Steam is less fun, convenient and more scummy to buy games nowadays.

[selfKaiHarness]

Hey there, the name's Kai. You probably wondering in the title of this thread on what the hell it was supposed to be about. Don't worry, I'll tell you my experience with buying games on steam first. But first off, I wanted to tell you that in the past, Steam used to let you buy games without problems. No forcing you to put your billing info to get the game you wanted, nothing. It was like it was supposed to be, pure bliss. Nowadays, they force you to put your info out for ''privacy'' bullshit before you get the game you wanted, causing people to not buy steam games at all.

Back in 2012-2011 (?), I started my account with the help of my sis getting into Steam for the very first time. I was like 12 at the time when Portal 2 was released for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3, and by that time I almost completed the game until I got into one level that coward me back then wouldn't get past. Remember back in 2012/2011 where PSN announced that they'll be allowing users to create Steam accounts there? I miss those days. I bought my very first steam game, Terraria which I still played to this very day. Back then, Steam allows you to buy games without any extra steps involved. All you had to do is to add into cart, purchase for me, then it will authorize and you're done. No putting into your damn info, nothing. Just pure smooth bliss. Games back then sold like hot cakes without problems. It was the beginning of something great that I call 'The Steam Golden ages of Purchases.'. And so begins my purchasing days on Steam.

2012 - Bought Garry's Mod and The Orange Box (Again. Because stupid, bratty, and cowardly me made multiple dummy steam accounts years ago just to play the games and bought the physical Cd release with the used up code in there. It was me I used the code)

In 2013, I bought Starbound without any snags in the road. One two three, authorized without issues.

Over the years I learned how to save money on buying games that looked interesting and highly rated to play, it was a good time for the last decade, right up until the year 2020. That's when steam decided they want to join the whole scamming thing that Big Tech was using so they added in a step that aggravated users, slowed down big sales, and ultimately their biggest mistake they have ever made.

They added billing information form to the game that you tried to purchase, nowadays getting your billing info is much more valuable than privacy. So Steam jumped into that and totally ruined the smooth transition of buying games. People like me were outraged when this happened, people tried to find other ways but ended up the same as Steam. They are forced into giving up their private billing info towards a mega corporation. Including me as well, which not only it makes games more difficult and frustrating to buy, but it encouraged piracy as a whole to take over. I even myself has screamed at it, trying to find a way around this but ultimately you're forced into this no matter what game or DLC you buy. The billing info will come up in the steam Wallet section.

Not only this move is so scammy and unfun, but it also is anti-privacy as well so you have no choice but to pirate the game and sending your money to the indie devs on Paypal with the words "Sorry that I pirated your DLC, here's 15$ by the way, its the same price so yeah. Steam is fucking ass on trying to get rid of my privacy." Or just to call someone out on gifting you the damn game without giving up your damn info. (I tried to fuckin tell them on Discord to gift me the DLC, they said fuck off. I hope they get hacked.)

Steam is eroding not only your privacy, but the fun of purchasing games as well. You better be off donating money to the devs straight up while you pirate DLC with a message attached. Or better yet, buying games on Humble although I've had a feeling they went with the same unfun route that Steam went, so I'm not surprised at all.

So here's my advice if you are buying games on steam:
1. Tell them to gift the game to you, so that you won't experience the unfun of purchasing a game ever again. (That require you to give up your info as a sacrifice, and will not work half of the time because most of the community is so fucking rude and full of faggotry.)
2. Attempt to get a steam key on an alt humble site.
3. Pirate the damn game/DLC and send the same amount of money that the game is priced at to the devs with an apology letter attached to it. (The devs will be at first confused, but will understand your choice.)

Overall, fuck this decision that Steam made over ruining anonymity and fuck these users on discord for telling me this same old phase 'nuh huh you can't cry about it stoopid no one's complaining just fill out your damn info and get scammed you faggot and bla blah bullshit about encrypting your billing info etc'.

