - The top-most section is focused on highlighting the most popular DLC for the games in your library. It may be for a game you played yesterday or years ago, but the content being highlighted is selling well right now.
• The meat of the page is a breakdown of the games you've played recently, or you can switch to see your games by those you've played the most. Either way, we'll show you each game with the set of available content that you don't already have in your library.
  • Recently Played
    - simply ordered by those games you've played most recently first.
  • Most Played
    - ordered by the games you've played the most within the past few years. Then once it has shown all of those, it will start showing the games you've played most over past time periods.

Are there other ways you are interested in exploring the available DLC for your games? Please drop us some feedback and let us know.

Leave us feedback
Have you encountered a bug with this experiment? Or do you have a suggestion for interesting ways the DLC hub should present available content? Please visit the Experiment 15 Discussions to leave us your thoughts, suggestions, or bug reports.


About Steam Labs
Every year, we create new experiments around discoverability, video, machine learning, and more. You know who we thought might enjoy seeing those experiments? Everyone.

With Steam Labs experiments, you can try, share, and break potential new features, while we figure out what to keep and what to scrap. Share your feedback with the developers and designers working on these features and help shape the future of Steam.

Check out all experiments on the Steam Labs page or drop us some feedback in the Steam Labs discussion boards.

I don't like clogging my wishlist with DLCs so this is helpful.

 

[Morgoth]

Half-Life 3 was Stealth-focused and canceled in 2015 in favor of VR shit. Thanks, Gabe.

 

[fork]

Who cares?
Half-Life has always been shit.
Half-Life was the epitome of decline of single-player FPSs, Counterstrike was the epitome of decline of multi-player FPSs.

 

[somerandomdude]

IMO, VAC bans are just a marketing gimmick to boost CS:GO sales. Look at all the obvious alt accounts on Steam with only CS:GO, if they get VAC banned, they just make another alt and rebuy the game. The price to cheat ends up being $14.99 every 1-3 months, so it's basically just another sub. That's why the game keeps selling.

 

[fork]

Imagine playing Counterstrike in 2023. It was pathetic playing it 20 years ago.

 

[Viata]

Counterstrike was the epitome of decline of multi-player FPSs.

Loved to play that shit in Lan Houses. I don't give a shit if devs were unable to make good FPSs again.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Censorship and cut content:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/10576967-Cut-Content-Police/

Skimmed through this for shit and giggles and man -- they cut Fairy Tail's panty shots out of the game?!?!?! But there's nothing else worth a damn in Fairy Tail! The franchise is literally a fan service theme park!

 

[Modron]

Some curators to follow for games to avoid paying for:

Censorship and cut content:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/10576967-Cut-Content-Police/

Epic Games/bad platforms exclusivity:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34410309-Epic-Games-Sucks/
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34889977-Took-a-Moneyhat/

Denuvo:
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26095454-Denuvo-Games/

Early access games to hold off on or that were abandoned (curator hasn't been active sadly):
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/11307018-Early-Access-Watcher/

edit: fixed the hyperlinks lol

All this negativity how about something positive telling you about nice things?
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34912243-Breast-Physics/

 

[Infinitron]

Publicized cheater massacre: https://www.dota2.com/newsentry/3677788723152833273

Cheaters Will Never Be Welcome in Dota

Today, we permanently banned over 40,000 accounts that were using third-party software to cheat in Dota over the last few weeks. This software was able to access information used internally by the Dota client that wasn't visible during normal gameplay, giving the cheater an unfair advantage.

While fixing the underlying issues that made these cheats possible was a priority, we have also decided to remove these bad actors from the active Dota playerbase.

With that goal in mind, we released a patch as soon as we understood the method these cheats were using. This patch created a honeypot: a section of data inside the game client that would never be read during normal gameplay, but that could be read by these exploits. Each of the accounts banned today read from this "secret" area in the client, giving us extremely high confidence that every ban was well-deserved.

The prevalence of this family of cheats means that today's ban wave is particularly large, but it's only the latest action in an ongoing campaign. While the battle against cheaters and cheat developers often takes place in the shadows, we wanted to make this example visible, and use it to make our position clear: If you are running any application that reads data from the Dota client as you're playing games, your account can be permanently banned from playing Dota. This includes professional players, who will be banned from all Valve competitive events.

Dota is a game best enjoyed when played on an even field, where victories are earned by skill and tenacity. We expect that some players will continue to develop and use new exploits, to continue to try to gain unfair advantages at the expense of other players. As before, we will continue to detect and remove these exploits as they come, and continue to ban users who cheat.

Lastly, we'd like to thank those who offered their time and energy to help us resolve this — from those who reported a player acting suspiciously in-game, to those who reviewed overwatch cases where this behavior was observed. Thank you for helping to make Dota a better experience for everyone.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I've a technical question. Xbox controllers have xinput, which makes them work with Windows immediately. If I get a Playstation controller, how would I fare with it? I know about the differences between xinput and dinput, and I remember hearing about Steam providing some sort of help to make your PS controller work without the need of external software. Would I still need the latter for certain games or am I good enough with the controller on its own?

