The value of my Steam account is $492.65, and the sum of it requires 155.02 GB of space storage space. Awesome. And my Dad said I would never do anything worthwhile.
Steam Gauge is the product of Hacker News user jprusik and is worth several minutes of your time. It pulls data from public steam accounts through the Steam Web API and aggregates everything into a sortable and exportable list. You… → Read More
The Xi3 Piston opened for pre-orders on Monday, and seemed to be the first of many Steam Box type devices powered by Valve’s online gaming store and service. But Valve quickly came out and said that despite their investment in Xi3, the company has no “official involvement” in the development of the Piston itself. Now Xi3 is firing back, admitting that while it received… → Read More
Gaming isn’t quite cyclical, thought it would seem that the big trend this winter is to remake old-school games from the 90′s for newer platforms. EA just released a brand new version of a personal childhood favorite, SimCity, and now it would appear that Age Of Empires II HD is coming to Steam’s platform. Steam is an online game seller that acts quite a bit like an App Store for… → Read More
As it turns out, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell gets awfully chatty when he attends award ceremonies. His appearance at the (generally awful) Spike TV Video Game Awards got him ruminating about the future of living room PCs, and ahead of today’s BAFTA Games Awards he confirmed to the BBC that Valve is working on Steam Box prototypes that will be released to testers “in the next three to four… → Read More
I don’t normally expect much to come out of Spike TV’s annual Video Game Awards, but Kotaku managed to score a gem of an interview with Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell earlier this weekend. In his brief exchange, Newell said he expected to see several PC makers crafting Steam-centric gaming PCs for the living room in 2013, and that their products would rival the next… → Read More
As anticipated in August, digital game seller Steam is now offering Windows non-game applications. It acts like a traditional app store. After the reviewing process, apps are available to purchase in a centralized store. Users can choose where to install their apps in the latest Steam beta. However, like Amazon’s Appstore for Android, Valve can discount apps if it thinks that it would benefit the… → Read More
I know I say this a lot, but man that was fast. Valve’s new pair of Steam mobile apps have been in their respective marketplaces for less than a week, and already they have graduated from beta status.
That means that you, Mr. or Mrs. Game Enthusiast, will be able to sign into your Steam account on your iOS or Android device right now and begin chatting your far-flung friends or ogling new… → Read More
As a gamer with admittedly poor impulse control, the newly-released Steam app for iOS and Android has me very worried. On the one hand, it seems like an ideal way to to keep tabs on the popular gaming service on the go.
On the other though, I could easily see myself going overboard on buying games I don’t need when I should be pretending to be a productive member of society. → Read More
Valve CEO Gabe Newell has contacted all users of the Steam game distribution platform to let them know that the company has suffered a security breach. The hack was originally thought to be limited to the official Steam forums, but further investigation has revealed that the hackers had access to a database containing “user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses… → Read More
GameFly just made the first step towards a future void of physical media with the pre-announcement of an upcoming digital gaming distribution platform. The announcement is missing any real details, including the service’s name, but it’s said to launch this coming Holiday season.
This service will allow GameFly subscribers to buy Windows/Mac games rather than just renting as usually done through… → Read More
If you were hoping to pick up a copy of Crysis 2 on Steam, you’re out of luck. The game is no longer available on Valve’s download service, though it was not (strictly speaking) pulled by EA. While EA has explained in a statement that the title is simply incompatible with “a set of business terms” “imposed” by Steam, the language and context suggest that it was action by inaction — they… → Read More
Electronic Arts is today debuting Origin, a direct-to-consumer gaming platform, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. According to the placeholder website, expect Origin to go live around 9 AM Pacific time.
