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The Steam client got a major new update today, with Big Picture Mode receiving the brunt of the attention. Most exciting, I guess, is that the previously beta-only screensaver feature for Big Picture Mode is now live for the general public. In its default mode the screensaver will display art from recently played games, as well as any recent screenshots you’ve taken. But you can add your own custom screensavers too, which is nice.
Valve also has “a retro inspired bouncing logo screensaver” which you can select in the new dropdown menu found under Settings / Customization. As the name implies, the Steam logo bounces around a black screen, changing color every time it hits an edge. Valve has not made this screensaver the default screensaver, and it’s lucky that it didn’t: it’s a work of diabolical cruelty. It will drive you to despair.
The screensaver references the ye olde screensaver built into DVD players in the late ’90s and early ’00s. If you’re too young to remember it firsthand you’ve probably heard of it: a DVD Video logo bounces around a black screen, changing color every time it hits an edge. This unassuming but actually-quite-psychologically-damaging display has gone viral several times over the last decade or so, to the extent that, if you Google it, the Google logo will bounce around the search results page. It even has a Wikipedia page.
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Why? Everyone subjected to it in the pre-social media era seems to have experienced the same intense desire for that DVD Video logo to perfectly hit the corner of the television’s display. And how often does that happen? Extremely rarely.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s essential that you watch this ten hour video of the DVD Video screensaver:
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People say smartphone screens are ruining our lives, undermining our attention, destroying literacy etcetera, and I mostly agree. But at least they’ve saved us from the hypnotic tyranny of the goddamned bouncing DVD logo screensaver. Screw that thing.
Anyway, Valve has its own version now, and after watching it—mostly against my will—for about half-an-hour while I ate my lunch, I’m pretty sure this abhorrent thing never pays out with a perfect corner-hitting moment.
My suggestion? Don’t even think about it. Don’t even turn it on as a joke. You may never re-emerge.
Back on topic, though, this Steam client update is genuinely huge compared to the norm. Startup performance has been “improved” to some unspecified degree, for example. A new experimental video codec, Pyrowave, has been added to Remote Play which apparently “allows high bandwidth, low latency video streaming”. Linux users get a whole bunch of tweaks and fixes too. But the focus is very much on minor improvements to Big Picture Mode, which is good news for Steam Machine and Deck users.
The update notes in their voluminous glory are here. And I repeat: don’t go near the bouncing logo screensaver.
