Steam (service)

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Steam (software))

Steam
Developer(s)Valve Corporation
Initial releaseSeptember 12, 2003; 20 years ago (2003-09-12)
Stable releaseSteamClient021, Package: 1709846872 (March 7, 2024; 12 days ago (2024-03-07)) [±]
Preview releaseAPI v020, Package: 1682723851 (April 29, 2023; 10 months ago (2023-04-29)) [±]
Platform
Available in29[1] languages
Type
LicenseProprietary software
Websitestore.steampowered.com

Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide game updates automatically for Valve's games, and expanded to distributing third-party titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like game server matchmaking with Valve Anti-Cheat measures, social networking, and game streaming services. Steam client's functions include game update automation, cloud storage for game progress, and community features such as direct messaging, in-game overlay functions and a virtual collectable marketplace.

Steamworks, a freely available application programming interface (API) released in 2008, is used by developers to integrate Steam's functions, including digital rights management (DRM), into their game products. Many game publishers began distributing their titles on Steam that year. Initially developed for Microsoft Windows operating systems, Steam was released for macOS in 2010 and Linux in 2012. Mobile apps accessing online Steam features were first released for iOS and Android in 2012. The platform's storefront also offers other digital content and Valve gaming hardware, including productivity software, game soundtracks, videos and the virtual reality headset, Valve Index.

The service is the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with an estimated 75% of the market share in 2013 according to IHS Screen Digest.[2] By 2017, game purchases through Steam totaled about US$4.3 billion, or at least 18% of global PC game sales according to Steam Spy.[3] By 2021, the service had over 34,000 games with over 132 million monthly active users.[4] Steam's success has led to the development of the Steam Machine gaming PCs in 2015, including the SteamOS operating system and Steam Controller; Steam Link devices for local game streaming; and in 2022, the handheld Steam Deck tailored for running Steam games.

History[edit]

Timeline of Steam releases
2002Announcement and beta release
2003Official release
2004
2005First publisher partnership
2006
2007Steam Community
2008Steamworks
Matchmaking services
2009Steam Cloud
2010Mac OS X client
2011Steam Workshop
2012Steam online mobile apps
Steam for Schools
Steam Greenlight
Big Picture Mode
Productivity software added to catalog
Steam Community Market
2013Steam Trading Cards
Linux client
Family Sharing
Steam Early Access
2014In-Home Streaming
Steam Music
2015SteamOS
Steam Machines
Video purchases/renting added to catalog
Steam Link
Steam Controller
2016SteamVR
Steam Awards
2017Steam Direct
2018Steam.tv
Proton
2019Remote Play
Steam Labs
2020Steam Cloud Play
2021Steam China
2022Steam Deck
2023Big Picture Mode overhaul
Desktop client visual overhaul
2024Steam Families

Valve was looking for a better way to update its published games,[5] as providing downloadable patches for multiplayer games resulted in most of the online user base disconnecting for several days until players had installed the patch. They decided to create a platform that would update games automatically and implement stronger anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures. Through user polls at the time of its announcement in 2002, Valve also recognized that at least 75% of their users had access to high-speed Internet connections and realized they could deliver game content faster directly to players than through retail channels.[6] They approached several companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks, to build a client with these features, but were declined.[7]

Valve began its own platform development in 2002, using the working names "Grid" and "Gazelle".[8][9] The Steam platform was publicly announced at the Game Developers Conference event on March 22, 2002, and released for beta testing that day.[10][11] To demonstrate the ease of integrating Steam with a game, Relic Entertainment created a special version of its game Impossible Creatures.[12] Valve partnered with several companies, including AT&T, Acer, and GameSpy.[how?] The first mod released on the system was Day of Defeat.[13] In 2002, Valve president Gabe Newell said he was offering mod teams a game engine license and distribution over Steam for US$995.[13]

Prior to the implementation of Steam, Valve had a publishing contract with Sierra Studios; the 2001 version gave Valve rights to digital distribution of its games.[14] Valve took Sierra and their owners, Vivendi Games, to court in 2002 over a claimed breach of this contract. Sierra counter-sued, asserting that Valve had been working to undermine the contract by offering a digital storefront for their games, directly competing with Sierra. The case was initially ruled in Valve's favor, allowing them to leave the contract and to seek other publishing partners for retail copies of its games while continuing their work on Steam.[14] One company Valve approached at this time was Microsoft, but Microsoft executive Ed Fries said that they turned down the offer because Valve intended to continue selling their games on Steam.[15]

Between 80,000 and 300,000 players participated in the Steam beta test before its official release on September 12, 2003.[8][13][16][17] The client and website suffered outages and bugs at launch.[18] A monthly subscription to Valve games on Steam was planned.[19] At the time, Steam's primary function was streamlining the patch process common in online computer games, and was an optional component for all other games. In 2004, the World Opponent Network was shut down and replaced by Steam, and online game features ceased to work until players switched to their Steam counterparts.[20]

In November 2004, Half-Life 2 was the first game to be offered digitally on Steam, and to require installation of the Steam client for retail copies. During this time users faced problems attempting to play the game.[8][21][22] The Steam requirement was met with concerns about software ownership, software requirements, and problems with overloaded servers demonstrated previously by the Counter-Strike rollout.[23]

In 2005, third-party developers were contracted to release games on Steam, such as Rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia.[24][25] Valve announced that Steam had become profitable because of some highly successful Valve games.[24][when?] Although digital distribution could not yet match retail volume, profit margins for Valve and developers were far larger on Steam.[26] Publishers, such as id Software,[27] Eidos Interactive,[28] and Capcom[29] began distributing their games on Steam in 2007. By May of that year, 13 million accounts had been created and 150 games were for sale.[30][31] In 2008, more publishers like Ubisoft, THQ, Sega, Take-Two Interactive, Activision, and Electronic Arts had partnered with the service, but some games were unavailable or overpriced for markets outside North America.[32][33]

In May 2007, ATI included Steam in the ATI Catalyst GPU driver as well as offering a free Steam copy of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch to ATI Radeon owners.[34] In January 2008, Nvidia promoted Steam in the GeForce GPU driver, as well as offering a free Steam copy of Portal: The First Slice to Nvidia hardware owners.[35] Traditional retail versions of games required mandatory installation of Steam, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 from Activision in 2009,[36] Fallout: New Vegas from Bethesda Softworks in 2010,[37] and Dragon Age II from Electronic Arts in 2011.[38]

In 2011, Electronic Arts removed some of its games from Steam because of its restrictive terms of service, and launched its games—beginning with Mass Effect 3 in 2012—on its Origin service.[39][40][41] Newell stated, "We have to show EA it's a smart decision to have EA games on Steam."[42] Valve held conferences called Steam Dev Days from 2013 to 2014.[43] In 2014, Ubisoft games started to require Uplay to run after launching the game from Steam.[44] In 2019, Ubisoft announced that they would stop selling their future games on Steam starting with Tom Clancy's The Division 2 because Valve would not modify its revenue sharing model.[45] In May 2019, Microsoft distributed its games on Steam in addition to the Microsoft Store.[46] In 2020, EA started to publish select games on Steam, and offering its rebranded subscription service EA Play on the platform.[47][48] In 2022, Ubisoft announced that they would return to selling its recent games on Steam, starting with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, citing that they were "constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are".[49]

By 2014, total annual game sales on Steam were estimated at $1.5 billion.[50] By 2018, the service had over 90 million monthly active users.[51] In 2018, its network delivered 15 billion gigabytes of data, compared to less than 4 billion in 2014.[52]

Features and functionality[edit]

Software delivery and maintenance[edit]

Steam's primary service is to allow its users to purchase games and other software, adding them to a virtual library from which they may be downloaded and installed an unlimited number of times. Initially, Valve was required to be the publisher for these games since they had sole access to Steam's database and engine, but with the introduction of the Steamworks software development kit (SDK) in May 2008, anyone could integrate Steam into their game without Valve's direct involvement.[53]

Valve intended to "make DRM obsolete" as games released on Steam had traditional anti-piracy measures, including the assignment and distribution of product keys and support for digital rights management software tools such as SecuROM or non-malicious rootkits. With an update to the Steamworks SDK in March 2009, Valve added "Custom Executable Generation" (CEG), which creates a unique, encrypted copy of the game's executable files for the given user, which allows them to install it multiple times and on multiple devices, and make backup copies of their software.[54] Once the software is downloaded and installed, the user must then authenticate through Steam to de-encrypt the executable files to play the game. Normally this is done while connected to the Internet following the user's credential validation, but once they have logged into Steam once, a user can instruct Steam to launch in a special offline mode to be able to play their games without a network connection.[55][56] Developers are not limited to Steam's CEG and may include other forms of DRM (or none at all) and other authentication services than Steam; for example, some games from publisher Ubisoft require the use of their Uplay gaming service.[57]