The platform will enable gamers to discover, buy and download more than 150 games from EA at its debut, with exclusive limited edition copies of EA games like Battlefield 3 and FIFA… → Read More
Attention! Valve has announced exactly how Portal 2‘s Steam features will work on the PS3. PS3 gamers can look forward to cross-platform (with the PC) matchmaking and gameplay, real-time chat, Steam achievements, and access to the Steam Cloud for game saves. → Read More
It looks like Steam users will soon be able to record in-game video without the help of something like Fraps. So says a post nestled inside the forums. → Read More
The NPD Group, the organization that tracks sales data for the video game industry in North America, says that it plans to track digital sales data in the future. It’s a pretty big deal because, up until now, NPD has only tracked physical, retail sales. If you buy a brand new copy of Madden or Dragon Quest from Best Buy, yeah, that data will be represented in the monthly “top-selling games”… → Read More
AT&T will impose a 250GB data cap for users of its DSL service. The company says that, based on trials, it only expects that less than 2 percent of its users will be affected by the cap. If these people want to continue consuming more than 250GB per month they’ll have to pay for the privilege. → Read More
Valve has officially announced Steam Guard, which is a new form “user rights management” in the words of Gabe Newell. There were all sorts of rumors about it yesterday, but now that Valve has made the official announcement it’s safe there’s no real reason to panic. The service is more about keeping your Steam account secure and out of the hands of evildoers than it is about punishing you for… → Read More
Portal 2 may be coming to the PS3 and bringing cross-platform play and some Steam elements with it, but the Steam interface is really designed for mouse navigation, not analog sticks. Valve is looking to fix that with a special “big picture mode” designed for use with big TVs and console controllers. → Read More
Here’s an interesting figure: Valve makes more money per employee than Google or Apple. While we can easily figure out how much the publicly traded Google and Apple make per employee, estimating what Valve pulls in is trickier. Valve has done quite well selling video games – over 12 million copies of Half-Life 2 alone – but Valve is even better at selling everyone else’s… → Read More
Valve has released the details surrounding pre-ordering Portal 2. The game is available for pre-order right now on Steam (and other retailers), and if you pre-order the game they’ll knock $5 off the price, bringing it down to $45. → Read More
Canada’s Internet innovation-killing usage-based billing scheme may already be dead in the water. The Toronto Star says the decision has been made to reverse the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s plan to implement the controversial billing method, which would have led to a situation where people there could have expected to pay up to CDN$2.35 per gigabyte. The CRTC… → Read More
O, Canada, what have you done? The country’s Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CRTC, has passed sweeping new regulations that will force Internet Service Providers to switch to so-called usage-based billing—metered pricing, in less flowery language. That means ISPs there will charge customers by the gigabyte for Internet access, and that’s on top of a flat service… → Read More
It’s hardly a secret that many of us here are big fans of Steam, Valve’s digital download service that makes buying PC games pretty painless. Who among us hasn’t spent more than a few dollars during one of those big Steam sales?
The only problem with Steam sales is that, having purchased a game, you have to sit there for at least several (long!) hours, waiting for it to fully download. Meaning… → Read More
Nice, it looks like the PS3 version of Portal 2 won’t stink on ice—something that can’t be said about the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2. (Though that’s hardly Valve’s fault, having to play by Microsoft’s silly Xbox Live rules.) PS3 owners can look forward to cross-platform (PC/Mac vs. PS3) gameplay in multi-player mode, Steam Cloud-based storage of saved games (eh…), and… → Read More
Not to alarm you all, but Steam has just started its annual Holiday sale. There’s a new user interface going on and I have no idea how to navigate it. Exciting! → Read More
In walks Steam, trying to build an actual community around its handy little platform. It’s called the Great Steam Treasure Hunt, and it’ll have players doing all sorts of fun, community-type things, like earning achievements and jointing groups! Wheeeeee! → Read More
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages: THERE’S A STEAM SALE~! → Read More
A funny thing happened at the weekend. One of the Steam deals was for Risen, an RPG that came out in 2009. I hear it’s pretty good, actually. Well, at least the PC version was OK. Anyhow, the game was on sale for $14.95 (50 percent off its regular price, in other words), and so many people bought the game that its publisher, Deep Silver, ran out of activation keys! Yes: Steam sold more games… → Read More
Some people just won’t accept their obsolescence quietly. A number of game retailers in the UK are outraged that their customers might get games from the secure and convenient Steam instead of leaving their houses and traveling across town to get it from their brick-and-mortar store. Consequently, they are threatening not to stock games from publishers who use the digital distribution service.
So… → Read More
Happy Halloween! Why not celebrate with a brand new game or two (or three) courtesy of Steam. If the game is scary, features zombies, or ghosts, it’s probably on sale. I mean, what are you going to do this weekend? Go to lame party party filled with a bunch of neckbeards and trashy girls? Forget that, turn off you lights, put your candy on a chair with a sign politely asking people to… → Read More
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