I'm so goddamned pissed about this and this change ruined my ability to support indie devs in the long-term. Thank you Steam for fucking indie devs over without knowing you faggot turds! I'm fucking outta here, I'm going to calm myself down with a little stress reliever.

 

[mydadiscar]

Damn, Steam ruined itself too? I was really fond of it, I have not used it for a while but I liked using it in the mid and late 2010s as a social media. Made a lot of good friends there. What a shame.

 

[selfKaiHarness]

Damn, Steam ruined itself too? I was really fond of it, I have not used it for a while but I liked using it in the mid and late 2010s as a social media. Made a lot of good friends there. What a shame.

Yes. It's sad to say by 2020 rolled around, Steam went to shit by quietly adding the billing requirements into the Steam Wallet option. I noticed it along with a few others who noticed the change as well and obviously, we're pissed by it. It used to be so simple and fast like PSN and xbox Live, but now they want to go back many steps and it hurt so many sales of games.

 

[Hraelth]

Between this and Russians getting fucked over by soydevs I hope we see a greater resurgence of piracy.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Yeah, I remember back in 2008 when there was no way to identify yourself on Steam and so if you bought a game but there were any server errors or issues on the developers end and your game wasn't added to your library, you were shit out of luck and down $60. Good times.

 

[selfKaiHarness]

Yeah, I remember back in 2008 when there was no way to identify yourself on Steam and so if you bought a game but there were any server errors or issues on the developers end and your game wasn't added to your library, you were shit out of luck and down $60. Good times.

Jeez, that's worse because when there's a sudden snag in the server, as soon you bought your game you don't find it in your library and you just lost money and get nothing out of it. That's just evil in an unintentional way.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Jeez, that's worse because when there's a sudden snag in the server, as soon you bought your game you don't find it in your library and you just lost money and get nothing out of it. That's just evil in an unintentional way.

It was no fun. I had to buy 3 copies of Gmod to play the game, but luckily it was like only $10 at the time or something. Anyways, Steam is probably on some kind of decline now, but honestly, I don't feel like it's that bad. Easy ways to go around billing info and other privacy issues like you said. I'd still rather Steam than most other platforms.

 

[selfKaiHarness]

It was no fun. I had to buy 3 copies of Gmod to play the game, but luckily it was like only $10 at the time or something. Anyways, Steam is probably on some kind of decline now, but honestly, I don't feel like it's that bad. Easy ways to go around billing info and other privacy issues like you said. I'd still rather Steam than most other platforms.

I'm glad there is ways around the billing info snag when purchasing a game, because without it buying games would be very tedious. Not to mention like you said that Steam has server issues in the past that you completely lose money when buying a game. But still, Steam has a lot of flaws that need to be ironed out, mainly the servers as well. I still use steam all these years, despite its shortcomings and annoying snags.

But jeez, 30$ you lost while trying to pay Gmod is a minor blow but at least you got the game years ago. Luckily, I never experienced this issue at all. I think I bought my games when the server is doing great or something. All in all, Steam is a hot mess of issues that needs to be fixed but its still beloved by many.

 

[Celery Man]

You should've never stopped buying games from Walmart

 

[nagolbud]

For years I've wanted to make a gaming portal for devs by devs. The problem is game devs are shady faggots themselves these days and only care about money. Even indie devs.

I've always wanted to setup a gaming platform kinda like mastodon instances / peertube. Where each developer makes their own instance and all the instances are tied together so you can sell games in my instance and I can sell games in your instance. Devs have complete control over their games, get all the sales, and don't have to worry about censorship or any other bullshit while at the same time offering their product to the same large audience.

Fuck steam. Fuck modern game devs. Bunch of dick riding college kids trying to get a job at activision or making early access games only to pull out the carpet a year in so they can cash in on a few pennies. Shit is aids.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPSbNdBmWKE

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

For years I've wanted to make a gaming portal for devs by devs. The problem is game devs are shady faggots themselves these days and only care about money. Even indie devs.