In November 2007, Steam achievements were added, similar to Xbox 360 Achievements.[58] In September 2008, Valve added support for Steam Cloud, a service that can automatically store saved game and related custom files on Valve's servers; users can access this data from any machine running the Steam client.[59] Users can disable this feature on a per-game and per-account basis.[60] Cloud saving was expanded in January 2022 for Dynamic Cloud Sync, allowing games developed with this feature to store saved states to Steam Cloud while a game is running rather than waiting until the user quit; this was added ahead of the portable Steam Deck unit so that users can save from the Deck and then put the unit into a suspended state.[61] In May 2012, the service added the ability for users to manage their game libraries from remote clients, including computers and mobile devices.[62] Product keys sold through third-party retailers can also be redeemed on Steam.[63] For games that incorporate Steamworks, users can buy redemption codes from other vendors and redeem these in the Steam client to add the title to their libraries. Steam also offers a framework for selling and distributing downloadable content (DLC) for games.[64][65]

In September 2013, Steam introduced the ability to share most games with family members and close friends by authorizing machines to access one's library. Authorized players can install the game locally and play it separately from the owning account. Users can access their saved games and achievements providing the main owner is not playing. When the main player initiates a game while a shared account is using it, the shared account user is allowed a few minutes to either save their progress and close the game or purchase the game for their own account.[66] Within Family View, introduced in January 2014, parents can adjust settings for their children's tied accounts, limiting the functionality and accessibility to the Steam client and purchased games.[67] A more robust implementation of Family Sharing, titled "Steam Families", was put into beta in 2024, allowing up to five members of a household to share games from a single account, including the ability to play different games on those accounts along with different game saves and profiles, and enhanced parential control tools for those accounts.[68]

In accordance with its acceptable use policy, Valve retains the right to block customers' access to their games and Steam services when Valve's Anti-Cheat (VAC) software determines that the user is cheating in multiplayer games, selling accounts to others, or trading games to exploit regional price differences.[69] Blocking such users initially removed access to their other games, leading to some users with high-value accounts losing access because of minor infractions.[70] Valve later changed its policy to be similar to that of Electronic Arts' Origin platform, in which blocked users can still access their games but are heavily restricted, limited to playing in offline mode and unable to participate in Steam Community features.[71] Customers also lose access to their games and Steam account if they refuse to accept changes to Steam's end user license agreements; this last occurred in August 2012.[72] In April 2015, Valve began allowing developers to set bans on players for their games, but enacted and enforced at the Steam level, which allowed them to police their own gaming communities in a customizable manner.[73]

Storefront features[edit]

The Steam client includes a digital storefront called the Steam Store through which users can purchase games. Once the game is bought, a software license is permanently attached to the user's Steam account, allowing them to download the software on any compatible device. Game licenses can be given to other accounts under certain conditions. Content is delivered from an international network of servers using a proprietary file transfer protocol.[74] As of 2015, Steam sells its products in US and Canadian dollars, euros, pounds sterling, Brazilian reais, Russian rubles, Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupees[75] depending on the user's location.[76] In December 2010, the client began supporting the WebMoney payment system.[77] From April 2016 until December 2017, Steam accepted payments in Bitcoin before dropping support for it due to high fluctuation in value and costly service fees.[78][79] The Steam storefront validates the user's region; the purchase of games may be restricted to specific regions because of release dates, game classification, or agreements with publishers. Since 2010, the Steam Translation Server project allows Steam users to assist with the translation of the Steam client, storefront, and a selected library of Steam games for twenty-eight languages.[80] In October 2018, official support for Vietnamese and Latin American Spanish was added, in addition to Steam's then 26 languages.[81] Steam also allows users to purchase downloadable content for games, and for some specific games such as Team Fortress 2, the ability to purchase in-game inventory items. In February 2015, Steam began to open similar options for in-game item purchases for third-party games.[82]

In conjunction with developers and publishers, Valve frequently provides discounted sales on games on a daily and weekly basis, sometimes oriented around a publisher, genre, or holiday theme, and sometimes allow games to be tried for free during the days of these sales. The site normally offers a large selection of games at discount during its annual Summer and Holiday sales, including gamification of these sales.[83]

Users of Steam's storefront can also purchase games and other software as gifts for another Steam user. Prior to May 2017, users could purchase these gifts to be held in their profile's inventory until they opted to gift them. However, this feature enabled a gray market around some games, where a user in a country where the price of a game was substantially lower than elsewhere could stockpile giftable copies to sell to others in regions with much higher prices.[84] In August 2016, Valve changed its gifting policy to require that games with VAC and Game Ban-enabled games be gifted immediately to another Steam user, which also served to combat players that worked around VAC and Game Bans;[85] in May 2017, Valve expanded this policy to all games.[86] The changes also placed limitations on gifts between users of different countries if there is a large difference in pricing.[87] Due to runaway inflation in Argentina and Turkey, Valve eliminated the use of local currency pricing for users in those storefronts in November 2023, instead moving them to a special regional pricing model based on U.S. dollars as a means to provide fair payments to publisher and developers, though these local users saw effective price hikes as high as 2900%.[88]

The Steam store also enables users to redeem store product keys to add software from their library. The keys are sold by third-party providers such as Humble Bundle, distributed as part of a physical release, or given to a user as part of promotions, often used to deliver Kickstarter and other crowd funding rewards. A grey market exists around Steam keys, where less reputable buyers purchase a large number of Steam keys for a game when it is offered for a low cost, and then resell these keys to users or other third-party sites at a higher price.[89][90] This caused some of these third-party sites, such as G2A, to be embroiled in this grey market.[91] It is possible for publishers to have Valve track down where specific keys have been used and cancel them, removing the product from the user's libraries.[92] Other legitimate storefronts, like Humble Bundle, have set a minimum price that must be spent to obtain Steam keys as to discourage mass purchases.[93] In June 2021, Valve began limiting how frequently Steam users could change their default region to prevent them from purchasing games from outside their home region for cheaper.[94]

In 2013, Steam began to accept player reviews of games. Other users can subsequently rate these reviews as helpful, humorous, or otherwise unhelpful, which are then used to highlight the most useful reviews on the game's Steam store page. Steam also aggregates these reviews and enables users to sort products based on this feedback while browsing the store.[95] In May 2016, Steam further broke out these aggregations between all reviews overall and those made more recently in the last 30 days, a change Valve acknowledges to how game updates, particularly those in Early Access, can alter the impression of a game to users.[96] To prevent observed abuse of the review system by developers or other third-party agents, Valve modified the review system in September 2016 to discount review scores for a game from users that activated the product through a product key rather than directly purchased by the Steam Store, though their reviews remain visible.[97] Alongside this, Valve announced that it would end business relations with any developer or publisher that they found to be abusing the review system.[98] Separately, Valve has taken actions to minimize the effects of review bombs on Steam. In particular, Valve announced in March 2019 that they mark reviews they believe are "off-topic" as a result of a review bomb, and eliminate their contribution to summary review scores; the first such games they took action on with this were the Borderlands games after it was announced Borderlands 3 would be a timed-exclusive to the Epic Games Store.[99][100]

During mid-2011, Valve began to offer free-to-play games, such as Global Agenda, Spiral Knights and Champions Online; this offer was linked to the company's move to make Team Fortress 2 a free-to-play title.[101] Valve included support via Steamworks for microtransactions for in-game items through Steam's purchasing channels, in a similar manner to the in-game store for Team Fortress 2. Later that year, Valve added the ability to trade in-game items and "unopened" game gifts between users.[102] Steam Coupons, which was introduced in December 2011, provides single-use coupons that provide a discount to the cost of items. Steam Coupons can be provided to users by developers and publishers; users can trade these coupons between friends in a similar fashion to gifts and in-game items.[103] In May 2015, GameStop began selling Steam Wallet cards.[104] Steam Market, a feature introduced in beta in December 2012 that would allow users to sell virtual items to others via Steam Wallet funds, further extended the idea. Valve levies a transaction fee of 15% on such sales and game publishers that use Steam Market pay a transaction fee. For example, Team Fortress 2—the first game supported at the beta phase—incurred both fees. Full support for other games was expected to be available in early 2013.[105] In April 2013, Valve added subscription-based game support to Steam; the first game to use this service was Darkfall Unholy Wars.[106]

