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The Steam homepage as of October 2009
Steam allows independent game developers to showcase their games to a wider audience, and allows large publishers such as EA and Ubisoft to revitalize the sales of their older games by making their back catalog available on Steam. Steam also focuses more on the quality or originality of the game rather than the production level in terms of marketing, so it often advertises debut indie titles such as I-Fluid and World of Goo next to high profile games such as Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto IV on its front page. Dylan Fitterer, the creator of Audiosurf went so far as to say that Steam is "the dream place to be" for independent game developers.
Steam is commonly used in internet cafes not only because it is the host to popular multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2, but also because games can easily be installed on multiple computers through digital distribution and because Steam has a dedicated service that caters to internet cafes.
Steam's official site is www.steampowered.com, which can be accessed through a web browser or the official client.
Steam saves developers and publishers physical distribution costs as well as retailer costs. Because of the money it saves developers, Steam can often afford to dramatically reduce the prices on certain items at certain times. Customers can purchase games individually, or in associated "packs" which contain several related games and are usually significantly less expensive than if the games were bought individually (e.g. the Valve Complete Pack contains every Valve game ever made and saves the customer over a hundred dollars). In addition, there are usually weekly weekend sales in which a certain game, games or game pack is heavily discounted for that weekend only, sometimes upwards of 75% off, as well as special offers such as holiday sales or anniversary sales that also offer games at heavily discounted prices. Bioshock, a relatively recent game that has won various critical accolades is often offered for $4.99 on Steam during different events. Steam games are also tax free, although VAT (value added tax) may apply for European countries.
When purchasing a game through the Steam store all users have the option of purchasing for themselves or as a gift for a friend. The Gift system allows users to send a game to any other user on the Steam network by simply entering their username or email address. The recipient receives the game 100% free and can download the game as soon as it is received.
Guest passes work in a similar way to gifts. A guest pass is a trial of a game which last for a certain period of time (usually 10 days). The recipient of a guest pass will have full access to the game and all of its features and once again can instantly download it as soon as it is received however once they have used a guest pass they cannot use a different guest pass for the same game again. Guest passes are only available for online games and are obtained by buying the full version of the game.
As of March 16th 2009, Steam announced that they will now be supporting downloadable content provided by developers to all of their Steam catalog as part of new features added to their current Steamworks feature. This DLC content will act much like DLC distributed on a console and simply install into the game directly. The first game to have Steam DLC content was The Maw with two deleted scenes content packs.
The Giant Bomb Steam group
Steam Community, released on September 17 2007, is a social networking feature for Steam. Steam users can create their own profile and find other players to add to their friends list. Steam Community can be accessed through the Steam website as well as through the Steam client and has an in-game communication feature which allows players to communicate, view their friends list and view the Steam Community website while in-game by using the "Steam Community Overlay". Steam users are given a 'Steam Rating', ranging from 1-10, on their profile which is based off how much time they have spent playing Steam games in the past 2 weeks. Users may also view their time played for individual games as well as stats for Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat Source.
Users can join a wide range of groups that are created by the millions of other people using Steam. Groups allow users to communicate with people like themselves much more easily through the Group Chat feature and a group's admins and moderators. Group members can also post announcements that will be sent out t o all members to alert them of the most recent news and events that are taking places. The 2008 redesign brought in 'Official Game Groups', groups created by Steam for top selling games such as Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Left 4 Dead.
Examples of games that use Steamworks:
There are also plans to make steam able to update a computer's device drivers and add a recommendations and shopping cart system similar to the one used by Amazon.
Steam is a digital distribution service created by Valve. Originally for its own games, it has since expanded to include many third-party games, and supports community features, downloadable content and achievements
Overview
Steam is a digital distribution, digital rights management and communications platform created and maintained by Valve Corporation, and was first revealed at GDC (Game Developers Conference) on 22 March 2002 and released later in the year for Counter-Strike 1.6. It was critically shunned in the beginning due to various bugs and inconsistent server performance. However, over the years Steam has vastly improved on the various performance issues and bugs, and is seen as a fast, stable, and reliable service. As of 2009 there are over 900 games available to download (with most new games co-launching with their console counterparts or launching shortly after), and over 20 million members signed up.
Steam allows independent game developers to showcase their games to a wider audience, and allows large publishers such as EA and Ubisoft to revitalize the sales of their older games by making their back catalog available on Steam. Steam also focuses more on the quality or originality of the game rather than the production level in terms of marketing, so it often advertises debut indie titles such as I-Fluid and World of Goo next to high profile games such as Fallout 3 or Grand Theft Auto IV on its front page. Dylan Fitterer, the creator of Audiosurf went so far as to say that Steam is "the dream place to be" for independent game developers.
Steam is commonly used in internet cafes not only because it is the host to popular multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike: Source and Team Fortress 2, but also because games can easily be installed on multiple computers through digital distribution and because Steam has a dedicated service that caters to internet cafes.
Steam's official site is www.steampowered.com, which can be accessed through a web browser or the official client.
