I made my first Steam account today at the ripe old age of 19. What are some things I need to know as a lifelong consolefag?

[polaris_VII]

I've used PCs most of my life but usually only for web browsing/media consumption, and the only games I've played on one prior to today are Minecraft and some flash stuff. For "heavier" games I've always owned a console, specifically the Xbox One and later on a Series S.
Today, that changed since I wanted to try Garry's Mod finally. It was on sale for $6 so my broke ass was able to buy it. I'll admit that Steam itself is rather daunting and to be honest it's a hell of a lot different than what I'm used to. Told some friends online about it and they thought I was joking at first, but I've genuinely never had a Steam account until now.
Now what the hell am I supposed to do? I feel like there's an avalanche of shit that I need to try out and I really have no idea where to start. A lot of PC games simply aren't available on consoles.

 

[Hitchhiker]

You should tell us the name of your account, everyone on here will friend you.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

Play Terraria. It's like Minecraft except it doesn't suck ass

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Almost every game goes on sale, so use steamdb.info to check the price history on any game to see how often and what prices go to. There's a large sale for every season, the summer sale will start June 26 I belive, there's also more specific sales like right now is the sukabon sale for block pushing puzzle games, after that starting the 28 that will be a war game sale and may 12 will start a "creature capture" sale. They usually have half the year scheduled out so if you're looking at something you should see what's sales coming up.
They also do next fests a couple time a year thats basically a week where new game's demos are showed off so there lots of little things to try, the next one starts June 9th.
keep steams return policy in mind, the rule of thumb is that under two hours of playtime and within the first two weeks of buy it will gets you an almost garenteed refund but there is wiggle room.
your profile has a steam level, it's basically pointless, it just gets you more steam friend slots. Your steam level goes up as you play games so if do want to up it just put an idel game like cookie clicker in the background.
Speaking of pointlessness when you play games you might get a card. Lots of games have a set of around 10 card and will give you half while needing you to trade or buy the others. The idea is that a full set gives you a profile item like a hame specific background, avatar border. Emoticons, etc. Thing is they've now opened a point shop where you can just buy all that with points you get from buying shit so now there literally completely pointless besides selling for 3 cents each.
There's also a whole social media side to steam. There forums you'll immediately get banned from, game pages filled with stolen memes, friends who you will get notified everytime they open up a hentai game,etc. The best aspect is the plenty of guides and troubleshooting to be found.

 

[POWER IN MISERY]

Today, that changed since I wanted to try Garry's Mod finally

you're more than ten years too late and now the game is bad

 

[Lady Adjani]

Your steam level goes up as you play games so if do want to up it just put an idel game like cookie clicker in the background.

I don't think playtime has any effect on your steam profile level, at all. Only time I've ever seen mine go up is when I bought something.

 

[Nicholas Gur]

Just throw everything you want into the wishlist and wait for the sale emails from steam to roll in before making purchases. Other than that the curator system is decent for finding new stuff including upcoming games that may have opt in alpha/betas.

 

[Hellwalker]

Just pirate games, my brother.

 

[peachlover669]

"Never pay more than 20 dollars for a computer game"

 

[dick brain]

1. You can get anything you want for free from russia.

2. You can install mods now.

3. Video games have all been dogshit for at least ten years with no exceptions, you're too late. On the bright side it frees up a lot of time to live your real life.

 

[Soggy Floppa]

Your steam level goes up as you play games so if do want to up it just put an idel game like cookie clicker in the background.

When you buy a game you get some EXP, but the main way of leveling up is by crafting badges for games from trading cards, which drop as you play or you can buy from the steam market. You can display crafted badges on your profile, and as you level up you unlock more showcases for your profile and friend slots. Badge crafting also gives you profile backgrounds and emojis from the game you crafted the badge for. If you just want the customization options you can buy them from the points shop instead. You get points from buying games or from people giving you awards, basically reddit gold. One of the awards is a clown emoji, so most discussions or game reviews are full of people writing bait to get clown awards to get points.

 

[TheSaltySpitoon]

You can hide porn game purchases and playtime in your account settings

Source: I have over 2000 hours in Honey Select 2

 

[Hitchhiker]

You can hide porn game purchases and playtime in your account settings

Source: I have over 2000 hours in Honey Select 2

I don't know how to tell you this, but you have a problem and you need help.

