.
Man I love Steam. One good thing in the cesspool of greed and enshitification.
Gabe is one of the few US billionaires who is not implicated in the epstein files in any way.
– yet
there are still more file dumps coming our way.
I wonder how this works if you have two or more PCs or write reviews from a non-gaming device.
Like a gaming laptop running windows and a gaming desktop running Linux but you write the review from your phone.
Good question. Because I would play on Steam Deck, but write a review on my PC. Maybe this could be done with profiles or something like that? But it would vastly complicate things for most people.
You likely have the option only on pc and the specs from the current device.
That doesn’t answer the question? Let’s say you have two PCs, or a laptop and a Steam Deck. You play on one device, but usually write your reviews on the main PC at home in example. Which would have different specs.
Great addition. ProtonDB had this for a long time and it is a useful information. Maybe in Linux it should list the Kernel (Linux version) too. And for Nvidia the driver version would be useful to have too. Protondb does that already for anyone who opted into sharing specs: https://www.protondb.com/app/379720
Weird to deify a billionaire.
Pretty sure the deification isn’t his billionaire status, but his founding and direction of Steam. Would the picture be more acceptable to you if his net-worth were only 999million? At what level of wealth would that picture be acceptable to you?
Well, I’m an atheist, so frankly I find deifying anyone weird. I just find it particularly weird to deify a billionaire. And I never said that his billionaire status is why he’s deified, nor does it change my original sentiment: it’s weird to deify a billionaire (implied: irrespective of what else they’ve done).
I use and like Steam. Still think Gabe doesn’t deserve a billion dollars. No one does. Not while people are starving and homeless.
Kinda needs to be default. I mean, I’m a privacy buff, and I don’t care if you know my raw specs if I’m telling you how a game runs in a public forum. Because without the specs, that information is worthless.
Even if we anonymise the specs and just say “this user has a more powerful rig than you do,” that tells me I can disregard their claim the game runs good. But if it says “this user has a less powerful rig than you do,” I can take that review more seriously. And if I can hover over it and see exactly where my rig is better or worse comparatively, that matters too. I don’t need to know what the specs are because we have benchmarks that place numerical values on performance based on different parts. So we can directly compare the performance of my M2 Pro (Mac mini) with 16GB RAM to, say, a 10th generation i7 with 32GB of RAM and a 1080. They win on RAM, I probably win on CPU (at least single core, they might have me on multi), and the GPU is kinda up in the air. On one hand, they have a dedicated graphics card. On the other, mine’s way newer. So it’s hard to guess. However, I could look it up on Geekbench and tell you exactly which part wins and by how much.
Kinda needs to be default. I mean, I’m a privacy buff, and I don’t care if you know my raw specs if I’m telling you how a game runs in a public forum. Because without the specs, that information is worthless.
I’m against sharing privacy information by default. This has to be opt-in. Also a review without specs is not worthless. All the years I found the reviews without specs still helpful in Steam. Having specs gives a little bit information, especially important when you want to understand some performance or compatibility issues. But most reviews don’t need that.
As a matter of general principle, I agree with you. That said, I never opt in to writing public reviews on store websites to begin with, both because I don’t care to give free labor to for-profit corporations, and more importantly, because disclosing my consumer preferences is already a privacy risk in and of itself.
Agreed. Generally, I don’t play high-end graphically intense games. It’d be nice to know for some games, but generally a review is useful without it
I don’t care about benchmarks; I care about compatibility and errors. The specs that would matter to me would be things like CPU architecture, which team made the GPU, and which Linux distro they’re running. Maybe number of monitors/resolution/framerate/use of freesync or framegen, too, since that can affect glitches.
Maybe number of monitors/resolution/framerate/use of freesync or framegen, too, since that can affect glitches.
The problem with that is, this is highly dependent on the settings you set to play the game. Your system may have 4k, but you maybe play the game at 1080p with upscaling and RayTracing enabled. I mean this is just an example. Therefore it could be misleading information for many. There is a reason why even Protondb doesn’t list that. In my initial reply and suggestion here I excluded stuff like refresh rate and resolution for that reason.
Finally
That’s great and depending on how it’s made, maybe Proton DB isn’t gonna be necessary for Linux gamers anymore.
Although, I wouldn’t want Steam to become even more powerful this way compared to something like GOG.
