Steam to Start Selling Non-Gaming Software in September
By Joseph Christ on August 8th, 2012 (8 comments)
Valve has announced that starting September 5th, Steam will be expanding its online inventory to include non-gaming software.
No particular software titles or companies have been mentioned but the press release states that they will "range from creativity to productivity" and will be making use of various Steamworks features.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Mark Richardson at Valve via the release. "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."
This comes just after Gabe Newell recently spoke in an interview about working with Adobe and their Photoshop Suite of products. "That causes us to have conversations with Adobe, and we say the next version of Photoshop should look like a free-to-play game, and they say, 'We have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds really bad,'" Newell said. Which leads me to believe that Adobe is probably one of the entities we can expect to see on Steam in the future.
Steam already offers some services to the public other than games but this marks the occasion where it is presenting itself not as a gaming oriented distribution center but as a software one. And certainly this gives it a further boost over growing distribution nemesis Origin.
Here is the Press Release in full.
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."
Joseph Christ
Joseph Christ is the Reviews Editor and a Podcast Personality at 4Player. Specializing in reviews, editorials, drinking, and saying inappropriate things about gaming franchises that are beloved by millions, his satirical and sometimes edgy style offsets a more serious and penetrating substance lurking below the surface. He is also the host of the Cocktail Time Podcast. You'll follow his Twitter if you know what's good for you.
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First, complete control of all software distribution and then, THE WORLD!!! It isn't a big surprise that Valve is expanding outward with Steam. Success warrants expansion.
Link / ReplyEh, could be cool, but I probably won't use it.
Link / ReplyIn my opinion HL3 will be one of the last games Valve produces. Clearly their major income comes from Steam network and not from Valve gaming production. I can easily see them switching completely to software distribution company and selling franchises that they own to other game developers. Perhaps they can still work on developing engines, but games...why bother.
Link / ReplyI think you underestimate the amount of cash Valve gets from their games.
Link / ReplyBut...how are they going to get hats in Photoshop. Kidding aside, what keeps players in a F2P game is the ability to unlock the game-affecting content without money, but much slower. Take that away, and you'll get "Oh this is bullcrap" and they leave before they get a chance to decide this is worth spending money on.
Link / ReplyI'm thinking they said Photoshop looks like a free-to-play game because there's different models of software. You have Elements, which is the "essential" stuff in a photo editor, then the fancier more expensive versions depending on how professional you want to go. Still, I hardly ever buy non-game software these days because there's all these free alternatives that almost do everything the retail product does (GIMP, LibreOffice, etc.).
Link / ReplySure, why not.
Link / ReplyThis sounds pretty awesome, being able to register something like a copy of Visual Studios to Steam sounds really promising (Perhaps being able to some files to the cloud). This might actually make it easier to find worthwhile freeware programs if they decide to implement those into Steam as well.
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