 

[polaris_VII]

you're more than ten years too late and now the game is bad

I've only been doing it single player for now and I'm enjoying it a lot. There's so much content I can download, plus I'm autistic enough to where sandbox games aren't boring as fuck.

You can hide porn game purchases and playtime in your account settings

Source: I have over 2000 hours in Honey Select 2

People play porn video games? Jesus, I thought just using my mind's eye was fucking weird.

Just pirate games, my brother.

I've pirated 2 games so far, albeit those were only ones that were available as non-Steam/PC-DVD versions. Farming Simulator 17, for example. Really don't want to tinker with DRM beyond going to archive.org to look for product keys. Would rather wait for things to go on sale.

Almost every game goes on sale, so use steamdb.info to check the price history on any game to see how often and what prices go to. There's a large sale for every season, the summer sale will start June 26 I belive, there's also more specific sales like right now is the sukabon sale for block pushing puzzle games, after that starting the 28 that will be a war game sale and may 12 will start a "creature capture" sale. They usually have half the year scheduled out so if you're looking at something you should see what's sales coming up.
They also do next fests a couple time a year thats basically a week where new game's demos are showed off so there lots of little things to try, the next one starts June 9th.
keep steams return policy in mind, the rule of thumb is that under two hours of playtime and within the first two weeks of buy it will gets you an almost garenteed refund but there is wiggle room.
your profile has a steam level, it's basically pointless, it just gets you more steam friend slots. Your steam level goes up as you play games so if do want to up it just put an idel game like cookie clicker in the background.
Speaking of pointlessness when you play games you might get a card. Lots of games have a set of around 10 card and will give you half while needing you to trade or buy the others. The idea is that a full set gives you a profile item like a hame specific background, avatar border. Emoticons, etc. Thing is they've now opened a point shop where you can just buy all that with points you get from buying shit so now there literally completely pointless besides selling for 3 cents each.
There's also a whole social media side to steam. There forums you'll immediately get banned from, game pages filled with stolen memes, friends who you will get notified everytime they open up a hentai game,etc. The best aspect is the plenty of guides and troubleshooting to be found.

I'm honestly not a fan of the social media/profile customization aspect crap. If Valve made a version of the client that would just do DRM checks and let me sign in, I'd be happy with that. Steam's interface is ugly as sin to me and that's saying a lot since I was using the MATE desktop on Linux not too long ago.

Play Terraria. It's like Minecraft except it doesn't suck ass

$10, I'll take a look. Minecraft just feels like a tech demo to me now.

 

[TheSaltySpitoon]

People play porn video games? Jesus, I thought just using my mind's eye was fucking weird.

On a PC you can bring your waifu to lifu.

To be serious: if you are into autistic sandbox games then Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld are must plays. I enjoyed Song of Syx, but be aware it’s a retro one-man studio if that’s not to your liking.

The older Total War games are pretty inexpensive at this point (I really enjoyed Attila) if you’re looking for something you couldn’t play on console.

Also check out GoG if you’re a brokie and/or looking for older games

 

[Super Dilator Duel 3D]

There’s a bundle offered by Valve called the Valve Complete Pack which includes most of their original games. Both Left 4 Dead games, both Portals, all the Half-Life games, etc. It's usually pretty pricey but it occasionally goes on sale for an extremely low price and is worth getting for L4D2 and Portal alone.

It also comes with Counter-Strike: Source, which is basically a necessary purchase since you’re already playing Garry’s Mod.

ETA: Also, since you're a consolefag get used to adding non-Steam games to your library so that you can use the controller support. Steam makes using controllers on any PC game trivially easy, even ones without native controller support built in. This is best for emulation.

 

[Staticness]

Steam is pretty much the gold standard for PC gaming. However, gmod has been pretty much completely supplanted by SFM for creations (SFM is actually goated, Blender works too, but oh my god SFM should be marketed as headache meds), and a lot of stuff you could do on it suffers from it being a dead game.

*mounts 200 GB of exceedingly bloated textures because content packages are greedy af*

 

[ForgedBlades]

Should I be proud or embarrassed of this?

 

[Grub]

Play Terraria. It's like Minecraft except it doesn't suck ass

I'm pretty sure Terraria is available on almost every device.

Edit:
Even phones

 

[Hellwalker]

Should I be proud or embarrassed of this?

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How are the crackling knees doing?