Arresting to have been using a thing so clearly designed to have gamelike features and never quite noticing it. I tend to credit myself as being fairly media literate and conscious about games, I guess either I'm wrong about that or they did an amazing job at it. I'll have to think carefully about that.

“You level up your account. You get things for playing games.“ Trading cards, profile page decorations, and the like are all tools for self-expression. "There's all of these elements that let you express who you are as a person as well as then MMO-ing the entire experience and leveling up," he says. "Then you have things that you can give to other people, and awards, and all of that."

So… like… all the least used features of the software? That’s what he’s saying people like best?

Intriguing.... I'll say, clearly most people don't use the platform that way. But to those who do engage with Steam that much, folks like CS2 case addicts, I can certainly see it. Stuff like cosmetically building out a profile, making sure you have an impressive inventory, the freebies they always give out during sales and events.... yeah. It's reminiscent of endgame MMO behaviour, when you've beaten all the content and just run around looking for rare stuff to show off to your guild.

Hunh. So, my library of unplayed games is not unlike my health/magic/stamina/et al potion stock after completing a game.

i mean yeah?

i've never really used that part, other than running a script every year to sell cards that accumulate by themselves for a little bit of credit. don't really seem like a big part of it.

then again i'm not a gambler. i guess people could get stuck in that sort of thing.

Steam isn't a game.

No it isn't.

It is not a game.

A game is a form of art, Steam exists to make Gabe money it is not a work of art and has no artistic relationship with its players and the fact that Gabe doesn't understand that as CEO of a gaming company is fucking embarassing.

I am tired of this lazy conflation of attaching superficial, lazy carrots on sticks to things and calling it "gamification" it is such an empty, cynical condescending way of looking at the world.

Why is everyone so condescending about games? No Gabe Steam is not an MMO because it isn't fun, there is no actual core experience other than numbers going up. Therefor it is NOT a game.

Now if you wanted to argue Steam was a shitty multiplayer idle game sure, but it has to be the shittiest idle game in the world then and Gabe even worse your multiplayer idle game is full of Nazis and extremely toxic behavior none of you give any shit about moderating....