Steam Hardware Survey Says Your Computer Is a Piece of Shit

BY Alex Kitsinger ON December 25, 2023

Steam Releases a survey at the start of every month to determine the most used CPUs, GPUs, and other computer parts. This can be interesting for those curious about such things, and also helpful for game developers to know what level of hardware they need to optimize for. But according to leaked documents, the real reason is to shame you and your terrible excuse for a gaming rig.

As of this December, every user who completes the survey will now receive a personalized note written by Gabe Newell himself along with the usual results page. The intent of this change is to help those who don’t have an eye for statistics to better understand how their machine stacks up against the average. It also gives Newell something to do so he doesn’t have to make any more video games.

Several users posted screenshots of what they were sent in order to protest the change, citing concerns that being openly hostile to your customer base could potentially be bad for business. The following is a quote from one of those posts.

“Wow, you still have an 11th gen intel chip? Get with the times, man. Seriously, that shit is four years old now. And you’ve only got a 3060? Not even a TI? Shameful. It’s like Todd Howard is always saying, you need to upgrade this thing if you want to play anything from this generation on even remotely high settings.

“I can’t even believe your only SSD is 256GB and doesn’t have a single game on it. Like, what the fuck man? I guess I can excuse not having a top of the line video card, but you’re not even going to shell out the cash to save precious seconds of your one life on this earth stuck on loading screens? It honestly makes me embarrassed just thinking about it. 

“I know what kind of performance you get in Counter-Strike. I’ve been watching you play, and I didn’t even know it was possible to get such a low frame rate in that game. I’ve personally issued a VAC ban to your account until you deal with this shit, so you can’t go around ruining any more matches with your lousy excuse for a computer.

“Sincerely, Gaben.”