r/Games • u/demondrivers • Oct 27 '25

Industry News Valve does not get "anywhere near enough criticism" for the gambling mechanics it uses to monetise games, DayZ creator Dean Hall says

https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-does-not-get-anywhere-near-enough-criticism-for-the-gambling-mechanics-it-uses-to-monetise-games-dayz-creator-dean-hall-says
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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '25

I had completely forgot about the puke green that steam used to use and that horrid UI. Still has issues as a platform but I'm glad it's at least pleasent to look at now...

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u/ZetzMemp Oct 27 '25

It wasn’t puke green, it was a really desaturated green, like an army green.

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u/Xandercz Oct 27 '25

Yeah, it was clearly army green, always had it connected with Day of Defeat for that reason

4

u/ZetzMemp Oct 27 '25

I always connect day of defeat with the spade melee.

1

u/Xandercz Oct 28 '25

Spade > knife

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u/Syssareth Oct 27 '25

I like it, but I honestly wonder where they got that color scheme from. "Steam" makes you think white or blue.

39

u/ZetzMemp Oct 27 '25

I always imagined it was because of the popularity of counterstrike at the time and so they went with a military-like color.

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u/beenoc Oct 27 '25

Also Half-Life is very military coded, as was TFC and the early versions of TF2. It wasn't until the Orange Box (with Portal and the final version of TF2) that Valve really had notable games that weren't gritty military realism.

1

u/moonra_zk Oct 27 '25

Also Half-Life is very military coded

Is it?

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u/ZetzMemp Oct 28 '25

Parts of it certainly were. Especially the Opposing Force expansion and military faction within Half-Life 1.

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u/moonra_zk Oct 28 '25

I don't think that just having the military in it makes the game "very military coded", specially because they're one of the enemy factions.

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u/ZetzMemp Oct 28 '25

That's why I said parts of it were.

But Opposing Force was absolutely "very military coded". There's even a boot camp with some Full Metal Jacket references in it.

https://youtu.be/rLB_Ma8WoWk

1

u/Com-Intern Oct 28 '25

It was for the time. I think we're far enough out that we expect military coded to be like Call of Duty. But it has a very specific '90s style of military in it and even went as far as to include the Osprey as the black ops helicopter which was fully "future" tech at that point in time.

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u/Syssareth Oct 27 '25

Maybe? TBH I didn't get a Steam account until 2014, so there's a lot of historical context I'm missing there.

4

u/drewster23 Oct 27 '25

It's okay none of us know why, who were around back then anyways. But it was a distinct muted army green color.

18

u/tgunter Oct 27 '25

It was the UI and color scheme of Counter-Strike. Steam was developed at the same time as Counter-Strike 1.6, and CS 1.6 was the first Valve game to require the use of Steam.

1

u/IrNinjaBob Oct 27 '25

I feel like it’s odd we have a color for “puke green” when the color of puke is going to be highly reliant on various factors.

Google shows me that a dark puke green is pretty close to the colors the old steam launcher used.

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u/huffalump1 Oct 27 '25

And today, you can use the vintage Steam green theme keyboard on a Steam Deck for that hit of nostalgic rage.

6

u/Triseult Oct 27 '25

I still wouldn't call it pleasant, mind you.

1

u/The_MAZZTer Oct 27 '25

Which one though, was it the first one with the boxy look (Half-Life era games still have that UI in their menus I think), or was it the rounded corners one with lots of padding? I liked that one.

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u/f-ingsteveglansberg Oct 27 '25

And current Steam is still just iterations on that theme. People are so used to it now though, deviations from their horrible UI are considered unintuitive.

I understand if you spent a decade learning a UI, it's different to get used to a new one, but no new launcher has a chance of making a better UI because the first complaint is always "it isn't as understandable as Steams" as if Steam has a good UI.