Displaying items by tag: Steam

When DecryptedTech was much more hardware and gaming focused we used to have a review style called Short Attention Span. It was a very quick 90-minute test of a game which included first launch, general configuration and any game play that could be accomplished inside a 90-minute window. If the game could capture our attention, we noted it and it got a follow on review. If it did not, usually there was no further mention of it unless we had a direct request for a more complete review. To me the 90-minute window was enough to get a good understanding of how a game worked, what hurdles to actual play time there were and if I would like it or not. It was very subjective with some basic objective observations around game engine, enemy AI, and startup complexity/cut scenes.

As the Steam Deck is starting to get to people that have ordered them questions about Steam’s place in Web3 and recent moves around NFTs come up in conversation. Steam, Valve’s distribution arm has been seen as a one of the more cutting-edge services, with founder Gabe Newell once having a following like Elon Musk (at least in the gaming world). However, despite this perception they have never really been completely onboard with Crypto and the trappings of Web3.

There are many things that people take for granted in the world. Some of them are more than a little naïve while others are quite understandable. One of them is that the things we say or do in conversation are somewhat confidential. We do not expect our mail, phone or personal conversations to be listened to and by extension we feel that our online conversation are equally private. Sadly this is simply not the case and, in reality, it never has been.

In 2004 Valve released the follow on to their wildly popular Half Life series in the form of Half Life2. They followed this up with an attempt at spacing out the next few games as chapters. This was supposed to benefit fans of the game by giving them a new “game” on a much faster schedule. Sadly for fans of Half Life this plan did not go well and the episodes dried up after getting only two out to the masses. This was despite the fact that three full episodes were planned. Since the release of Half Life 2: Episode 2 fans have been waiting for something, anything from Valve that features their favorite PHD hero, Dr. Gordon Freeman.

There is a misconception in the industry as a whole that “pirates” are inherently evil people and bent on nothing less than the destruction of civilized society. The fact that this sounds like the plot from a bad movie/game is probably not a coincidence. In Hollywood at least the way they portray piracy is right out of fantasy land from their numbers to their claims on how they are about keeping jobs. In the gaming industry it is often not the developers that worry about piracy, but the big distribution/publishing groups. They are very worried about the money they make and also follow the same line as Hollywood when talking about the effects of piracy on their business.

Social Media can be a great thing if used properly. However, lately people tend to use it for… well let’s call it ranting. I cannot count the number of rants and tantrums I have seen on Twitter, Facebook and even Google+. It seems that some people feel that social media sites are their own personal forums to share every thought they have no matter how positive or negative it is. When you point this out to the ranters, you are likely to be told that it is their page and you do not have to read it. Well… that is the problem, you never really know just who might be reading your rant and what they might do about it.

There is a new update in the never ending rumors surrounding Valve’s Steambox and Controller. After digging into a client update an interesting image popped up for the Steam Controller. It seems that Valve may be considering putting a traditional analog joystick on the controllers. This will be in addition to the existing touch pads that we have seen so much.

Network and application security are big deals and big business these days. It seems that a day does not pass that you hear about a new breach, exploit, hack or something. This sad state has prompted a few companies to actually look outside their organizations for help and offer bug bounties to individual researchers that find holes in applications and hardware. These bounties can be quite the incentive to get people to tear into your application looking for exploits, but even more important than rewards is having a clear method to report problems and a team that actually responds to them when they are found.

One of the things that Gabe Newell and his team at Valve keep claiming is that the delays of the SteamBox are all about the controller. This claim was first heard around CES 2014 when many companies were set to unveil their own products. Now we are hearing that we might be seeing the controller again at Gamescon in Germany next month.

Valve's streaming service came out of beta, which means that everyone interested  can sream content from the main PC to other devices in the home. Steam In-Home Streaming also opens up the possibility to play game titles for Windows PC on Mac OS X, Linux and SteamOS devices, and of course the weaker hardware devices, netbooks, laptops or HTPC devices.