In October 2012, Steam introduced non-gaming applications, which are sold through the service in the same manner as games.[107] Creativity and productivity applications can access the core functions of the Steamworks API, allowing them to use Steam's simplified installation and updating process, and incorporate features including cloud saving and Steam Workshop.[108] Steam also allows game soundtracks to be purchased to be played via Steam Music or integrated with the user's other media players.[109] Valve adjusted its approach to soundtracks in 2020, no longer requiring them to be offered as DLC, meaning that users can buy soundtracks to games they do not own, and publishers can offer soundtracks to games not on Steam.[110]

Valve has also added the ability for publishers to rent and sell digital movies via the service, with initially most being video game documentaries.[111] Following Warner Bros. Entertainment offering the Mad Max films alongside the September 2015 release of the game based on the series,[112] Lionsgate entered into agreement with Valve to rent over one hundred feature films from its catalog through Steam starting in April 2016, with more films following later.[113] In March 2017, Crunchyroll started offering various anime for purchase or rent through Steam.[114] However, by February 2019, Valve shuttered video from its storefront save for videos directly related to gaming content.[115] While available, users could also purchase Steam Machine related hardware.[116]

Valve received revenue share of a flat 30% from all direct Steam sales and transactions.[a] In October 2018, Valve updated their policies that cut theirs to 25% once revenue for a game surpasses US$10 million, and further to 20% at US$50 million.[118] The policy change was seen by journalists as trying to entice larger developers to stay with Steam,[119] while the decision was also met with backlash from indie and other small game developers, as their revenue split remained unchanged.[120][121][122]

While Steam allows developers to offer demo versions of their games at any time, Valve worked with Geoff Keighley in 2019 in conjunction with The Game Awards to hold a week-long Steam Game Festival to feature a large selection of game demos of current and upcoming games, alongside sales for games already released.[123] This event has since been repeated two or three times a year, typically in conjunction with game expositions or award events, and since has been renamed as the Steam Next Fest.[124]

A Steam Points system and storefront was added in June 2020, which mirrored similar temporary points systems that had been used in prior sales on the storefront. Users earn points through purchases on Steam or by receiving community recognition for helpful reviews or discussion comments. These points can be redeemed in the separate storefront for cosmetics that apply to the user's profile and chat interface.[125][126]

Privacy, security and abuse[edit]

The popularity of Steam has led to the service's being attacked by hackers. An attempt occurred in November 2011, when Valve temporarily closed the community forums, citing potential hacking threats to the service. Days later, Valve reported that the hack had compromised one of its customer databases, potentially allowing the perpetrators to access customer information, including encrypted password and credit card details. At that time, Valve was not aware whether the intruders actually accessed this information or discovered the encryption method, but nevertheless warned users to be alert for fraudulent activity.[127][128]

Valve added Steam Guard functionality to the Steam client in March 2011 to protect against the hijacking of accounts via phishing schemes, one of the largest support problems Valve had at the time.[129] Steam Guard was advertised to take advantage of the identity protection provided by Intel's second-generation Core processors and compatible motherboard hardware, which allows users to lock their account to a specific computer. Once locked, activity by that account on other computers must first be approved by the user on the locked computer. Support APIs for Steam Guard are available to third-party developers through Steamworks.[130] Steam Guard also offers two-factor, risk-based authentication that uses a one-time verification code sent to a verified email address associated with the Steam account; this was later expanded to include two-factor authentication through the Steam mobile application, known as Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator.[131]

In 2015, Valve stated that the potential monetary value of virtual goods attached to user accounts had drawn hackers to try to access accounts for financial benefit.[132] Valve reported that in December 2015, around 77,000 accounts per month were hijacked, enabling the hijackers to empty out the user's inventory of items through the trading features. To improve security, the company announced that new restrictions would be added in March 2016, under which 15-day holds are placed on traded items unless they activate, and authenticate with Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator.[132][133] After a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling controversy, Valve stated it is cracking down on third-party websites using Steam inventory trading for Skin gambling in July 2016.[134]

ReVuln, a commercial vulnerability research firm, published a paper in October 2012 that said the Steam browser protocol was posing a security risk by enabling malicious exploits through a simple user click on a maliciously crafted steam:// URL in a browser.[135][136][137] This was the second serious vulnerability of gaming-related software following a problem with Ubisoft's Uplay.[138] German IT platform Heise online recommended strict separation of gaming and sensitive data, for example using a PC dedicated to gaming, gaming from a second Windows installation, or using a computer account with limited rights dedicated to gaming.[137]

In July 2015, a bug in the software allowed anyone to reset the password to any account by using the "forgot password" function of the client. High-profile professional gamers and streamers lost access to their accounts.[139][140] In December 2015, Steam's content delivery network was misconfigured in response to a DDoS attack, causing cached store pages containing personal information to be temporarily exposed for 34,000 users.[141][142]

In April 2018, Valve added new privacy settings for Steam users, who are able to hide their activity status, game lists, inventory, and other profile elements. While these changes brought Steam's privacy settings inline with approaches used by game console services, it also impacted third-party services such as Steam Spy, which relied on the public data to estimate Steam sales count.[143][144]

Valve established a HackerOne bug bounty program in May 2018, a crowdsourced method to test and improve security features of the Steam client.[145] In August 2019, a security researcher exposed a zero-day vulnerability in the Windows client of Steam, which allowed for any user to run arbitrary code with LocalSystem privileges using just a few simple commands. The vulnerability was then reported to Valve via the program, but it was initially rejected for being "out-of-scope". Following a second vulnerability found by the same user, Valve apologized and patched them both, and expanded the program's rules to accept any other similar problems.[146][147]

The Anti-Defamation League published a report that stated the Steam Community platform harbors hateful content in April 2020.[148] In January 2021, a trading card glitch let players generate Steam Wallet funds from free Steam trading cards with bots using Capcom Arcade Stadium and other games, resulting in the game becoming one of the statistically most played titles.[149]

User interface and functions[edit]

Since November 2013, Steam has allowed for users to review their purchased games and organize them into categories set by the user and add to favorite lists for quick access.[150] Players can add non-Steam games to their libraries, allowing the game to be easily accessed from the Steam client and providing support where possible for Steam Overlay features. The Steam interface allows for user-defined shortcuts to be added. In this way, third-party modifications and games not purchased through the Steam Store can use Steam features. Valve sponsors and distributes some modifications free of charge;[151] and modifications that use Steamworks can also any Steam features supported by their parent game. For most games launched from Steam, the client provides an in-game overlay from which the user can access Steam Community lists and participate in chat, manage selected Steam settings, and access a built-in web browser without having to exit the game.[152] Since the beginning of February 2011 as a beta version, the overlay also allows players to take screenshots of the games in process.[153] As a full version on February 24, 2011, this feature was reimplemented so that users could share screenshots on websites of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit straight from a user's screenshot manager.[154]

Steam's "Big Picture" mode is more optimized for a larger screen with a larger, simpler interface that mimics the Steam Deck interface and is easily navigable with either a controller or mouse.

Steam's "Big Picture" mode was announced in 2011;[155] public betas started in September 2012 and were integrated into the software in December 2012.[156] Big Picture mode is a 10-foot user interface, which optimizes the Steam display to work on high-definition televisions, allowing the user to control Steam with a gamepad or with a keyboard and mouse. Newell stated that Big Picture mode was a step towards a dedicated Steam entertainment hardware unit.[157] With the introduction of the Steam Deck, Valve began pushing the new Big Picture mode based on the Steam Deck UI in beta testing in October 2022, and full release in February 2023.[158][159][160]

In 2012, Valve announced Steam for Schools, a free function-limited version of the Steam client for schools.[161] It was part of Valve's initiative to support gamification of learning. It was released alongside free versions of Portal 2 and a standalone program called "Puzzle Maker" that allowed teachers and students to create and manipulate levels. It featured additional authentication security that allowed teachers to share and distribute content via a Steam Workshop-type interface, but blocks access from students.[162][163]

In-Home Streaming was introduced in May 2014; it allows users to stream games installed on one computer to another on the same home network with low latency.[164] By June 2019, Valve renamed this feature to Remote Play, allowing users to stream games across devices that may be outside of their home network.[165] Steam's "Remote Play Together", added in November 2019 after a month of beta testing, gives the ability for local multiplayer games to be played by people in disparate locations, though will not necessary resolve latency problems typical of these types of games.[166][167][168] Remote Play Together was expanded in February 2021 to give the ability to invite non-Steam players to play through a Steam Link app approach.[169]