 

[Melcar]

I've a technical question. Xbox controllers have xinput, which makes them work with Windows immediately. If I get a Playstation controller, how would I fare with it? I know about the differences between xinput and dinput, and I remember hearing about Steam providing some sort of help to make your PS controller work without the need of external software. Would I still need the latter for certain games or am I good enough with the controller on its own?

As long as Steam overlay is running you should be fine.

 

[Bad Sector]

There is also DS4Windows which should work outside of Steam.

 

[Elttharion]

I've a technical question. Xbox controllers have xinput, which makes them work with Windows immediately. If I get a Playstation controller, how would I fare with it? I know about the differences between xinput and dinput, and I remember hearing about Steam providing some sort of help to make your PS controller work without the need of external software. Would I still need the latter for certain games or am I good enough with the controller on its own?

I use a DS4 with my pc and with Steam it works pretty much out of the box, for other launchers you can just add the game as a non-steam game to your library and it will work too. The only annoying thing is that most older games, and some new ones too, will only display xbox controller inputs so that can be confusing. You can even remap and configure your controller on steam, including button inputs and deadzones. I would still download ds4windows tho as a backup option as it

 

[Infinitron]

https://github.com/sultim-t/xash-rt/releases

 

[deuxhero]

I've a technical question. Xbox controllers have xinput, which makes them work with Windows immediately. If I get a Playstation controller, how would I fare with it? I know about the differences between xinput and dinput, and I remember hearing about Steam providing some sort of help to make your PS controller work without the need of external software. Would I still need the latter for certain games or am I good enough with the controller on its own?

Get an 8bitdo. They work as xinput (or various consoles. There's a switch on the back) and seem to be way more durable than modern Sony shit. Also means you aren't supporting modern Sony.

 

[Melcar]

https://github.com/sultim-t/xash-rt/releases

So we need triple 4090s to run this at 1080p and 30fps?

 

[Rahdulan]

I wonder if they plan to take a harder stance on this matter, and whether it will actually impact bundles or other stores dealing in Steam keys. This is just further clarification.
https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/02/28/valve-steam-keys-guidelines-updated-rules

Valve limits number of default Steam keys to 5,000 per game, emphasizing its price parity stance​

Published by​

Evgeny Obedkov​

Tags:​

• Steam,
• Valve

Valve has introduced several updates to its guidelines for Steam game keys. Although the rules generally remain the same, there are some nuances that developers should be aware of.

The new rules and guidelines were announced last week and reflected on the Steam Keys page. Big thanks to Simon Carless and the GameDiscoverCo team, who not only spotted the update but highlighted the exact policy changes with the help of SteamDB’s SteamWorks Documentation project.

Here are the key takeaways:

• Valve now mentions a specific number of default release keys — “up to 5,000” — any developer can get at launch to share them with Steam users or distribute their game on other digital stores and platforms;
• There is no guarantee that Valve will provide devs with additional keys, as all requests after the 5,000 baseline are reviewed on a case-by-case basis;
• The number of so-called “beta package keys”, which are intended for small beta tests and pre-launch access for the press or influencers, is now limited to 2,500 — for larger scale tests, Valve recommends using the Steam Playtest feature;
• Valve updated the paragraph about selling games on other stores, adding a new phrase: “It is important that you don’t give Steam customers a worse deal than Steam Key purchasers”;
• Thus, the company emphasizes its stance on price parity, demanding that developers don’t sell their titles at lower prices than on Steam;
• Here is what Valve has to say about reviewing Steam key requests: “We typically [look at] the level of customer interest on Steam, the total number of keys that have been issued and activated for the game and the additional number that are being requested”;
• All imbalanced requests, such as when a game “with a few hundred units of lifetime sales requesting tens of thousands of keys,” can be rejected;
• “If you request an extreme number of keys and you are not offering Steam customers a comparable deal, or if your sole business is selling Steam Keys and not offering value to Steam customers, your request may be denied and you may lose the privilege to request keys,” a new phrase in the rules reads, implying that in some cases, devs may be prohibited from requesting keys.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Bundles were an interesting thing when it was about gettingg a bunch of games for 30 dollars while helping charity, which was interesting. Then Humble Bundle decided to get a political stance and ruined everything. Thankfully you can make it so HB gets $0 from a Bundle purchase, which is what I always do when I get one from them. 50% for charity and 50% for the devs/publishers.
Fanatical might have interesting bundles every now and then, but anything other than that is just a waste. I admit I don't know how good Steam's coverage for currencies is worldwide, but they accept local debit and paypal in most places, so it should be fine to just get stuff from them. I don't know how these sites who sell bundles with like 12 or so low-effort bottom feeder games make a profit. I mean, it's not even a window for indies, ichtio is a better platform for that. It's even below your average dollar store experience.