Steam Store
Games bought from Steam either through the website or the official client are initially added to the customer's "My Games" list, into the "Not Installed" section. Installing (downloading) the game will subsequently put that game into the "Installed" section where it can also be put on a "Favorites" list. It will also make that game available for every user that uses that computer that also owns the game on their account until it is uninstalled. Games on Steam are always kept up to date and patches are downloaded and applied automatically. This means games on Steam are always synced with other games on Steam, and customers don't have to manually search the internet for the most recent patches for their relevant games. There is also no download limit, meaning games can be downloaded an unlimited amount of times, and at any time of the day. Because of this reliability and the plethora of demos available for most games, Steam maintains a no refund and no transfer policy, although exceptions are made in extreme circumstances, such as when Grand Theft Auto IV was released with multiple performance bugs.Steam saves developers and publishers physical distribution costs as well as retailer costs. Because of the money it saves developers, Steam can often afford to dramatically reduce the prices on certain items at certain times. Customers can purchase games individually, or in associated "packs" which contain several related games and are usually significantly less expensive than if the games were bought individually (e.g. the Valve Complete Pack contains every Valve game ever made and saves the customer over a hundred dollars). In addition, there are usually weekly weekend sales in which a certain game, games or game pack is heavily discounted for that weekend only, sometimes upwards of 75% off, as well as special offers such as holiday sales or anniversary sales that also offer games at heavily discounted prices. Bioshock, a relatively recent game that has won various critical accolades is often offered for $4.99 on Steam during different events. Steam games are also tax free, although VAT (value added tax) may apply for European countries.
Gifts & Guest Passes
When purchasing a game through the Steam store all users have the option of purchasing for themselves or as a gift for a friend. The Gift system allows users to send a game to any other user on the Steam network by simply entering their username or email address. The recipient receives the game 100% free and can download the game as soon as it is received.
Guest passes work in a similar way to gifts. A guest pass is a trial of a game which last for a certain period of time (usually 10 days). The recipient of a guest pass will have full access to the game and all of its features and once again can instantly download it as soon as it is received however once they have used a guest pass they cannot use a different guest pass for the same game again. Guest passes are only available for online games and are obtained by buying the full version of the game.
Downloadable content
As of March 16th 2009, Steam announced that they will now be supporting downloadable content provided by developers to all of their Steam catalog as part of new features added to their current Steamworks feature. This DLC content will act much like DLC distributed on a console and simply install into the game directly. The first game to have Steam DLC content was The Maw with two deleted scenes content packs.
Steam Community
Steam Community, released on September 17 2007, is a social networking feature for Steam. Steam users can create their own profile and find other players to add to their friends list. Steam Community can be accessed through the Steam website as well as through the Steam client and has an in-game communication feature which allows players to communicate, view their friends list and view the Steam Community website while in-game by using the "Steam Community Overlay". Steam users are given a 'Steam Rating', ranging from 1-10, on their profile which is based off how much time they have spent playing Steam games in the past 2 weeks. Users may also view their time played for individual games as well as stats for Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat Source.
Users can join a wide range of groups that are created by the millions of other people using Steam. Groups allow users to communicate with people like themselves much more easily through the Group Chat feature and a group's admins and moderators. Group members can also post announcements that will be sent out t o all members to alert them of the most recent news and events that are taking places. The 2008 redesign brought in 'Official Game Groups', groups created by Steam for top selling games such as Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source and Left 4 Dead.
Steamworks
Valve has released a set of tools called Steamworks that lets developers add features to their game that are unique to Steam. Achievements, online stat tracking, and multiplayer matchmaking are some of the features provided by Steamworks.Examples of games that use Steamworks:
- Audiosurf - Achievements
- Half-Life 2: Episode Two - Achievements
- Team Fortress 2 - Achievements, online stats, Steam Community avatars shown on scoreboard, out-of-game server browser and friends list with Steam
- Day of Defeat: Source - Achievements, online stats, Steam Community avatars shown on scoreboard, out-of-game server browser and friends list with Steam
- NBA 2K9 - PC version requires registration with Steam, but is not sold through the Steam store
- Left 4 Dead - Achievements, Steam Community avatars shown in various game menus, out-of-game friends list with Steam, shared in-game settings (see Steam Cloud), leaderboards for survival mode.
- Zeno Clash - Achievements, online leaderboards for the Challenge Mode.
- Madballs in Babo: Invasion - Achievements, Leaderboards, Steam Cloud.
- Modern Warfare 2 - Achievements, Steam Cloud, Valve Anti-Cheat.
On May 7, 2009 global stats were added to Steam Community. These global stats show what percentage of players have unlocked any given achievement in all games with achievements on Steam. These stats are available here.
Steam Cloud
Steam Cloud is a method of syncing some in-game settings with a central server created by Valve and was first utilized in Left 4 Dead, but Valve has promised to make it compatible with older games. Valve will also allow developers to add this functionality into their products, but presumably they will have to have some presence on the Steam application for it to work. It automatically (by default it is on, but can be turned off) saves your mouse, keyboard, gamepad and multiplayer settings i.e. settings not determined or limited by hardware and allows them to be preserved or transferred between different computers. Saved games will also be backed up, but the feature has not been enabled yet (partially because Left 4 Dead doesn't use any save mechanic) meaning that save games can be deleted from a computer and players will be able to resume previous saves years later.There are also plans to make steam able to update a computer's device drivers and add a recommendations and shopping cart system similar to the one used by Amazon.
Steam Hardware Survey
Launched originally with Half Life 2, the Steam hardware survey is a monthly survey that allows users to voluntarily submit their computer's information, regarding specifications such as processor speed, graphics card speed, internet speed, free hard drive space, memory and even driver information to Valve where it is collated along with information from other users and presented as charts and diagrams. This information is interesting in its own right, as it allows users to compare their computer with the average computer on Steam, but the hardware survey proves especially valuable for developers as well. Because it's a large and detailed sample of their target audience, developers beyond just Valve analyze the information from the hardware survey and base games in development on the capabilities of the average user's computer. The monthly results from Steam's hardware survey can be found here: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey.Steam games
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| Concept Name: | Steam |
| Appears in: | 731 games |
| First appearance: | Half-Life: Counter-Strike |
| Aliases |
