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The thing is, and I think you’re missing this, he got those wrong. After being asked for email and Nickname he provides them and the support person says “I’m unable to verify that you own the account”, that means he answered wrong, yes those might be bad questions because some random person might know them, but he didn’t.
Steam remembers my card, so I don’t have to input it there everytime. I get that you wouldn’t want to put your card info somewhere shady, but Steam is not that. Also, most banks nowadays have virtual cards you can use for that sort of thing, some even have one use cards that self destroy after a single purchase. So the safety that PayPal used to offer is not that important anymore.
Ah, if that’s the case then MC statement is kind of pointless, so it’s not them putting the pressure, but you still have to go through the people putting the pressure to get to them. I thought that if you put your card number on steam it had some more direct form of charging than going through stripe.
If this is true then I honestly hope Steam and Itch go “ok, then, PayPal and Stripe are banned from the store as payment forms until we can figure out a way of limiting content you can pay with them”. Honestly I don’t think enough people use either of those payments forms, and even if they do currently they almost assuredly have a card they can use instead, and are more likely to switch payment methods than to stop buying games.
There are lots of games where combat is not even an option, like Life is Strange, Before your eyes (do play this one with a camera and a box of tissues nearby), or Firewatch. But games where you’re expected to fight but can find ways around it the first example that comes to mind is Metal Gear Solid 3, you can beat that game without killing anyone, there’s even an achievement for that and one of the bosses will be particularly easy if you go this route.
Steam used to accept Bitcoin, they stopped when the transaction fees made it unusable. Every time I remember that I get really pissed off, had the block size been increased back then Bitcoin would still be accepted in the many places it was (Steam wasn’t the only one, lots of stores online used to accept it), but because they kept promising a magic solution that never manifested people lost hope and jumped ship (which did solved the problem as nowadays only investors use Bitcoin, so a lot less transactions, a lot more value in them, and higher fees matter less)
Expanding on that, and explaining why this is not Digital hoarding, I have a HUGE catalog of games, lots of which came from bundles and such, if I was able to sell back games to steam, even if for a few cents, I would delete a big chunk of that. But as is I have no reason to do it, I can put them in a “never played” category and forget about them until I randomly find a game in the store that mildly interests me and notice it’s already in my library.
Oh yeah, they absolutely killed Fallout, the first game released by Bethesda (Fallout 3) was such a franchise killer that only sold 20 times more than the original game, and their latest game fiasco only doubled that. And let’s not talk about that fiasco of a TV show, that couldn’t even make it to most watched on Amazon, had to settle for the 2nd most watched show on Amazon, with only 4 times more viewers than Fallout 4 sold copies… In short, yeah, the new direction is such a fiasco that only managed to bring 165 new customers for every 1 that the original had.
Sources:
https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout
https://wccftech.com/the-fallout-tv-show-has-registered-100-million-viewers-to-date/
Honestly, I’m absolutely happy with my Steam Deck, I think it ticks most of your boxes (it even runs Linux, so it’s essentially a portable Linux computer designed for gaming), so I think it’s the better option that you’re looking gor. To your points specifically:
it’s really geared towards family/party gaming
There are plenty of party games on Steam.
it’s Nintendo, so you get the whole usual games (Mario Kart, Zelda, etc.)
This is the only reason to get a switch, if you want a Nintendo console and Nintendo games this is the way. Everyone who gets a switch understand this is the reason they’re getting it. If this is as strong a point to you that it makes you overlook everything else, then get the switch.
like most consoles, it’s plug and play and can be enjoyed in the living room (I kind of gave up trying to set up a proper gaming experience with my Linux PCs, given that I don’t have the hardware for it)
Steam Deck also has a Dock that you can plug to your TV, you’ll need controllers but even so it should be much cheaper in the long run since games are extremely affordable compared to Nintendo.
the battery life is not great to say the least (2.5 hours takes me back of the Game Gear in early 90s!)
Haven’t seen many benchmarks of the switch to be honest, but that does sound bad, the Deck only gets that bad battery life if you’re playing Cyberpunk or something, for more casual games it can get upwards of 6h. Plus you can get power banks that fast large it while playing, which I assume is also possible on the switch although the switch 1 used to have some issues with power banks.
the screen seems to be pretty bad too (at least it’s a step back from the OLED one of the Switch)
All but the cheapest Deck models now use a 90Hz OLED panel
the joycons are still not using a Hall effect sensor, meaning they might still be prone to drifting
While the Deck’s default sticks are not hall effect, they are easily replaceable and Valve sells hall effect replacements on ifixit, so if you ever get drift in your sticks it’s fixable.
most of the games will not be sold as proper cartridges but as download codes
If you’re going down this rote Steam sells download codes for much cheaper
the whole thing (console, additional gamepads, games) is quite pricey
The Deck is about the same price, but like I said you’ll end up saving in games since you start with your whole Steam Library and can get more games much cheaper.
it’s Nintendo, famous for their anti-everything (anti-homebrew, anti-emulation, anti-piracy)
The Deck is by far the most open console you can get, you can even replace the entire OS if you want to, but StramOS is great and you shouldn’t need to.