The Steam client, as part of a social network service, allows users to identify friends and join groups using the Steam Community feature.[170] Through the Steam Chat feature, users can use text chat and peer-to-peer VoIP with other users, identify which games their friends and other group members are playing, and join and invite friends to Steamworks-based multiplayer games that support this feature. Users can participate in forums hosted by Valve to discuss Steam games. Each user has a unique page that shows his or her groups and friends, game library including earned achievements, game wishlists, and other social features; users can choose to keep this information private.[171] In January 2010, Valve reported that 10 million of the 25 million active Steam accounts had signed up to Steam Community.[172] In conjunction with the 2012 Steam Summer Sale, user profiles were updated with Badges reflecting the user's participation in the Steam community and past events.[173] Steam Trading Cards, a system where players earn virtual trading cards based on games they own, were introduced in May 2013. Using them, players can trade with other Steam users on the Steam Community Marketplace and use them to craft "Badges", which grant rewards such as discount coupons, user profile page customization options.[174][175] In 2010, the Steam client became an OpenID provider, allowing third-party websites to use a Steam user's identity without requiring the user to expose his or her Steam credentials.[176][177] In order to prevent abuse, access to most community features is restricted until a one-time payment of at least US$5 is made to Valve. This requirement can be fulfilled by making any purchase of five dollars or more on Steam, or by adding at the same amount to their wallet.[178]

Through Steamworks, Steam provides a means of server browsing for multiplayer games that use the Steam Community features, allowing users to create lobbies with friends or members of common groups. Steamworks also provides Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), Valve's anti-cheat system; game servers automatically detect and report users who are using cheats in online, multiplayer games.[179] In August 2012, Valve added new features—including dedicated hub pages for games that highlight the best user-created content, top forum posts, and screenshots—to the Community area.[180] In December 2012, a feature where users can upload walkthroughs and guides detailing game strategy was added.[181] Starting in January 2015, the Steam client allowed players to livestream to Steam friends or the public while playing games on the platform.[182][183] For the main event of The International 2018 Dota 2 tournament, Valve launched Steam.tv as a major update to Steam Broadcasting, adding Steam chat and Steamworks integration for spectating matches played at the event.[184][185] It has also been used for other events, such as a pre-release tournament for the digital card game Artifact and for The Game Awards 2018 and Steam Awards award shows.[186][187][188]

In September 2014, Steam Music was added to the Steam client, allowing users to play through music stored on their computer or to stream from a locally networked computer directly in Steam.[189][190] An update to the friends and chat system was released in July 2018, allowing for non-peer-to-peer chats integrated with voice chat and other features that were compared to Discord.[191][192] A standalone mobile app based on this for Android and iOS was released in May 2019.[193]

A major visual overhaul of the Library and game profile pages were released in October 2019.[194] These redesigns are aimed to aid users to organize their games, help showcase what shared games a user's friends are playing, games that are being live-streamed, and new content that may be available, along with more customization options for sorting games. Associated with that, Valve gave developers means of communicating when special in-game events are approaching through Steam Events, which appear to players on the revamped Library and game profile pages.[195][196]

Another major overhaul of the UI was released in June 2023. Besides unifying backend functions for the main Steam client, Steam Deck client, and Big Picture mode, the new UI featured an improved screen overlay that users could pin various dialogs such as friend chat and game guides that would remain visible while playing a game. A new notes feature allowed users to create personal notes that are stored in the cloud that they could use for various tracking of progress or reminders while in game.[197]

Developer features[edit]

Valve provides developers the ability to create storefront pages to help generate interest in their game ahead of release.[198] This is also necessary to fix a release date that functions into Valve's "build review", a free service performed by Valve about a week before this release date to make sure the game's launch is trouble-free.[199] Updates in 2020 to Discovery queues have given developers more options for customizing their storefront page and how these pages integrate with users' experiences with the Steam client.[199]

Valve offers Steamworks, an application programming interface (API) that provides development and publishing tools free-of-charge to game and software developers.[200] Steamworks provides networking and player authentication tools for both server and peer-to-peer multiplayer games, matchmaking services, support for Steam community friends and groups, Steam statistics and achievements, integrated voice communications, and Steam Cloud support, allowing games to integrate with the Steam client. The API also provides anti-cheating devices and digital copy management.[201] In 2016, after introducing the Steam Controller and improvements to the Steam interface to support numerous customization options, the Steamworks API was also updated to provide a generic controller library for developers and these customization features for other third-party controllers, starting with the DualShock 4.[202] Steam's Input API has since been updated to include official support for other console controllers such as the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller in 2018,[203] the Xbox Wireless Controller for the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, and the PlayStation 5's DualSense, as well as compatible controllers from third-party manufacturers in 2020.[204][205] In November 2020, Valve said the controller usage had more than doubled over the past 2 years.[206] In March 2019, Steam's game server network was opened to third-party developers.[207]

Developers of software available on Steam are able to track sales of their games through the Steam store. In February 2014, Valve announced that it would begin to allow developers to set up their own sales for their games independent of any sales that Valve may set.[208] Valve may also work with developers to suggest their participation in sales on themed days.[199]

Steam conducts and partially publishes a monthly opt-in hardware and software survey since 2007 and 2010.[209][210]

Valve added the ability for developers to sell games under an early access model with a special section of the Steam store, starting in March 2013. This program allows for developers to release functional, but not finished, products such as beta versions to the service to allow users to buy the games and help provide testing and feedback towards the final production. Early access also helps to provide funding to the developers to help complete their games.[211] The early access approach allowed more developers to publish games onto the Steam service without the need for Valve's direct curation of games, significantly increasing the number of available games on the service.[212]

Developers are able to request Steam keys of their products to use as they see fit, such as to give away in promotions, to provide to selected users for review, or to give to key resellers for different profitization. Valve generally honors all such requests, but clarified that they would evaluate some requests to avoid giving keys to games or other offerings that are designed to manipulate the Steam storefront and other features.[213]

Valve enabled the ability for multiple developers to create bundles of games from their offerings in June 2021.[214]

Steam Workshop[edit]

The Steam Workshop is a service that allows users to share user-made content and modifications for video games available on Steam. New levels, art assets, gameplay modifications, or other content may be published to or installed from the Workshop depending on the title. The Workshop was originally used for distribution of new items for Team Fortress 2;[215] it was redesigned to extend support for any game in early 2012, including modifications for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.[216] A May 2012 patch for Portal 2, enabled by a new map-making tool through the Workshop, introduced the ability to share user-created levels.[217] Independently developed games, including Dungeons of Dredmor, are able to provide Workshop support for user-made content.[218] Dota 2 became Valve's third published title available for the Workshop in June 2012; its features include customizable accessories, character skins, and announcer packs.[219] Workshop content may be monetized; Newell said that the Workshop was inspired by gold farming from World of Warcraft to find a way to incentive both players and content creators in video games, and which had informed them of their approach to Team Fortress 2 and their later multiplayer games.[220]

By January 2015, Valve themselves had provided some user-developed Workshop content as paid-for features in Valve-developed games, including Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2; with over $57 million being paid to content creators using the Workshop.[221][222] Valve began allowing developers to use these advanced features in January 2015; both the developer and content generator share the profits of the sale of these items; the feature went live in April 2015, starting with various mods for Skyrim.[221][223][224] This feature was pulled a few days afterward following negative user feedback and reports of pricing and copyright misuse.[225][226][227] Six months later, Valve stated they were still interested in offering this type of functionality in the future.[228] In November 2015, the Steam client was updated with the ability for game developers to offer in-game items for direct sale via the store interface, with Rust being the first game to use the feature.[229][230][231]

SteamVR[edit]

SteamVR is a virtual reality hardware and software platform developed by Valve, with a focus on allowing "room-scale" experiences using positional tracking base stations, as opposed to those requiring the player to stay in a singular location.[232] SteamVR was first introduced for the Oculus Rift headset in 2014,[233] and later expanded to support other virtual reality headsets.[234][235][232][236] Initially released for support on Windows, macOS, and Linux, Valve dropped macOS support for SteamVR in May 2020.[237] SteamVR 2.0 was released in October 2023, adding in UI features common to the main Steam app and the Steam Deck app as well as further improvements for virtual reality users.[238]

Storefront curation[edit]

Until 2012, Valve would handpick games to be included onto the Steam service, limiting these to games that either had a major developer supporting them, or smaller studios with proven track records. Since then, Valve have sought ways to enable more games to be offered through Steam, while pulling away from manually approving games, short of validating that a game runs on the platforms the publisher had indicated.[239] In 2017, Steam development team member Alden Kroll said that Valve knows Steam is in a near-monopoly for game sales on personal computers, and the company does not want to be in a position to determine what gets sold, and thus had tried to find ways to make the process of adding games to Steam outside of their control.[239] At the same time, Valve recognized that unfettered control of games onto the service can lead to discovery problems as well as low-quality games.[239]

Steam Greenlight[edit]

