If Steam wants to retain customers in the wake of Epic Game Store Exclusives, they need to allow the old UI. After they changed the UI, my desire to use Steam dropped dramatically. Everyone I game with also hates that UI. I don't care about patiently waiting for the exclusivity period to end out of some misguided loyalty to steam, if the UI is this bad.
I have to agree. I'm finding myself...uninterested at Steam's sales. I mean, that's not new...it's been a growing snowball over the years:
1) Publishers wised up to sales events so sales are slow and cautious rather than bombastic like they were in 2010-2012. Steam sales events now, my first thought isn't what to buy, it's how is Steam going to annoy me now?
2) Valve is never ready for opening day of sales events.
3) Valve's customer support is only one notch up from non-existant.
4) The fact the Publisher only gets 70% of a sale on a completely digital platform, while fantastic in 2005, is robbery today. The world has enough starving developers; Steam went from being part of the solution to part of the problem.
5) Changing Friends UI. Now it pops up in the game overlay ALWAYS. There's no way to be rid of it.
6) Valve screwed over indies in response to EGS and they "fixed it" by screwing them over more. Starving devs apparently aren't starved enough, according to Valve.
7) New UI is slow and clunky with a library of 100s of games. It scores a D, at best, on usability. Something pratical, like a context link to browse game folder still doesn't exist. That said, every launcher UI is pretty crappy when you get a library of 100s of games. I don't like any of them.
The UI definitely wasn't the worst thing Valve did but it might as well be the final straw that broke that camel's back. I just don't
want anything to with Steam any more unless I must because it's exclusive.
I think the next game I will buy is probably Rebel Galaxy Outlaw on EGS. I don't love EGS but the game is exclusive to that store front, EGS is offering a $10 coupon, it's indie, I want to support them, and EGS only keeps 12% of what I pay. All those facts considered, I'll get over the fact that I don't really care for EGS either.
The only reason why these stores and publishers exist is to connect gamers to developers.
I found the TechSpot article pretty good. There's a lot of indie PC exclusives they're overlooking though (like Rebel Galaxy Outlaw). Sure, they aren't AAA but AAA can only turn a profit if they cast a wide net. They excessively talk up the Nintendo Switch and VR. VR isn't going to "take off" just because there's a Half-Life spin off released. Steam's own data says less than 1% of machines have a VR headset and unless their costs--but not quality--plummets, it's not going to see mainstream use. That fails basic economics tests so yeah, wishful thinking today as much as it was the day Rift debuted. VR is a novelty and it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.