The reality is that mostly people aren’t going to leave Windows, so if Valve and Linux force Windows to improve it’s still a win.
While I mostly agree with this, every time I see this mentioned it reminds me that MS-DOS Windows was not very popular, until a Microsoft employee offered to port Doom to DOS Windows, because he saw that if games ran on a platform people would use it and migrate naturally, that employee was called Gabe Newell. So I do have some hope that there’s some bigger migration, and in fact we’ve seen the numbers steadily rising, and these sort of things tend to be exponential, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it picks up speed.
- It lacks a d-pad
- It lacks a right thumb stick
- The thumb stick it has is not capacitive nor drift free
- It only has one back paddle for each side
- Ergonomics of the deck are way better, at least for me
- It lacks the
...button (although this is minor because Steam+a opens the same menu)
Don’t get me wrong, the SC 1 is a great controller, but the Steam deck is better, getting a Steam deck like controller would be awesome.
Me too, didn’t even know people thought it was a bad game until recently. Honestly I don’t get why, I wasn’t expecting anything different from what I got, there were definitely some dialogues that made me chuckle, and a lot of storylines were very tongue in cheek, and while gameplay was nothing to write home about neither is fallout and this was sold as “fallout in space”, and definitely delivered on that.
One of my favorite games to play with my SO is Out of Space the vibe is very similar to Overcooked but it’s procedurally generated and a lot more chilled out, i.e. less chaos.
- Factorio, I know you said you couldn’t get into it, but try peaceful mode, it’s a great game even without enemies
- RimWorld, it’s an excellent colony management game
- Dwarf Fortress, this is the big boss, it’s really hard to start, but it’s the most complex simulation game out there. If you can get into it, it’s infinite hours of fun.
I agree with most of what you said, I don’t think the price is as high as people make it out to be, but:
So if it will be the cheapest console of its generation
Cheapest version of the Steam Deck is still cheaper for very comparable hardware, and while generations don’t align I think the Deck is closer to the Switch 2 than to the switch 1, and a Deck 2 would be miles ahead of a switch 2.
This one gets me as well, Paradox had a great history of maintaining and upgrading the base game with money made from DLCs, some of which are content/feature related and others are way cheaper and are cosmetics, all of that while providing mod support. And that model would have been awesome in a sims like game.
Then why are you getting angry while checking this sub and this post? Seems like you’re also getting worked up over it.
I’m sorry you’re in a bad situation, I get it, I’m also not in a situation where I could even buy the switch 2 even if I wanted to. But this is a big deal, the USA have fucked themselves up in the ass so hard that people outside of it might get hit with it. The price of the switch 2 is just one of the tips of this iceberg, the price of the PS5 is another, but in a short while the same thing will start to happen to lots of electronics, including hospital ones, which could increase the price for everyone depending on how this plays out.
Unfortunately for the rest of us the US is a BIG extremely consumer market, and if they get taken off the picture the profit margin decreases and prices need to hike to keep up.
I have also recently been playing Mini Motorways and found it more fun than Mini Metro (too bad it’s not available on Android, since mini metro is one of my favorite phone games)
CK can be daunting, I recommend you choose which time period you like best and go with that game, e.g. if you like sci-fi go with Stellaris, if you like WWII go with Hearts of Iron 4, etc. liking the time period where the game is set can make a huge difference in you willingness to learn it. For example if you don’t like medieval it might be daunting to track lineages and hereditary traits and how the ownership of land works (I once lost an entire kingdom because of it on CK2), but if you like WWII maybe seeing historical facts reflected on mechanics or learning military tactics is more interesting to you. All of those games are very different from one another, but they’re also very alike, starting with one that’s just the right one can help you pass the steep learning curve.
I can beat anyone now because I’m not matched with or against people who are better than me, I don’t learn anything.
I call bullshit on that. If that were the case your skill would be considered higher and you would be matched against ever higher skilled players until you’re not able to win that much. If you can beat anyone in a SBMM system, you would absolutely obliterate every single match in a non-SBMM. You might think you’re bad at those games, but this is what’s happening to you: https://xkcd.com/2501/ i.e. You think the average player is winning most matches, but the truth is that the average player wins around 50% of the mathes. If you win significantly more than 50% of the games you’re placed in then you’re among the top players and just aren’t enough skilled people online to match up with you, which means that if you were to be put in a non-SBMM lobby you would be MVP 99.999% of times and win the match solo. Think about it this way, imagine there are 1000 people searching for matches in your area, and for ease let’s also asume their number also represents their skill level compared to the other, i.e. 1 is a total noob, 1000 is a pro, in this scenario on a SBMM you’re likely in the top 995 so you get paired with the top 10 and according to you you still win that match, on a non-SBMM your average enemy would be 400 skill levels below your current enemies.
