Wednesday, August 8th 2012
Steam Expands Beyond Games, to Offer Software Soon
Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first set of Software titles are heading to Steam, marking a major expansion to the platform most commonly known as a leading destination for PC and Mac games.
The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.
More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Mark Richardson at Valve. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests."
For more information, please visit SteamPowered.com.
The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.
More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Mark Richardson at Valve. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests."
For more information, please visit SteamPowered.com.
59 Comments on Steam Expands Beyond Games, to Offer Software Soon
However, if it becomes the only distribution channel for certain software it could be problematic, especially from an IT standpoint.
It seems far fetched now but its entirely possiable.
I brought a retail copy of Portal at Best Buy and downloaded Steam then I had to re-install my OS for some reason and Steam hijacked my product code now they want me to jump thou hoops to proof its legit.So bottom line is I have $49. coaster.Hope they do a better job with this new venture. ,,,,P.S. Hey Steam whatever happened to Black Mesa !
Unless Vavle made huge changes in the way business could receive updates for that kind of software, it would be a no-go for corporate networks.
I don't know what their aspiration are for non-gaming software, or what types of software vendors they will try to bring on-line, but given the popularity of digital distribution it is a valid concern if they became the ONLY place to get certain software.
22x DVD-ROM is 231 Mb/sToday, maybe, but there's a crapload of games that are Steam exclusive on PC (like Saints Row 2, Saints Row: The Third, PAYDAY: The Heist, etc.). What is not monopolistic about that? The same goes for Battlefield 3 which is excusive to Origin. We need an international court to rule (or international treaty) that puts an end to exclusivity. If it is going to be sold digitally on computer, it has to be sold through at least two stores. Better yet, it should apply to consoles too. If someone wants to buy software, they shouldn't be forced to use hardware supplied by a single vender.That's exactly what Game for Windows Live did. There's lots of hate for GFWL...but not from me.
I highly doubt any non-Valve developed productivity tools would be Steam exclusive. Photoshop will be available for all platforms they currently are. I see more all the lines of the freeware stuff getting more play because of this (IE Gimp, Blender, LibreOffice) which won't be exclusive to Steam.
It's just another value-added service and I'm cool with that.