I am just starting to get into PC gaming and my rig will be finished quite soon, however it was quite the budget build so it will not get much better then 20-30 frames on most games. Either way I am sick and tired of my consoles with few games when a PC has way more everything than any console could ever offer over their limited lifespans. I'm not asking for steam names I was just curious how it all works and features of steam, I don't actually know much about it at all except sales are supposed to be amazing.
Hi and welcome to PC gaming Basically steam is a cloud-based gaming network. You download it, then it acts similar to how the dashboard of an Xbox or Playstation would work. You have a hub for looking for games, one for looking at your game library (games you own), one for friends, and various others for news, sales, etc. Basically, it is the source of your gaming. To play the games, you find one you like (each one has a store page on Steam with reviews and trailers and the such), you buy it, then it goes into your library. Your Steam library is a cloud-based game library which contains any games you have downloaded from Steam, meaning that your games aren't stored on your computer initially. Then you can choose to install them, which downloads them to your computer and then it works like any normal game would. While playing the game you can open Steam's internet browser and talk to friends through an overlay which can open while keeping your game running. Steam also automatically updates itself and your games. It's a bit much at first, but you will get the hang of it Steam has really good sales that are always going on and there is another site called the Humble Store, which you can buy games from and link them to your Steam account. Their deals are really good too, and they donate 10% of their sales to various charities. Sorry I know it's confusing, I just didn't know how much info you wanted Anyway, Steam is awesome and it's basically just one big gaming community/hub. I have found some of my favorite games on Steam, and I would seriously recommend looking into some Indie games. They are some of the best games in my opinion. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me. I'm not really a "Steam expert", but I've been using it for a couple years and I play Steam games daily, so I'd be glad to answer any other questions you might have ---------- Post added 30th Jul 2014 at 09:44 PM ---------- Also, Happy Birthday! I just saw your status
I do have a couple of questions and I'm sure that they are not even true. The first is a rumour that PC gaming is very expensive and you have to keep upgrading parts which I don't think is true as many PC players that are friends of mine believe that I spend a ridiculous amount of money on console to get a sub par experience and apparently for double price too. Oh and I'm moving on from Xbox as the Xbox one has barely any games worth playing but I want to keep it for the exclusives. Also there is another rumour that most PC gamers are self centred and are horrible people. I don't believe that either because people can be mean but everyone is open to their own opinion and really I just think console players are mad that someone can have an experience better. Anyway my questions are how often are sales on and how is the experience in terms of the social aspect and is making friends easy? I'm afraid I might not have as many friends online on steam although there are probably more players on steam than anywhere else. Thanks but its not quite my birthday yet, it will be on the 5th of august.
The first rumor here is quite a generalization, so it's obvious bs. I think they do major sales every summer and around Christmas. At least, that's when they have the ridiculously large sales where you can sometimes get a game for 80% off or even more. Otherwise, they often have smaller sales too. As for friends, I tend to almost exclusively play single player games, so I wouldn't be much help there.
For the first question, it really depends. If you want Ultra graphics on the latest games, then yes you will have to either constantly upgrade or buy the most expensive components at the time in order for you to be able to do so. Personally, I have an $800 gaming laptop that gets normal-high settings on every single game that I play with great fps and I can even stream/record games and do video and audio editing with no problems. I don't mind if I can't get Ultra settings on the latest Crysis game, but that's just me. For the second, like you said, anyone can be that way. In my experience, the Steam community is generally nicer than the Xbox community (I played Xbox 360 online for years). The only reason I can think of for people acting that way is computer specs. I've met some people who get cocky over the fact that they have dumped $2,000 into a computer and think they are better, but that's just the way some people are. Also, it depends on the game. In my experience, people who play games like TF2 or various Indie games are much nicer than those who play COD for instance. As for the sales, Steam always runs daily and weekly sales. Humble store does the same. Steam has a summer sale (which already ended sadly) in which a ton of games go on sale for 50-90% off. I think I got like 20 games for $100. All in all, if you like Indie games (which again is my favorite type of game, and its up to personal preference) you can get them for super cheap, especially if they are in alpha. If you like the latest AAA games, then you won't really save much money unless they go on sale. But you definitely have a much wider library on PC gaming. Lots of people make mods and even free games, which can turn out to be surprisingly fun and add a lot of hours to some games you might already have. For me personally, I will probably never go back to consoles. Even though I do like both Xbox and Playstation, the amount of games and content you can find on PC's is amazing. Plus you can save a ton of money on games, unless you blow it all on the latest Nvidia Titan graphics cards
I use steam a lot (my wallet thanks your "summer sale", Newell, your monster!), and i really like the prices and features of the software itself.
If your PC is average to fairly good, it should last for the next few years. Although some of the more recent games have very detailed graphic. My gaming PC can't run CoH2 without crashing but runs all other games I have just fine
I play age of empires sometimes on Steam. those three are the only games I've ever really been willing to buy in my adult life. something really relaxing about building up an economy and destroying other peoples creations.
I have Steam and love it. I mainly play Europa Univeralis 4 on it. I like how steam have re released a few oldies like Age of Empire and Rise of nations.
I'm pretty sure the guys above answered it for you, either way, (inhales)....WELCOME TO THE PC MASTER RACE COMMUNITY!
