Could you imagine if Facebook pushed a notification to all your friends when you visit a new page?
If Microsoft sent an email to your entire contact book every single time you opened a program?
And yet, that's precisely what Steam does. Insane.
Isn't the whole point of friending people on Steam so that they can play games with you? In that case, this behavior seems pretty intuitive to me. Though from that angle, broadcasting this announcement for single-player/non-networked games doesn't really achieve anything and should maybe not be the default.
I'm okay with Steam saying "Soandso has logged on" but not "Soandso has moved their mouse 400 pixels, double left clicked, and is starting new software... stay tuned!"
"Isn't the whole point of friending people on Steam so that they can play games with you?"
The whole point of steam is a distribution platform. It has a defacto monopoly on computer gaming with some 3/4 of the entire market through the platform.
Sure, I play the occasional multiplayer game, but the other 80% of my behavior doesn't need to be publically broadcast against my will at all times.
It's ridiculous: I have to click "appear offline" then log into the Steam Chat website just to play a game and not have my steam account announce that to everyone I know. Sometimes you just don't want to push notify everyone you know about your every behavior.
Also -- why be friends on steam? "Dude you didn't friend me yet" "Dude i sent u my info a week ago" "Dude i thought you said you wanted to friend me" "Dude" "dude"
You have to friend people or they get offended. Social networks and psychology man. I just don't want a f'n social network in my video game launcher. Crazy. Not every single computer endpoint has to be a social network.