I've always wanted to setup a gaming platform kinda like mastodon instances / peertube. Where each developer makes their own instance and all the instances are tied together so you can sell games in my instance and I can sell games in your instance. Devs have complete control over their games, get all the sales, and don't have to worry about censorship or any other bullshit while at the same time offering their product to the same large audience.

Sounds sorta like itch.io

 

[nagolbud]

Sounds sorta like itch.io

Nah they aren't the same. That's just another marketplace for indie games..

My idea is each dev would have their own game launcher for their games, and those game launchers would be connected to other game devs launchers so their games could be shared across all game launchers. It would give game devs total control over their games, sales, and community without the threat of being banned or cancelled.

 

[Yakito]

I used to really like Steam like a decade ago. I haven't had an account in ages.

I think what is happening with Steam is that their growth phase is over. You practically became the monopoly at selling games digitally on PC. So instead of getting new users, you make the extraction of money more focused. Less money from the workshop, slightly worse sales etc.

The other thing is... I am tried of having to have an online presence and profile for fucking everything. Steam's community is >reddit tier garbage, just that alone is good enough for me not to care about using that site ever again. Oh, also free to play games there suck when you need pay money for steam so you could add friends, because back in the day a retard was scammed out of his worthless tf2 hats. Fuck that greedy platform.

I am glad that modern gaming failed to produce anything that made me want to play new games.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Steam's community is >reddit tier garbage, just that alone is good enough for me not to care about using that site ever again.

So let me get this straight... Because of the state of the Steam community, something you have zero obligation to interact with and holds no bearing on your ability to buy and play games... is preventing you from buying and playing games?

Oh, also free to play games there suck when you need pay money for steam so you could add friends,

What?

 

[Yakito]

So let me get this straight... Because of the state of the Steam community, something you have zero obligation to interact with and holds no bearing on your ability to buy and play games... is preventing you from buying and playing games?

It's a part, yes.

What?

Back in the day you could have somebody buy you a game, and after activating it you could add friends. My friend circle was used to be on steam back in the day, because pre-discord you either had steam or skype.

Nowadays if you make a new Steam Account you can't add friends without paying up the money first. That cripples you in free to play titles, that usually have a working friend system for everybody. In TF2 you can't even use voice commands if you are a free to play.

 

[Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意]

Back in the day you could have somebody buy you a game, and after activating it you could add friends. My friend circle was used to be on steam back in the day, because pre-discord you either had steam or skype.

Nowadays if you make a new Steam Account you can't add friends without paying up the money first. That cripples you in free to play titles, that usually have a working friend system for everybody. In TF2 you can't even use voice commands if you are a free to play.

What money do you have to pay? Like buy a game? When did that start happening?

 

[Yakito]

What money do you have to pay? Like buy a game? When did that start happening?

I think it happened around 2014-ish. It's not a lot. You just need to buy 5 bucks/euros. Before that activating gifts worked.

It's basically a way to stop scammers. I understand it, but it wasn't good for my situation.

 

[№56]

All you had to do is to add into cart, purchase for me, then it will authorize and you're done. No putting into your damn info, nothing.

How did you make a credit/debit card payment online without giving out billing info? Were you using a prepaid credit card or gift card?
Steam is a bloated, barely functioning piece of shit, and there are hundreds of legitimate complaints to be made about it, but this one just doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[selfKaiHarness]

How did you make a credit/debit card payment online without giving out billing info? Were you using a prepaid credit card or gift card?
Steam is a bloated, barely functioning piece of shit, and there are hundreds of legitimate complaints to be made about it, but this one just doesn't make any sense to me.

I was using Steam funds through prepaid gift cards that I bought from Walmart, Best Buy, Target, etc. Before that, if you had steam funds in your account you don't have to put in your billing info. You would just get the game and you're done. No bullshit info to fill out required.

 

[№56]

I was using Steam funds through prepaid gift cards that I bought from Walmart, Best Buy, Target, etc.

Okay, that makes more sense. I used to do the same thing.
I wonder how kids/teenagers who don't have their own credit cards are going to buy games online now. Maybe they'll just start pirating everything.