Valve announced Steam Greenlight to streamline game addition to the service in July 2012 and released the following month.[240] Through Greenlight, Steam users would choose which games were added to the service. Developers were able to submit information about their games, as well as early builds or beta versions, for consideration by users. Users would pledge support for these games, and Valve would make top-pledged games available on Steam.[241] In response to complaints during its first week that finding games to support was made difficult by a flood of inappropriate or false submissions,[242] Valve required developers to pay US$100 to list a game on the service. Those fees were donated to the charity Child's Play.[243] This fee was met with some concern from smaller developers, who often are already working in a deficit and may not have the money to cover such fees.[244] A later modification allowed developers to put conceptual ideas on the Greenlight service to garner interest in potential projects free-of-charge; votes from such projects are visible only to the developer.[245] Valve also allowed non-gaming software to be voted onto the service through Greenlight.[246]

The initial process offered by Greenlight was panned by developers because while they favored the concept, the rate of games that were eventually approved were small.[247] In January 2013, Newell stated that Valve recognized that its role in Greenlight was perceived as a bottleneck, something the company was planning to eliminate in the future through an open marketplace infrastructure.[248][249] On the eve of Greenlight's first anniversary, Valve simultaneously approved 100 games to demonstrate this change of direction.[250]

Steam Direct[edit]

Steam Greenlight was phased out and replaced with Steam Direct on June 13, 2017, following Greenlight's suspension the previous week.[251] With Steam Direct, a developer or publisher wishing to distribute their game on Steam needs only to complete appropriate identification and tax forms for Valve and then pay a recoupable application fee for each game they intend to publish. Once they apply, a developer must wait thirty days before publishing the game as to give Valve the ability to review the game to make sure it is "configured correctly, matches the description provided on the store page, and doesn't contain malicious content".[251]

On announcing its plans for Steam Direct, Valve suggested the fee would be in the range of $100–5,000, meant to encourage earnest software submissions to the service and weed out poor quality games that are treated as shovelware, improving the discovery pipeline to Steam's customers.[252] Smaller developers raised concerns about the Direct fee harming them, and excluding potentially good indie games from reaching the Steam store.[244] Valve opted to set the Direct fee at $100 after reviewing concerns from the community and outlined plans to improve their discovery algorithms and inject more human involvement to help these.[253] Valve refunds the fee should the game exceed $1,000 in sales.[254] In the process of transitioning from Greenlight to Direct, Valve mass-approved most of the 3,400 remaining games that were still in Greenlight, though the company noted that not all of these were at a state to be published. Valve anticipated that the volume of new games added to the service would further increase with Direct in place.[255] Some groups, such as publisher Raw Fury and crowd funding/investment site Fig, have offered to pay the Direct fee for indie developers who cannot afford it.[256][257]

Games discovery changes[edit]

Without more direct interaction on the curation process, Valve had looked to find methods to allow players to find games they would be more likely to buy based on previous purchase patterns.[239] Valve has rejected the use of paid advertising or placement on the storefront, which would have created "pay to win" scenario. Instead, the company had relied on algorithms and other automatic features for game discovery, which has allowed for unexpected hits to gain more visibility.[258]

The September 2014 "Discovery Update" added tools that would allow existing Steam users to be curators for game recommendations, and sorting functions that presented more popular games and recommended games specific to the user.[259] This Discovery update was considered successful by Valve, as they reported in March 2015 in seeing increased use of the Steam Storefront and an increase in 18% of sales by revenue from just prior to the update.[260] A second Discovery update was released November 2016, giving users more control over what games they want to see or ignore within the Steam Store, alongside tools for developers and publishers to better customize and present their game.[261][262]

By February 2017, Valve reported that with the second Discovery update, the number of games shown to users via the store's front page increased by 42%, with more conversions into sales from that viewership. In 2016, more games are meeting a rough metric of success defined by Valve as selling more than $200,000 in revenues in its first 90 days of release.[263] Valve added a "Curator Connect" program in December 2017. Curators can set up descriptors for the type of games they are interested in, preferred languages, and other tags along with social media profiles, while developers can find and reach out to specific curators from this information, and, after review, provide them directly with access to their game. This step, which eliminates the use of a Steam redemption key, is aimed to reduce the reselling of keys, as well as dissuade users that may be trying to game the curator system to obtain free game keys.[264]

Valve has attempted to deal with "fake games", those that are built around reused assets and little other innovation, by added Steam Explorers atop its existing Steam Curator program. Any Steam user is able to sign up to be an Explorer, and are asked to look at under-performing games on the service as to either vouch that the game is truly original or if it is an example of a "fake game", at which point Valve can take action to remove the game.[265][266]

In July 2019, the Steam Labs feature was introduced as a means to showcase experimental discovery features Valve considered for including into Steam, to seek public feedback. For example, an initial experiment released at launch was the Interactive Recommender, which uses artificial intelligence algorithms pulling data from the user's past gameplay history to suggest new games that may be of interest to them.[267] As these experiments mature through end-user testing, they have then been brought into the storefront as direct features.[268]

The September 2019 Discovery update, which Valve claimed would improve the visibility of niche and lesser-known games, was met with criticism from some indie game developers, who recorded a significant drop in exposure of their games, including new wishlist additions and appearances in the "More Like This" and "Discovery queue" sections of the store.[269][270]

Steam Charts were introduced in September 2022 and publicly track the storefront's best-selling and most-played games, including historically by week and month. Charts replaced a previous statistics page to be more comprehensive, and features content that had previously been part of third-party websites including SteamSpy, SteamDB, and SteamCharts.[271]

Games and account policies[edit]

In June 2015, Valve created a formal process to allow purchasers to request refunds, with refunds guaranteed within the first two weeks as long as the player had not spent more than two hours in a game.[272] Prior to June 2015, Valve had a no-refunds policy, but allowed them in certain circumstances, such as digital rights management issues or false advertising.[273][274][275]

Valve has full authority to remove games from the service for various reasons; however games that are removed can still be downloaded and played by those that have already purchased these games.[276] Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was removed from Steam in 2012 because of a claim from the Recording Industry Association of America over an expired license for a song on the soundtrack.[276] Around the launch of Electronic Arts' (EA) own digital storefront Origin during the same year, Valve removed Crysis 2, Dragon Age II, and Alice: Madness Returns from Steam because the terms of service prevented games from having their own in-game storefront for downloadable content.[277] Valve also remove games that are formally stated to be violating copyright or other intellectual property when given such complaints. In 2016, Valve removed Orion by Trek Industries when Activision filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint about the game after it was discovered that one of the game's artists had taken, among other assets, gun models directly from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.[278][279]

Quality control[edit]

With the launch of Steam Direct, effectively removing any curation of games by Valve prior to being published on Steam, there have been several incidents of published games that have attempted to mislead Steam users. Starting in June 2018, Valve has taken actions against games and developers that are "trolling" the system; in September 2018, Valve explicitly defined that trolls on Steam "aren't actually interested in good faith efforts to make and sell games to you or anyone".[280][281] As an example, Valve's Lombardi stated that the game Active Shooter, which would have allowed the player to play as either a SWAT team member tasked to take down the shooter at a school shooting incident or as the shooter themselves, was an example of trolling, as he described it was "designed to do nothing but generate outrage and cause conflict through its existence".[282] Within a month of clarifying its definition of trolling, Valve removed approximately 170 games from Steam.[283]

In addition to removing bad actors, Valve has also taken steps to reduce the impact of "fake games". In May 2017, Valve identified several games on the service with trading card support, where the developer distributed game codes to thousands of bot-operated accounts that would run the game to earn trading cards that they could then sell for profit; these games would also create false positives that make these games appear more popular than they really were, affecting Steam's Discovery algorithms. Subsequent to this patch, games must reach some type of confidence factor based on actual playtime before they can generate trading cards, with players credited for their time played towards receiving trading cards before this metric is met.[284][285] Valve identified a similar situation in June 2018 with "fake games" that offered large numbers of game achievements with little gameplay aspects, which some users would use to artificially raise their global achievement statistics. Valve plans to use the same approach and algorithms to identify these types of games, limiting these games to only one thousand total achievements and discounting these achievements towards a user's statistics.[286] These algorithms have resulted in select false positives for legitimate games with unusual end-user usage patterns, such as Wandersong which was flagged in January 2019 for what the developer believed was related to near-unanimous positive user reviews from the game.[287]

Other actions taken by developers against the terms of service or other policies have prompted Valve to remove games.[288] Some noted examples include:

