#valve steam

[berf-a-smurf]

Streaming another Chat’s Pick!

Come hang out with me for a while 😊

[botebot-10]

FnaF Security Breach is the big hyperfixation steam game I NEEDED to get into the platform!!

Its SUPER unique compared to ANYTHING I played before!! It has a messy sandbox vibe to it, which is kinda THE EXACT OPPOSITE to my previous hyperfixation game! Haha!

[shoomlah]

HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY STEAM just wanted to share a couple of my favorites from the whole set! Can't believe that I got to draw these on company time baybeeeee 😎

[a-soft-fluffy-girl]

TL;DR: Steam just made library sharing so much fucking easier and so much fucking better. Instead of login-trading, it's just a simple goddamn invite.

Read this. Really. It's a good read. Because it shows that, full-stop, Valve isn't just doubling down on their stance to make sure that people can and should be able to share their copies of digital goods as easily as they can physical ones, but they're making it better and easier than ever.

But you know how Steam allowed you to, with either friends or family, link accounts with another person to be able to establish an ability to share game libraries with one another? The general gist of Steam Family Sharing was that, with a limit of five people plus you (six in total) on a limit of ten computers total could share account access to willingly mix your libraries. You could play theirs. They could play yours.

This was a huge boon. It was meant to emulate sharing a physical copy of a game. A way to allow children to play games their parents or siblings had bought without having to fork over double the cash to buy it a second game. But it had some major limitations and drawbacks, and was archaic to use.

If a person did not share the same computer, you had to manually log into that computer to give it and the accounts on it access. This wouldn't be a problem if both accounts were used on the same computer, but many households (and astronomically more family and friend groups) had multiple computers, all used by different people.

If that computer, at any point, was hard reset to any point before the sharing occurred, you lost access. And had to do the whole process again. This was also an issue with computer transfers. The whole kit and kaboodle needed to be redone on upgrades. On top of that, the old computer is now just dead weight that you may not realize you have to manually revoke access to.

Putting your account information on another person's computer opens up security issues. They could, intentionally or accidentally, land themselves on your account if the login information was stored. Which could easily lead to purchases or bans you did not want to happen.

If anyone was, at any point, playing any game on their own library, you had no access to their games. Even if it was a totally different game, you had to wait your turn as if waiting for their computer to be freed up to sit at. (Admittedly this is kind of like the "mom said it's my turn on the xbox" meme, but hey, kinda archaic.)

You could not choose whose library you accessed a game from. Not at all. It always prioritized the first library it gained access from, DLC access and multiplayer be damned. If another friend you were accepting games from had more DLC? Too bad.

And yet here we are. Steam Families Beta fixes EVERYTHING about the above issues. By just going through Settings > Interface > client Beta Participation and clicking onto Steam Families Beta? You get:

No more login sharing. No more computer links. You can now choose which person's library you borrowed from. And you can play any other game from someone's library, even while they're in-game. It just needs to be a different game than what they're playing.

Pick five people. Invite them to your family. And now everyone has access to everyone's library. My goddamn library went from 150-ish to almost a goddamn thousand in ten minutes of setup.

Account sharing and password sharing are dirty words that "lose" billions of dollars. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Max. They aren't game storefronts, but they still allow you to access massive libraries and scream like you murdered their firstborns for daring to share your password with your mother after you moved out.

Microsoft tried pushing to demonize and undercut used games sales and borrowed copies of physical games. Remember the first attempt to reveal the Xbox One? People forget, but these vultures tried to make an always online console that checked to see if you were the account that owned the game, even if you had a physical disc, and prevent access to the disc's contents if you weren't the original downloader.

Valve walked the fuck up. Valve tapped the mic. And Valve dropped the fucking thing right onto the ground with one feature's revamp.

About the only issues I can see with this are twofold:

If someone sharing your library gets banned from a game's servers... so do you. No one else in the family does, but the both of you do. This is... rather unpleasant, because banhammers can be dropped quite frequently by mistake. I'd urge Valve to rethink this one, but I see the logic: don't cheat and effectively bite the hand feeding you. Still making me side-eye that, though.

