Gaming Then vs Gaming Now

Meme transcription: A table comparing the steps to start a game ‘then’ vs. ‘now’.

Content of the “Then” column:

  • Double-click GAME.exe
  • Play game

Content of the “Now” column:

  • Launch Steam

  • Steam updates

  • Steam opens

  • Close Steam’s ad window
  • Select Game

  • Game launcher starts

  • Game launcher launches Game launcher updater

  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Ok

  • Would you like to sign up for our newsletter?

  • No

  • Our EULAs have changed. Please review them before continuing

  • Scroll
  • Scroll
  • Scroll
  • Scroll
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes, sell my soul
  • Start game
  • Skip vendor intro
  • Skip vendor intro #2
  • Skip vendor intro #3
  • Sit through nVidia The way it’s meant to be played
  • Skip opening cutscene

  • Main menu opens

  • Would you like to connect your Steam account to account?

  • No
  • Press play.
  • Play game.
CoolBeance,
@CoolBeance@lemmy.world avatar

well at least I don’t have to keep the CD in the CD Drive to actually play the game now

Jimmycrackcrack,

Hate this bullshit so much.

ares35,
@ares35@kbin.social avatar

missed the bit about windows forcing an update and reboot, then crashing to an irreparable state, forcing a reinstall of the whole os and games that were installed.

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one avatar

People praise Steam, but it’s one of the most bloated, unnecessarily convoluted examples of feature creep on my machine, and it always wants to run in the background and check for updates. Even when I do remember to exit properly, it takes several seconds of thinking before it closes. I’ve resorted to using task manager instead.

Almost any launcher is less annoying to me than Steam, but then I’ve never been one to use or want the various social aspects. I wish there were a lite version for people who just want to use it to buy and play games.

Getallen,

Yeah, steam is way too bloated for me. Usually it makes it impossible to do stuff at startup since the new UI version uses more resources

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one avatar

I’ve come to accept that it’s going to update every time I launch it, which makes it a pita since I work long shifts and have very little time to play games to begin with.

rodolfo,

I wonder if a batch program wouldn’t help you to bypass task manager too, mmmh

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one avatar

It would! I’ve actually considered that, but honestly I just don’t use Steam enough to justify it. I’d probably use it a lot more if it didn’t feel like such a chore to run.

thisfro,

What other launchers do you use?

For me its like yeah steam has some annoyances, but overall it is pretty good and mostly works. Ubisoft and EA usually have more annoyances and/or straight up don’t work.

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one avatar

EGS only takes a few seconds to launch, doesn’t shove an annoying popup ad in my face every time I open it, and completely exits the application when I click X

I’ve actually bought the EGS version of several games just so I don’t have to deal with Steam’s bullshit

I’ve also got some indie games that don’t use a launcher at all, and I use the Windows version of ESO so I don’t need a separate launcher for that, which is my most-played game of all

thisfro,

Interesting, for me it is EGS that has all the bs haha

Its slow, ads all over, store is horrible

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one avatar

At least it’s just a few ads for games, and my recently played games are right there at the left, ready to be launched.

Steam is virtually unusable upon opening, looks like visiting a virus-ridden site without an adblocker, and it made me sign in again even though I’ve just used it recently. The only way to prevent having to sign in frequently is to leave it running in the background at all times, and that’s not going to happen.

thisfro,

Yeah maybe its just works well for me. I set steam to load the library instead of the store and I never get these popups. Also I never have to sign in again. But steam is always open, since I use my desktop nearly exclusively for gaming at this point.

BeezKnuts,
@BeezKnuts@lemmy.world avatar

Made by someone who wasn’t around back then. Getting games to run was just as if not more tedious than it is now.

vox,
@vox@sopuli.xyz avatar

you can disable steam ad windows

thisfro,

Half of that never happens to me tbh and the vendor intros were mostly a thing in 2010ish games (for me).

But something that is not on the list and I hate is if steam just starts another game launcher where you have to click something (like Witcher 3 or cities skylines).

Blake,

I remember having to hunt high and low for the dune 2 manual to find out how heavy an Atreides airfield is because that’s what anti-piracy measures were back then.

Also it was much more of a crapshoot whether or not a game would work at all. Some games just completely refused to be played outside of specific hardware, especially when it came to video cards. Stupid messages like “sorry, you must have a GeForce 2300 or newer to play” that literally checked if your video card name started with some specific string…

Similar kind of thing with sound cards. Most games had a couple options for sound: if you have a sound card that contains the magic words “sound blaster” you got to enjoy nice sounds! Otherwise hope you like some kinda shitty half-attempt at MIDI sound.

And every game ever came with an EULA, if it wasn’t in the game it was in the manual or in some readme. It’s just as meaningless now as it was back then.

Then when CDs came out, sometimes they’d get scuffed and become impossible to install, so you’d have to end up buying a game twice because your cousin got a hold of it.

Things haven’t changed that much. There’s still a lot of shitty games, with a few that are great. It’s more like micro transaction or “free-to-play” games instead of shovelware now for the most part it seems though.

Everyone remembers the classics and forgets the duds!

Turious,

Some of my favorite games from back in the day had a half dozen vendor intros. There were a few years where they were completely out of hand. It’s not all so bad these days.

UsernameIsTooLon,

Don’t forget you gotta update your driver’s too before even beginning “Launch Steam”

_number8_,

i’m tired of software constantly needing to download fucking updates for every little fucking thing. you can’t just use sEcUrIty as an excuse to make things 2000x more annoying

bleistift2,

It would go a long way to provide a changelog so we could appreciate whatever work went into the update. Looking at you, steam.

scubbo,

Gamers are the only people who complain when something is improved for them for free.

ninjan,

Minesweeper might be the only game I know that opens directly into play game. Everything else “then” still needed us to press play.

Meowoem,

I used to have the irq of my sound blaster 16 memorised because you need to put it in for every game.

Floey,

For most games, including ones on Steam this is what I do.

Being up program launcher with key combination.
Start typing name of game, hit enter.
Then if Steam is not open Steam launches,. Game launches.

Get yourself a launcher program. Having to bring up Steam and search a library of dozens of games seems maddening when you could just type a few letters.

bleistift2,

So I install a launcher that launches steam to launch the game launcher?

Floey,

By launcher I mean something like Spotlight on Mac OS. The Windows Start menu probably has some of this functionality, at least for launching applications and can be brought up with a key, there are probably alternatives as well. I’m on Linux and use Rofi for this.

I don’t mean a large program necessary for launching games, I mean a very lightweight program that can launch your games, or any other app, and more.

dutchkimble,

He means like Wox or Power Toys Run

WuTang,
@WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

I love the fake “offline mode” of Steam which for certain game, doesn’t work.

I knew it was already shitty 20years ago when Steam get popularized by this shitty game (Counter Strike),

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