 

[Tacgnol]

Fanatical might have interesting bundles every now and then, but anything other than that is just a waste. I admit I don't know how good Steam's coverage for currencies is worldwide, but they accept local debit and paypal in most places, so it should be fine to just get stuff from them. I don't know how these sites who sell bundles with like 12 or so low-effort bottom feeder games make a profit. I mean, it's not even a window for indies, ichtio is a better platform for that. It's even below your average dollar store experience.

There are people that buy bundles purely to increase their steam game count as a weird flex.

 

[Modron]

Wonder how those changes will affect third party sites that sell keys provided by publishers like Greenmangaming, Fanatical, and Humblebundle. The death of bundling? Lower cost preorders elsewhere going the way of the dodo?

 

[Hirato]

Bundles were an interesting thing when it was about gettingg a bunch of games for 30 dollars while helping charity, which was interesting. Then Humble Bundle decided to get a political stance and ruined everything. Thankfully you can make it so HB gets $0 from a Bundle purchase, which is what I always do when I get one from them. 50% for charity and 50% for the devs/publishers.
Fanatical might have interesting bundles every now and then, but anything other than that is just a waste. I admit I don't know how good Steam's coverage for currencies is worldwide, but they accept local debit and paypal in most places, so it should be fine to just get stuff from them. I don't know how these sites who sell bundles with like 12 or so low-effort bottom feeder games make a profit. I mean, it's not even a window for indies, ichtio is a better platform for that. It's even below your average dollar store experience.

I also like that I can allocate portions to individual devs.

I've done that a few times for particularly scummy devs that made something that piqued my interest.
I got they game, they got no money, and I didn't even have to consider piracy!
Best Deal!

 

[Alienman]

Wonder how those changes will affect third party sites that sell keys provided by publishers like Greenmangaming, Fanatical, and Humblebundle. The death of bundling? Lower cost preorders elsewhere going the way of the dodo?

Also, key sellers, they are the only way to truly feel like you are browsing games in a store digitally. These homogenized price stores all over have ruined shops already.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/portal-writ...t-valves-flat-structure-makes-it-a-challenge/

Portal writer Erik Wolpaw still wants to make Portal 3, but Valve's 'flat structure' makes it a challenge​

More people at Valve need to get behind it.

Valve's allergy to the number three continues. While the desire for a third Portal game might not be quite as powerful as the hunger for Half-Life 3 (or even just Episode 3), the mind-bending puzzle series continues to have plenty of fans eager to see it continue, including Portal writer Erik Wolpaw. Unfortunately, the likelihood of another sequel remains hard to gauge.

Wolpaw has advocated for Portal 3 before(opens in new tab), hoping to inspire action in the company to which he returned as a part-time contractor back in 2019 after a stint at Double Fine. In December he even revealed that he had a "starting point" for Portal 3(opens in new tab), but that this didn't mean Valve had committed to developing it. Four months on, it seems that not much has changed.

In an interview with Simon Parkin on the My Perfect Console podcast(opens in new tab), Wolpaw explained the difficulties in getting the sequel off the ground. "In a flat structure like Valve, there is an opportunity cost to doing anything. Whatever is going on at Valve right now requires the dedication and participation of the people working on it—and it's voluntary."

So there needs to be enough people at Valve willing to work on Portal 3. But in the meantime, Wolpaw is going to keep pushing for it and—jokingly—giving Valve a hard time. "The people who could be disturbed by it internally understand that it's just me joking around," he added.

A source of frustration for fans is that there have been long periods of time where Valve hasn't seemingly been developing anything else, so why not Portal 3? Or Half-Life 3? But Wolpaw defends his employer.

"Valve is not a giant company. I think people sometimes think it is because of the outsized influence of Steam, but it's not really that many people. It takes manpower to keep Dota going, it takes manpower to keep CSGO going. And the freeform nature of Valve means that there are a lot of experiments that simply fail. So things are happening—if you were inside Valve, you would think that stuff was always going on, because it is."

And Valve has clearly been busy lately, what with the launch of the Steam Deck and development of Counter-Strike 2(opens in new tab). And there's Steam itself, which remains the most important piece of software Valve has ever designed or maintained.

"As much I enjoy the things I worked on at Valve and my time at Valve, and it's important to me, if I had to choose between Valve's games and Steam—which I feel is the most democratising technology that ever came out, to allow people to create games, game creators to actually make games and get them in front of people—I guess I would choose Steam," said Wolpaw.

So there will always be things competing for attention at Valve. "It's a manpower problem," said Wolpaw. "You have to pick what you're going to work on and time is limited."

 

[Caim]

Kinda funny how a company with a few hundred employees whose worth is around $10 billion is still run like a small studio.

 

[IDtenT]

Kinda funny how a company with a few hundred employees whose worth is around $10 billion is still run like a small studio.

It would be frustrating to work at tbh.