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 deals.
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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.
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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, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information.” → 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 GameFly. This brings a whole new level of use to the GameFly service, which is currently the Netflix of video games. The upcoming computer client is more than just a storefront, as well. News, trailers, and video clips will attempt to make the program relevant in the crowded niche market currently dominated by Valve’s Steam digital distribution platform. → 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 don’t want Crysis 2 on Steam, and they’re all too happy to let it lapse. → 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 12 coming later. → 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” chart. But if you buy Crysis 2 from Steam or Baldur’s Gate from Good Old Games it’s as if that sale never occurred in the first place. And considering how much game-buying now occurs on these digital platforms (Steam, GoG, XBLA, D2D, App Store, etc.) NPD data was beginning to look woefully incomplete. → 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 having the audacity to play games on the PC. Valve isn’t Ubisoft. → 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 games – not just its own – in Steam. → 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 is expected to make its case in front of the House of Commons later today. → 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 fee. There’s nothing particularly new about metered pricing, but the fact that it’s being implemented on a country-wide basis surely merits a quick discussion. → 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, if that you were waiting all year to buy, say, BioShock 2, then when you finally buy it when it’s on sale for 75 percent off, you’ll probably have to leave the download running overnight, the servers being swamped with other, like-minded folks. That’s not fun at all. → 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 cross-platform chat. → 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