  • In September 2016, Valve removed Digital Homicide Studios games from the storefront for being "hostile to Steam customers" following a lawsuit that the developer had issued against 100 unnamed Steam users for leaving negative reviews of their games.[289]
  • In September 2017, Valve removed 170 games developed by Silicon Echo, citing that these were cheap "fake games" that relied on "asset flipping" with pre-existing Unity game engine assets so that they could be published quickly, and were designed to take advantage of the trading card market to allow players and the developers to profit from the trading card sales.[290]
  • In February 2018, after discovering that the CEO of Insel Games had requested the company's employees write positive Steam reviews for its games, Valve removed all of Insel's games from the service and banned the company from it.[291]
  • In July 2018, the games Abstractism and Climber offered Steam inventory items that used assets from other Valve games, which were used to mislead users looking for these for trading. Valve removed the games, and built in additional trade protections, warning users of trades involving recently released games or games they do not own to prevent such scamming.[292][293]
  • In November 2019, nearly 1000 games were removed from Steam, most tied to a Russian publisher that had operated under several different names. A Valve representative stated that they "recently discovered a handful of partners that were abusing some Steamworks tools" as rationale for the removals.[294]
  • Developers stated that Valve began warning them about removal of games that used cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens in October 2021, as such items could have real-world value outside of the game or Steam, which would be against Valve's acceptable use policy.[295]

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence in 2023, Valve originally established that games with content generated in this manner could be distributed through Steam, though cautioned developers about assuring that they had the rights for this type of content.[296] As greater concerns about the copyright and ethical nature of generational AI in the latter half of 2023, Valve clarified its stance in January 2024, requiring games that did use content from generational AI to disclose this on the game's store page, including methods that the developers used to assure the AI engines did not generate illegal content.[297]

Mature content[edit]

Valve has also removed or threatened to remove games due to inappropriate or mature content, though there was often confusion as to what material qualified for this. For example, Eek Games' House Party included scenes of nudity and sexual encounters in its original release, which drew criticism from conservative religious organization National Center on Sexual Exploitation, leading Valve to remove the title. Eek Games later included censor bars within the game, allowing the game to be readded to Steam, though they offered a patch on their website to remove the bars.[298] In May 2018, several developers of anime-stylized games that contained some light nudity, such as HuniePop, were told by Valve they had to address sexual content within their games or face removal from Steam, leading to questions of inconsistent application of Valve's policies. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation took credit for convincing Valve to target these games. However, Valve later rescinded its orders, allowing these games to remain.[299]

In June 2018, Valve clarified its policy on content, taking a more hands-off approach outside of illegal material. Rather than trying to make decisions themselves on what content is appropriate, Valve enhanced its filtering system to allow developers and publishers to indicate and justify the types of mature content (violence, nudity, and sexual content) in their games. Users can block games that are marked with this type of content from appearing in the store, and if they have not blocked it, they are presented with the description before they can continue to the store page. Developers and publishers with existing games on Steam have been strongly encouraged to complete these forms for these games, while Valve will use moderators to make sure new games are appropriately marked.[281] Valve also committed to developing anti-harassment tools to support developers who may find their game amid controversy.[280]

"So we ended up going back to one of the principles in the forefront of our minds when we started Steam, and more recently as we worked on Steam Direct to open up the Store to many more developers: Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy. If you're a developer, we shouldn't be choosing what content you're allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable."

— Erik Johnson of Valve[300]

Until these tools were in place, some adult-themed games were delayed for release.[301][302][303] Negligee: Love Stories developed by Dharker Studios was one of the first sexually explicit games to be offered after the introduction of the tools in September 2018. Dharker noted in discussions with Valve that they would be liable for any content-related fines or penalties that countries may place on Valve, a clause of their publishing contract for Steam, and took steps to restrict sale of the game in over 20 regions.[304] Games that feature mature themes with primary characters that visually appear to be underaged, even if the game's narrative establishes them as adults, have been banned by Valve.[305]

In March 2019, Valve faced pressure over Rape Day, a planned game described as being a dark comedy and power fantasy where the player would control a serial rapist in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. Valve ultimately decided against offering the game on Steam, arguing that while it "[respects] developers' desire to express themselves", there were "costs and risks" associated with the game, and the developers had "chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them [find an audience]".[306][307]

Platforms and devices[edit]

Windows[edit]

Steam originally released exclusively for Microsoft Windows in 2003, but has since been ported to other platforms.[308] More recent Steam client versions use the Chromium Embedded Framework.[309] To take advantage of some of its features for newer interface elements, Steam uses 64-bit versions of Chromium, which makes it unsupported on older operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Vista. Steam on Windows also relies on some security features built into later versions of Windows. Support for XP and Vista were dropped in 2019. While users still on those operating systems are able to use the client, they do not have access to newer features. Around 0.2% of Steam users were affected by this when it began.[310] In March 2023, Valve announced that Steam would drop support for Windows 7 and 8 on January 1, 2024.[311]

macOS[edit]

Valve announced a client for Mac OS X in March 2010.[308] The announcement was preceded by a change in the Steam beta client to support the cross-platform WebKit web browser rendering engine instead of the Trident engine of Internet Explorer.[312][313][314] Valve teased the release by e-mailing several images to Mac community and gaming websites; the images featured characters from Valve games with Apple logos and parodies of vintage Macintosh advertisements.[315][316] Valve developed a full video homage to Apple's 1984 Macintosh commercial to announce the availability of Half-Life 2 on the service; some concept images for the video had previously been used to tease the Mac Steam client.[317]

Steam for Mac OS X was originally planned for release in April 2010 before being pushed back to May 12, 2010. In addition to the Steam client, several features were made available to developers, allowing them to take advantage of the cross-platform Source engine, and platform and network capabilities using Steamworks.[318] Through SteamPlay, the macOS client allows players who have purchased compatible products in the Windows version to download the Mac versions at no cost.[319] The Steam Cloud, along with many multiplayer PC games, also supports cross-platform play.[308]

Linux / SteamOS[edit]

In July 2012, Valve announced that it was developing a client for Linux based on the Ubuntu distribution.[320] This announcement followed months of speculation, primarily from the website Phoronix that had discovered evidence of Linux developing in recent builds of Steam and other Valve games.[321] Newell stated that getting Steam and games to work on Linux is a key strategy for Valve; Newell called the closed nature of Microsoft Windows 8 "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space", and that Linux would maintain "the openness of the platform".[322] Valve is extending support to any developers that want to bring their games to Linux, by "making it as easy as possible for anybody who's engaged with us—putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux", according to Newell.[322]

The team developing the Linux client had been working for a year before the announcement to validate that such a port would be possible.[323] As of the official announcement, a near-feature-complete Steam client for Linux had been developed and successfully run on Ubuntu.[323] Internal beta testing of the Linux client started in October 2012; external beta testing occurred in early November the same year.[324][325] Open beta clients for Linux were made available in late December 2012,[326] and the client was officially released in mid-February 2013.[327] At the time of announcement, Valve's Linux division assured that its first game on the OS, Left 4 Dead 2, would run at an acceptable frame rate and with a degree of connectivity with the Windows and Mac OS X versions. From there, it began working on porting other games to Ubuntu and expanding to other Linux distributions.[320][328][329] Versions of Steam working under Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux were released by October 2013.[330] There were over 500 Linux-compatible games on Steam in June 2014,[331] and in February 2019, Steam for Linux had 5,800 native games and was described as having "the power to keep Linux [gaming] alive" by Engadget.[332]

In August 2018, Valve released a beta version of Proton (named Steam Play), an open-source Windows compatibility layer for Linux, so that Linux users could run Windows games directly through Steam for Linux. Proton comprises a set of open-source tools including Wine and DXVK. The software allows the use of Steam-supported controllers, even those not compatible with Windows.[333] Released in February 2022, Valve's handheld computer, the Steam Deck, runs SteamOS 3.0 which is based on the Arch Linux distribution, and uses Proton to support Windows-based games without native Linux ports.[334] Valve worked with various middleware developers to make sure their tools were compatible with Proton on Linux and maximize the number of games that the Steam Deck would support. This included working with various anti-cheat developers such as Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye to make sure their solutions worked with Proton.[335][336] To help with compatibility, Valve developed a classification system that they will populate to rank any game as to how well it works as a Linux native solution or through Proton.[337]

Support for Nvidia's proprietary deep learning super sampling (DLSS) on supported video cards and games was added to Proton in June 2021, though this is not available on the Steam Deck which is based on AMD hardware.[338][339]

Steamworks on consoles[edit]

At E3 2010, Newell announced that Steamworks would arrive on the PlayStation 3 with Portal 2.[340] Steamworks made its debut on consoles with Portal 2's PlayStation 3 release. Several features—including cross-platform play and instant messaging, Steam Cloud for saved games, and the ability for PS3 owners to download Portal 2 from Steam (Windows and Mac)—were offered.[341] Valve's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also supports Steamworks and cross-platform features on the PlayStation 3, including using keyboard and mouse controls as an alternative to the gamepad.[342] Valve said it "hope[s] to expand upon this foundation with more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases".[343]