If you leave a family you've joined? You have to wait a YEAR to join a new one. It's to prevent people form jumping ship to another group and screwing over who's in the former one in the process, but a YEAR? OUCH.

Problems aside, though... it's probably the biggest fucking power move I have ever seen a media distributor make in the current economic climate. It's the kind of thing that would let so many new games be available in a way that's easier than ever. Just a few clicks to send or accept an invite, and bam. Permanent access to dozens or even hundreds of new games with so much more freedom than earlier drafts of the system.

It's the kind of thing that slaps you in the face with positivity after so many Ls from the games and media industries. And I'm all the fuck for a W like this.

[jasperjv]

Laughing and laughing because Steam is so very upset and shaming me for not forking over for the flagship titles of the year like an oinking pig. Writhe, worms.

[healpimp]

In case anyone isn't up to date with #FixTF2 and the issues the protest is focusing on, here is a comprehensive document you can read.

It has the personal testimony of one of the bothosters' victims who was swatted, MegaScatterBomb, a guy who is working on an anticheat to use in casual mode.

The bothosters and their lackeys have committed and condoned crimes that hurt people IRL, while scamming desperate players with "bot immunity" and spamming links that they brag about containing CP. They customize their Objectors to have gore on them. They have tried to funnel the anger of the playerbase on innocent, uninvolved parties and impersonated a number of TF2 players to divert attention away from the real bothosters. Recently they tried to take down the save.tf site by unlawfully impersonating Valve in order to file a DMCA.

They are allowed to conduct this sort of behavior with no consequences while Valve is still making money off the game.

#FixTF2 is not asking for more content, they are asking for security measures. People are getting doxxed just for critiquing bothosters. TF2 isn't the only game on Steam which suffers from lack of proper regulation, either. If people are supposed to spend money on your product, this product should work properly and you shouldn't be risking your personal information just from using it!

Please sign the petition on save.tf (they are aiming for 300k signatures) and spread word of #FixTF2. As a regular player and a big fan of the game, I think this is worth trying rather than just rolling over. Valve profits from this mess, refusing to openly communicate with the playerbase, fix their game nor simply shut it down. Let them know this is unacceptable.

To keep up with the developments and to know more, a good account to follow on twitter is the guy who called the fandom to action in the first place this year, Weezy. He has a youtube too, with informative videos on the matter. Shork is likewise updating on the situation.

[accecakes]

I like tf2 :3

[never-obsolete]

Steam Store November 2010

[istyles]

New: Valve Steam Deck Skins

[demifiendrsa]

Half-Life is free to own on Steam until November 20, 2023 10AM PT / 1PM ET.

[ranidspace]

Half Life 1 is free on steam NOW until November 20th.

Go play the one of the most influential video games of all time!!!!

here's another link to install it directly, put this in your browser: steam://install/70

steam:// is the url specification that says "open this url in the steam app". 70 is the app-id for half life (im unsure if this works as even on a 100% off sale where you don't buy it, you still have to "purchase" n the game first, if anyone wants to test that out please tell me if it works)

[berf-a-smurf]

[Image IDs:

1: Screenshot of my Steam game list ordered by Recent, collapsed so just the month and year headers are visible with the amount of games played on each in parentheses to the right. There's quite the backlog.

2: Jenny Han's To All the Boys I've Loved Before book cover poorly edited in MS paint (by yours truly) to say "To All the Games I've Loved Before".

/End IDs]

[0sbrain]

FULL RES TF2 IMAGES FROM THE STEAM ANNIVERSARY PAGE

[shoomlah]

I'm not sure what else I can do for the apparently VORACIOUS Spies In Dresses fandom, but might I offer you the original sketches in this trying time

[cozylittleartblog]

okay so happy 20th birthday to Steam, apparently,

(he looked Really Nice in that dress though)

[bracoeth]

"I'm SAD"