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[itisnotlogical]

Yeah, and the perfect Steam would have those, is what I was trying to say.

[Shadowlord]

OIC. 

[Orange Wizard]

Anyone have the programming skills to make this?

[Darkmere]

I... didn't even notice Steam was trying to recommend things for me. Heh. If anything I hear about something either through somewhere else (Here, or TVtropes, sometimes a friend) or when they're on the big sales lists, which I check out elsewhere and then come back.

I think the couple times I've seen "related games" listed and ended up buying them mostly ended badly, so I just kinda treat it as noise now.

Anyone have the programming skills to make this?

"Yes, I'd like to make an application that uses your service, but directly compares you to all of your competitors at once and will guaranteed cost you business at some point."

-"No. Go away."

[Orange Wizard]

Anyone have the programming skills to make this?

"Yes, I'd like to make an application that uses your service, but directly compares you to all of your competitors at once and will guaranteed cost you business at some point."

-"No. Go away."

Well, obviously we wouldn't tell them.

[Graknorke]

Well, GOG 's solution is pretty nice. The main thing they have ahead of steam is the whole the client isnt drm thing, you can just uninstall it and keep your games.

Sorry but I have to correct this every time it comes up: Steam is not intrinsically DRM. It is a download manager that can but does not have to be used as DRM.

[Ozyton]

Well, GOG 's solution is pretty nice. The main thing they have ahead of steam is the whole the client isnt drm thing, you can just uninstall it and keep your games.

Sorry but I have to correct this every time it comes up: Steam is not intrinsically DRM. It is a download manager that can but does not have to be used as DRM.

Offline mode doesn't exist and don't try to convince people otherwise or they might find out about it.

[Graknorke]

Not even offline mode. There's some games where you can just take the game files and then... move them.

EDIT: Random capitalisation why?

[Orange Wizard]

Yeah, that's down to the developer. There's the option of including DRM with Steam, but if they don't use it, you can run the game when/wherever from the files.

[Shadowlord]

Yeah, "take the game out of the steam folder" is part of the standard instructions for getting vampire: The masquerade: Bloodlines set up properly.

[Folly]

I have no problem with Steam store advertisements. Most of the time I keep Steam minimized to my tray, and access my recently played games directly by right-clicking the icon, completely bypassing the Steam Store; I only see the recommended games when I want to look at them. And when I do feel bored and want to find something new, Steam's store is usually pretty good at finding something I'm interested in.

The only things I really want from a gaming client that Steam doesn't have are some indicator of how active the community is for multiplayer games(I've been burned a few times buying games and finding out the community was dead) and some indicator of how active the development is(for those infamous alpha games that show amazing potential then turn out the developer hasn't done an update in years).

[WealthyRadish]

Anyone have the programming skills to make this?

"Yes, I'd like to make an application that uses your service, but directly compares you to all of your competitors at once and will guaranteed cost you business at some point."

-"No. Go away."

I don't think there are any copyright issues with writing a program that interacts with somebody else's program without permission (the most they can do is try to break that interaction with updates). You can see markets sort of like this with all the travel booking sites that pull data from airlines and hotels (also an example of how this relationship is usually mutually beneficial). The main issue would be having a client like this still be able to make any money if GabeN and the other distributors still get their cut, since a higher-level distribution platform like this probably wouldn't handle any transactions itself, and would have to just make money off of advertising, subscriptions, or paid promotions.

It's the sort of thing I'd love to see, something that would let the other distributors undercut Steam without needing their own swanky client and a trapped userbase.

[Darkmere]

Yeah you're not going to get a client that can access their download servers without also getting access to their account information.

Think on this for a minute... do you REALLY want your payment information available to a company that WOULD let a third-party client access it without their consent? Is that a thing that should happen?

[WealthyRadish]

Oh god no, that's why I mentioned that a client like this wouldn't handle any transactions itself. Steam already has an API for the kind of thing I'm talking about here, that allows you to link your account with other programs and websites (without sharing the actual account information). Even without that level of support, getting a 3rd party client to pull data or at the very least log yourself in and launch other clients would be as difficult as writing a batch file.

Looking at a site like steamdb.info, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to also draw data from sites like humblebundle, gog, greenmangaming, desura, etc. and compare them all at once, and if you could also link all those accounts to it then it would be essentially as convenient as having one client.

But again, the problem is it wouldn't make any money (the steamdb example runs on donations). It'd need to be updated fairly often, would need some degree of server capacity (even if it stored all the information for the various accounts locally only), and would probably need some level of professional development to have a chance at widespread use when compared with things like Steam.

[BigD145]

I discover a lot of new games because of steam's recommendations.

The only thing I don't like is the games it suggests exclusively because they're popular.

I discover a lot of new terrible games because of the suggestions. Then I weep for my hobby.