The Xbox 360 does not have support for Steamworks. Newell said that they would have liked to bring the service to the console through the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,[344] but later said that cross-platform play would not be present in the final version of the game.[345] Valve attributes the inability to use Steamworks on the Xbox 360 to limitations in the Xbox Live regulations of the ability to deliver patches and new content. Valve's Erik Johnson stated that Microsoft required new content on the console to be certified and validated before distribution, which would limit the usefulness of Steamworks' delivery approach.[346]

Mobile apps[edit]

Valve released an official Steam client for iOS and Android devices in late January 2012, following a short beta period.[347] The application allows players to log into their accounts to browse the storefront, manage their games, and communicate with friends in the Steam community. The application also incorporates a two-factor authentication system that works with Steam Guard. Newell stated that the application was a strong request from Steam users and sees it as a means "to make [Steam] richer and more accessible for everyone".[348] A mobile Steam client for Windows Phone devices was released in June 2016.[349] In May 2019, a mobile chat-only client for Steam was released under the name Steam Chat.[350]

On May 14, 2018, a "Steam Link" app with remote play features was released in beta to allow users to stream games to Android phones, named after discontinued set-top box Steam Link.[351] It was also submitted to the iOS App Store, but was denied by Apple Inc., who cited "business conflicts with app guidelines".[351][352] Apple later clarified its rule at the following Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in early June, in that iOS apps may not offer an app-like purchasing store, but does not restrict apps that provide remote desktop support.[353] In response, Valve removed the ability to purchase games or other content through the app and resubmitted it for approval in June 2018, where it was accepted by Apple and allowed on their store in May 2019.[354][355]

Steam-branded devices[edit]

Prior to 2013, industry analysts believed that Valve was developing hardware and tuning features of Steam with apparent use on its own hardware. These computers were pre-emptively dubbed as "Steam Boxes" by the gaming community and expected to be a dedicated machine focused upon Steam functionality and maintaining the core functionality of a traditional video game console.[356] In September 2013, Valve unveiled SteamOS, a custom Linux-based operating system they had developed specifically aimed for running Steam and games, and the final concept of the Steam Machine hardware.[357] Unlike other consoles, the Steam Machine does not have set hardware; its technology is implemented at the discretion of the manufacturer and is fully customizable, much like a personal computer.[358] In 2018 the Steam Machines were removed from the storefront due to low sales and small user traffic.[359]

In November 2015, Valve released the set-top box Steam Link and Steam Controller (which was discontinued in 2019).[360] The Steam Link removed the need for HDMI cables for displaying a PC's screen and allowed for wireless connection when connecting to a TV. That was discontinued in 2018, but now "Steam Link" refers to the Remote Play mobile app that allows users to stream content, such as games, from a PC to a mobile device over a network.[361][362][363]

Steam Deck

Valve released the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming computer running an updated version of SteamOS, with initial shipments starting on February 25, 2022.[364] The Deck is designed for the play of Steam games, but can be placed into a separate dock that allows the Deck to output to an external display.[365] The Deck was released on February 25, 2022.[366] Among updates to Steam and SteamOS included better Proton layer support for Windows-based games, improved user interface features in the Steam client for the Steam Deck display, and adding Dynamic Cloud Saves to Steam to allow synchronizing saved games while a game is being played.[61] Valve began marking all games on the service through a Steam Deck Validated program to indicate how compatible they were with the Steam Deck software.[337]

ChromeOS[edit]

In March 2022, Google offered a prerelease version of Steam on Chromebooks,[367] and entered public beta in November 2022.[368]

Steam Cloud Play[edit]

Valve included beta support for Steam Cloud Play in May 2020 for developers to allow users to play games in their library which developers and publishers have opted to allow in a cloud gaming service. At launch, Steam Cloud Play only worked through Nvidia's GeForce Now service and would link up to other cloud services in the future though whether Valve would run its own cloud gaming service was unclear.[369]

Steam China[edit]

The Steam China launch event in August 2019 in Shanghai
Steam China Release Event (featuring Wallpaper Engine)

China has strict regulations on video games and Internet use; however, access to Steam is allowed through China's governmental firewalls. Currently, a large portion of Steam users are from China. By November 2017, more than half of the Steam userbase was fluent in Chinese, an effect created by the large popularity of Dota 2 and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in the country,[370][371] and several developers have reported that Chinese players make up close to 30% of the total players for their games.[372]

Following a Chinese government-ordered temporary block of many of Steam's functions in December 2017,[373] Valve and Perfect World announced they would help to provide an officially sanctioned version of Steam that meets Chinese Internet requirements. Perfect World has worked with Valve before to help bring Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to the country through approved government processes.[372][374] All games to be released on Steam China are expected to pass through the government approval process and meet other governmental requirements, such as requiring a Chinese company to run any game with an online presence.[372]

The platform is known locally as "Steam Platform" (Chinese: 蒸汽平台; pinyin: Zhēngqì píngtái) and runs independently from the rest of Steam. It was made to comply with China's strict regulations on video games.[375] Valve does not plan to prevent Chinese users from accessing the global Steam platform and will try to assure that a player's cloud data remains usable between the two.[372] The client launched as an open beta on February 9, 2021, with about 40 games available at launch.[376] As of December 2021, only around 100 games that have been reviewed and licensed by the government are available through Steam China.[377]

On 25 December 2021, reports emerged that Steam's global service was the target of a domain name system attack that prevented users in China from accessing its site. The Chinese government Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) later confirmed that Chinese gamers would no longer be able to use Steam's global service as its international domain name has been designated as "illegal". The block has effectively locked all Chinese users out of games they had purchased through Steam's international service.[377][378]

Reception and impact[edit]

Steam's success has led to some criticism because of its support of DRM and for being an effective monopoly.[379][380] In 2012, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman called DRM using Steam on Linux "unethical", but still better than Windows.[381]

Steam's customer service has been highly criticized, with users citing poor response times or lack of response. In March 2015, Valve had been given a failing "F" grade from the Better Business Bureau due to a large number of complaints in Valve's handling of Steam, leading Valve's Erik Johnson to state that "we don't feel like our customer service support is where it needs to be right now".[382] Johnson stated the company plans to better integrate customer support features into the Steam client and be more responsive.[382] In May 2017, in addition to hiring more staff for customer service, Valve publicized pages that show the number and type of customer service requests it was handling over the last 90 days, with an average of 75,000 entered each day. Of those, requests for refunds were the largest segment, and which Valve could resolve within hours, followed by account security and recovery requests. Valve stated at this time that 98% of all service requests were processed within 24 hours of filing.[383]

Users[edit]

Valve reported that there were 125 million active accounts on Steam by the end of 2015.[b] By August 2017, the company reported that there were 27 million new active accounts since January 2016, bringing the total number of active users to at least 150 million.[385] Most accounts were from North America and Western Europe, with there being a significant growth in accounts from Asia around 2017, spurred by their work to help localize the client and make additional currency options available to purchasers.[385] In September 2014, 1.4 million accounts belonged to Australian users; this grew to 2.2 million by October 2015.[386]

Valve also considers concurrent users – how many accounts were logged in at the same time – a key indicator of the success of the platform. By August 2017, Valve reported that they saw a peak of 14 million concurrent players, up from 8.4 million in 2015, with 33 million concurrent players each day and 67 million each month.[385] By January 2018, the peak online count had reached 18.5 million, with over 47 million daily active users.[387][388] During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, in which a large proportion of the world's population were at home, Steam saw a concurrent player count of over 23 million in March, along with several games seeing similar record-breaking concurrent counts.[389] The figure was broken again in January 2021 with over 25 million users shortly after the release of the highly anticipated game Cyberpunk 2077, itself the first single-player game on the service to have over a million concurrent players.[390][391]

Sales and distribution[edit]

Sales graph for Garry's Mod, released by the game's developer. The largest spikes are caused by sales and promotions.[392] By April 2014, it had sold nearly five million copies through the service.[393]
The number of new games, by year, published on Steam, estimated by Steam Spy in January 2020.[394][395][396] The years 2004 and 2005 are not visible on this chart.