I want to jump into a game and have fun, I want to lose some, I want to win some, I want to try in some, I want to goof around in others.
I’m sorry, but that will never happen, you’re just too good at the game, you win most matches when paired against people of your relative skills, which means there aren’t people with your skill around, pairing you with random people will just result in even more frustrating matches for you. You’re like a martial artist who goes on dojos fighting the black belts and winning and think that it would be more fun if you were allowed to fight a random belt color.
I can’t join a lobby of people, lose to them and then try to beat them in the next game, because they reset the lobby after every match.
According to a quick Google search that has nothing to do with SBMM but it’s because different maps and different modes have different number of players. Not to mention that just thinking about it real quick I realized that probably lots of people just play a match and leave, so your lobby would get smaller and smaller unless you allowed it to be refilled after every round. Not that any of this matters, because that scenario won’t happen to you, because you don’t lose matches, remember?
Cod is also a lot less social because of this, you can’t make friends or enemies across matches anymore.
That’s a bummer, but seems related to the topic of lobby reset, not SBMM.
These big multiplayer games have dropped fun, instead they want people to win win win so they keep playing and buy skins. That’s why people don’t improve anymore, there’s no challenge, every game is the same thing, same strategy required.
Have you considered that maybe you’re so good at these games that YOU keep winning but that the same is not true for 90% of people? These are multiplayer games, it’s literally impossible for everyone to win all the time, it’s a zero sum game, for someone to win, someone has to lose, and if you’re winning more than 50% of the time it means you’re an above average player.
I played some mainstream games recently and they put you against bots and stuff for like 10 of your first games
That sounds ridiculous, but with the amount of people playing CoD I don’t think they need bots. At least for me every time I play I get matched against people, but realistically I don’t play that much.
If they want “fair” games against players, they can play ranked. Just give us our casual lobbies back.
You are looking for a mystical fun of being able to play against people more skilled than you, that won’t happen, because casual players are in general terms much worse than you, you’re like a pro NBA basketball player wanting to go back to play in the yard against kids, you have good memories of that time, but your skill level would make those matches extremely boring for you and unfair for others.
First of all SBMM has been going in for WAY longer than that, at least going back to 2007 on CoD according to google. If it wasn’t a problem before, it shouldn’t be now, it’s just that now you’re aware so you’re salty about it. And may I ask, what’s the problem with it? You don’t like playing with people you might lose to? What’s the reasoning behind not liking it?
Also you’re assuming a uniform distribution of skill level, which doesn’t make sense, i.e. for every person who’s playing CoD for the first time there are multiple people with at least some experience, and the more experienced the more the person plays so the more likely they’ll be put in a match. This means that for people in the bottom, probably closer to bottom 10% they’re likely to be the only bottom player in the whole match, so the game for them would be spawn, die, wait over and over, which will be frustrating and so they’ll quit, and now the same will happen to the next bottom 10%, so on and so forth until no one else is left playing.
Random matchmaking is not a thing, it hasn’t been a thing for a LONG time, any match that you found online and had fun had SBMM. Small games can get away with it because the distribution is more even, but in huge titles with millions of people it’s not feasible. You know why this began to annoy you 6 years ago? Because 6 years ago you became good enough to jump from the bottom to the midrange level, and now you’re matched with people you can’t so easily beat all of the time.
I do think games should allow you to do fully random matchmaking, although I have a strong suspicion it would be lots of work to set up for a feature that almost no one will use, because you think you want that, but if you got it you will always be the worst player in the match, and if you aren’t people who’re worse than you will eventually get frustrated and quit until you’re the bottom player and get frustrated and leave.
In my personal opinion people who complain about this are mid level players. Noobs like it because it means they get to win some, experience players like it because it means they get non trivial matches. But these people want to pwn noobs and are frustrated because they’re getting owned half of the time. There’s no reason to be against skill level matchmaking other than “I want to play against people who are worse than me so I can look good”.
Yes, things like original email and Nickname are some of those questions because after they change the public might have no way of figuring it out. Notice the support tech asked for those informations and when provided with it he said that he couldn’t verify ownership, this means OP reported wrong information for the identifying questions.
I’m not saying the service is great, asking him to access an email he claims to have lost access is dumb, but everything after that the tech support person did his best, and I don’t think he should have disabled 2FA, since it could be a social engineering attack.