• TotalBiscuit - The Future of Steam
    10 replies, posted
An hour long video about TotalBiscuit's visit to Valve and the things they discussed [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeEyCYv_QDI[/media]
Nice to know it was a purely business meeting, surprised even. And with no NDA to boot, wow.
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;52052361]Nice to know it was a purely business meeting, surprised even. And with no NDA to boot, wow.[/QUOTE] There's not much to "spoil" or any hype to carefully handle when it comes to Steam updates, makes sense they'd want TB and Jim to make videos about it and get a discussion going. The community gets some much-needed information about huge upcoming changes in a format they like, Valve gets to read their feedback and see the community's perspective, everyone wins. There are no drawbacks really.
[QUOTE=Drury;52052421]There's not much to "spoil" or any hype to carefully handle when it comes to Steam updates, makes sense they'd want TB and Jim to make videos about it and get a discussion going. The community gets some much-needed information about huge upcoming changes in a format they like, Valve gets to read their feedback and see the community's perspective, everyone wins. There are no drawbacks really.[/QUOTE] Valve should do this more often.
Any highlights? I can't watch the video right now and I don't think there's a SoundCloud ver up.
Honestly I'll wait and see if Valve actually does anything significant before I start praising them.
[QUOTE=e_k_M;52052442]Any highlights? I can't watch the video right now and I don't think there's a SoundCloud ver up.[/QUOTE] From a reddit thread Summary: Main theme of these changes is to make sure good games get attention and bad games become invisible. Make curators more useful/make life easier for curators. Valve wants more people to be curators. There may be some kind of leveling system. Refine recommendations further by making many more metrics of a game publicly available (not sales though). Users will be able to see exactly why a game appears. A goal of Valve's is for a user to never see a game they aren't interested in. Steam Explorers: Sign-up program to give exposure to games that deserve it. Users will have their own forum to discuss the games and arrange multiplayer. Still will be required to buy the game but Valve is thinking about giving perks like a once per week no-strings-attached refund for games they are exploring. Valve will be giving developers the ability to directly give users games through Steam. Should cut down on people imitating reviewers to get keys to resell. Valve wants to use Steam Direct to make sure "Fake Games" can't make any money. Games like asset flips or trading card milling games, or games that just plain don't work. See Jim Sterling for examples of these type of games. Valve will have a set of rules for games on Steam Direct, and games can be removed if a game or the developer is in violation of the rules. Steam Support: Over the past few years, Valve has hired two external companies to provide the majority of "front-line support". There is a division within Valve to deal with cases that the external companies can't deal with. Valve is looking to further improve it, though they are hoping that by making the Steam store a better place support will be less necessary. Worth nothing, this is all still in development. Some or all of these may be changed upon release/scrapped altogether. There is no timetable on this, so don't expect all of this to drop next month.
[QUOTE=TheJoker;52052540]From a reddit thread Summary: Main theme of these changes is to make sure good games get attention and bad games become invisible. Make curators more useful/make life easier for curators. Valve wants more people to be curators. There may be some kind of leveling system. Refine recommendations further by making many more metrics of a game publicly available (not sales though). Users will be able to see exactly why a game appears. A goal of Valve's is for a user to never see a game they aren't interested in. Steam Explorers: Sign-up program to give exposure to games that deserve it. Users will have their own forum to discuss the games and arrange multiplayer. Still will be required to buy the game but Valve is thinking about giving perks like a once per week no-strings-attached refund for games they are exploring. Valve will be giving developers the ability to directly give users games through Steam. Should cut down on people imitating reviewers to get keys to resell. Valve wants to use Steam Direct to make sure "Fake Games" can't make any money. Games like asset flips or trading card milling games, or games that just plain don't work. See Jim Sterling for examples of these type of games. Valve will have a set of rules for games on Steam Direct, and games can be removed if a game or the developer is in violation of the rules. Steam Support: Over the past few years, Valve has hired two external companies to provide the majority of "front-line support". There is a division within Valve to deal with cases that the external companies can't deal with. Valve is looking to further improve it, though they are hoping that by making the Steam store a better place support will be less necessary. Worth nothing, this is all still in development. Some or all of these may be changed upon release/scrapped altogether. There is no timetable on this, so don't expect all of this to drop next month.[/QUOTE] Aka these changes may be implemented over the course of the next hundred years? :v: But really though, I am really skeptical of that Steam Support one. It's the single worst support forum I have ever used. It once took them two months to reply to one of my tickets and they literally told me to restart my router, despite the fact I was asking for a refund. Took them another week before they responded saying that I would have to contact Ubisoft for a refund, and Ubisoft's support redirected me to Steam Support saying they would have to do it, and to this day I can't refund a game that literally doesn't work on my PC and I have no hours on. [editline]3rd April 2017[/editline] That was years ago, hopefully it's less shit now, but now I'm too scared to even try so I don't even bother preordering games and anymore and avoid Ubisoft titles at all cost lest I get the same problem.
[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52052565]Aka these changes may be implemented over the course of the next hundred years? :v: But really though, I am really skeptical of that Steam Support one. It's the single worst support forum I have ever used. It once took them two months to reply to one of my tickets and they literally told me to restart my router, despite the fact I was asking for a refund. Took them another week before they responded saying that I would have to contact Ubisoft for a refund, and Ubisoft's support redirected me to Steam Support saying they would have to do it, and to this day I can't refund a game that literally doesn't work on my PC and I have no hours on. [editline]3rd April 2017[/editline] That was years ago, hopefully it's less shit now, but now I'm too scared to even try so I don't even bother preordering games and anymore and avoid Ubisoft titles at all cost lest I get the same problem.[/QUOTE] Judging by the video, and the way TB talked about it, it gave me the impression they're not actually going to change anything about the way steam support works. They just are hoping that by giving shitty games less coverage, and by making automatic refunds a thing, that people won't have to use support as often. But my impression could be wrong, so who knows.
Y'know, many Steam Support stories I hear these days actually go along the lines of "I remember using the Steam Support years ago and it was shit. Haven't used it recently tho, idk if it's still as bad." Which is pretty much what Valve wanted to achieve by eliminating problems before they turn into support tickets. For example by giving people the ability to refund games or to remove games from their own libraries. [editline]3rd April 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=revanade;52052618]Judging by the video, and the way TB talked about it, it gave me the impression they're not actually going to change anything about the way steam support works. They just are hoping that by giving shitty games less coverage, and by making automatic refunds a thing, that people won't have to use support as often. But my impression could be wrong, so who knows.[/QUOTE] TB did say that they've got a Steam-specialized in-house team now that takes over when outsourced support can't handle general tickets. According to the reddit thread, "it was revealed in the court case against Valve in Australia that they had 50 support staff, with a further 200 staff at an outsourced company called Blueprint", and since in this video TB said that Valve currently uses two third parties for "front-line tickets", it seems like they've stocked up since then.
[QUOTE=TheJoker;52052540] Steam Support: Over the past few years, Valve has hired two external companies to provide the majority of "front-line support". There is a division within Valve to deal with cases that the external companies can't deal with. Valve is looking to further improve it, though they are hoping that by making the Steam store a better place support will be less necessary.[/QUOTE] Well that's a bit naive Good support is always necessary, even the best storefront in the world will have thousands of support tickets a day
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