Steam has grown from seven games in 2004 to over 30,000 by 2019, with additional non-gaming products, such as creation software, DLC, and videos, numbering over 20,000.[397] More than 50,000 games were on the service as of February 2021.[398] The growth of games on Steam is attributed to changes in Valve's curation approach, which allows publishers to add games without Valve's direct involvement, and games supporting virtual reality technology.[212] The addition of Greenlight and Direct have accelerated the number of games present on the service, with almost 40% of the 19,000 games on Steam by the end of 2017 having been released in 2017.[394] Prior to Greenlight, Valve saw about five new games published each week. Greenlight expanded this to about 70 per week, and which doubled to 180 per week following the introduction of Direct.[399]

Although Steam provides direct sales data to a game's developer and publisher, it does not provide any public sales data. In 2011, Valve's Jason Holtman stated that the company felt that such sales data was outdated for a digital market.[400][401] Data that Valve does provide cannot be released without permission because of a non-disclosure agreement.[402][403]

Developers and publishers have expressed the need to have some metrics of sales for games on Steam, as this allows them to judge the potential success of a title by reviewing how similar games had performed. Algorithms that worked on publicly available data through user profiles to estimate sales data with some accuracy led to the creation of the website Steam Spy in 2015.[404] Steam Spy was credited with being reasonably accurate, but in April 2018, Valve added new privacy settings that defaulted to hiding user game profiles, stating this was part of compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. The change broke the method by which Steam Spy had collected data, rendering it unusable.[405] A few months later, another method had been developed using game achievements to estimate sales with similar accuracy, but Valve shortly changed the Steam API that reduced the functionality of this service. Some have asserted that Valve used the GDPR change as a means to block methods of estimating sales data,[406] though Valve has since promised to provide tools to developers to help gain such insights that they say will be more accurate.[407] In 2020, Simon Carless revised an approach originally proposed by Mike Boxleiter as early as 2013, with Carless's method used to estimate sales of a game based on the number of reviews it has on Steam based on a modified "Boxlieter number" used as a multiplication factor.[408]

Curation impact[edit]

The accessibility of publishing games on digital storefronts like Steam since its launch has been described as key to the popularity of indie games.[409] As these processes allow developers to publish games on Steam with minimal oversight from Valve, journalists have criticized Valve for lacking curation policies that make it difficult to find quality games among poorly produced games, aka "shovelware".[410][411]

Following the launch of Steam Direct, members of the video game industry were split on Valve's hands-off approach. Some praised Valve in favoring to avoid trying to be a moral adjudicator of content and letting consumers decide what content they want to see, while others felt that this would encourage some developers to publish games on Steam that are purposely hateful, and that Valve's reliance on user filters and algorithms may not succeed in blocking undesirable content. Some further criticized the decision based on the financial gain from avoid blocking any game content, as Valve collects a cut from sales through Steam.[412][413][414][415] The National Center on Sexual Exploitation denounced the policy for avoiding corporate and social responsibility "in light of the rise of sexual violence and exploitation games being hosted on Steam".[416]

Sector competition and retailers boycott[edit]

Steam was estimated to have the largest share in the PC digital distribution market in the 2010s.[417][418] In 2013, sales via the Steam catalog are estimated to be between 50 and 75 percent of the total PC gaming market.[419][2] In 2010 and 2013, with an increase in retail copies of major game publishers integrating or requiring Steam, retailers and journalists referred to the service as a monopoly, which they claimed can be detrimental to the industry and that sector competition would yield positive results for consumers.[420][421] Several developers also noted that Steam's influence on the PC gaming market is powerful and one that smaller developers cannot afford to ignore or work with, but believe that Valve's corporate practices for the service make it a type of "benevolent dictator".[422]

Because of Valve's oversight of sales data, estimates of how much of a market share Steam has in the video game market is difficult to compile. Stardock, developer of competing platform Impulse, estimated that Steam had a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games in 2009.[419] In February 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50–70% of the US$4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.[423]

Steam has been criticized for its reported 30% cut on revenue with publishers from game sales, a value that is similar to other digital storefronts according to IGN.[424] However, some critics have asserted that the share no longer scales with cheaper costs of serving data a decade since Steam's launch. A 2019 Game Developers Conference survey showed only 6% of the 400 respondents deeming the share justified.[425] Epic Games' Tim Sweeney postulated that Valve could reduce its cut to 8%, given that content delivery network costs has dropped significantly.[426] Other services have promoted their sites having a lower cut, including the Epic Games Store[427] and Discord.[428]

In November 2009, online retailers Impulse, Direct2Drive and GamersGate refused to offer Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 because it includes mandatory installation of Steamworks.[36] Direct2Drive accused Steamworks of being a "trojan horse".[429] Valve's business development director Jason Holtman replied Steamworks' features were chosen by developers and based on consumer wants and that Modern Warfare 2 was one of Steam's "greatest sellers".[430] In December 2010, MCV/Develop reported that "key traditional retailers" would stop offering games that integrate Steam.[431]

Legal disputes[edit]

Steam's predominance in the gaming market has led to Valve becoming involved in various legal cases. The lack of a formal refund policy led the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to sue Valve in September 2014 for violating Australian consumer laws that required stores to offer refunds for faulty or broken products.[432] The ACCC won the lawsuit in March 2016, though recognizing Valve changed its policy in the interim.[433] In December 2016, the court fined Valve A$3 million, as well as requiring Valve to include proper language for Australian consumers outlining their rights when purchasing games off Steam.[434] In January 2018, Valve filed for special leave to appeal the decision to the High Court of Australia,[435] but the High Court dismissed this request.[436] Later in September 2018, Valve's Steam refund policy was found to be in violation of France's consumer laws, and were fined €147,000 along with requiring Valve to modify their refund policy appropriately.[437]

In December 2015, the French consumer group UFC-Que Choisir initiated a lawsuit against Valve for several of their Steam policies that conflict or run afoul of French law, including the restriction against reselling of purchased games, which is legal in the European Union.[438] In September 2019, the Tribunal de grande instance de Paris found that Valve's practice of preventing resales violated the European Union's Information Society Directive of 2001 and the Computer Programs Directive of 2009, and required them to allow it in the future.[439][440] The Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE) issued a statement that the French court ruling goes against established EU case law related to digital copies and threatened to upend much of the digital distribution systems in Europe should it be upheld.[441]

In August 2016, BT Group filed a lawsuit against Valve stating that Steam's client infringes on four of their patents, which they stated were used within Steam's Library, Chat, Messaging, and Broadcasting services.[442]

In 2017, the European Commission began investigating Valve and five other publishers—Bandai Namco Entertainment, Capcom, Focus Home Interactive, Koch Media, and ZeniMax Media—for anti-competitive practices, specifically the use of geo-blocking to prevent access to software to citizens of certain countries within the European Economic Area. Such practices would be against the Digital Single Market initiative set by the European Union.[443] The French gaming trade group, Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo, noted that geo-blocking was a necessary feature to hinder inappropriate product key reselling.[444] The Commission found, in January 2021, that Valve and co-defendants had violated antitrust rules of the European Union, issued combined fines of €7.8 million, and determined that these companies may be further liable to lawsuits from affected consumers.[445] Valve had chosen "not to cooperate," and was fined €1.6 million, the most of any of the defendants.[446]

A January 2021 class-action lawsuit filed against Valve asserted that the company forced developers into entering a "most favored nation"-type of pricing contract to offer games on their storefront, which required the developers to price their games the same on other platforms as they did on Steam, thus stifling competition.[447] Gamasutra's Simon Carless analyzed the lawsuit and observed that Valve's terms only apply the resale of Steam keys and not games themselves, and thus the lawsuit may be without merit.[448]

A separate class-action lawsuit filed against Valve by Wolfire Games in April 2021 asserted that Steam is essentially a monopoly since developers must sell to PC users through it, and that its 30% cut and "most favored nation" pricing practices violate antitrust laws as a result of their position.[449] Valve's response to the suit, filed in July 2021, sought to dismiss the complaint, stating that it "has no duty under antitrust law to allow developers to use free Steam Keys to undersell prices for the games they sell on Steam—or to provide Steam Keys at all", referring to the "most favored nation" allegations. Valve further defended its 30% revenue as meeting the current industry standard and claimed Wolfire's figure Steam's market share to lack evidence.[450] Wolfire's suit was dismissed by the presiding judge in November 2021 after determining that Wolfire had failed to show that Valve had a monopoly on game sales, and that the 30% cut has remained unchanged throughout Valve's history.[451] Wolfire refiled their case, narrowing the antitrust complaint toward Valve's use of its dominant power to intimidate developers that sell their game for less on marketplaces other than Steam, which the judge accepted and allowed to proceed in May 2022.[452] Pursuant to discovery, Valve was ordered to have Gabe Newell be disposed to discuss Valve's business strategy related to Steam.[453]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Valve does not receive any cut of sales from third-party key resellers and brick-and-mortar retailers.[117]
  2. ^ In 2013, Valve defined an active account as owning a product or logging in during the past 90 days.[384]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Steam Translation Server – Welcome". Valve. Retrieved October 11, 2018.
  2. ^ a b Edwards, Cliff (November 4, 2013). "Valve Lines Up Console Partners in Challenge to Microsoft, Sony". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on October 24, 2014. Retrieved November 5, 2013.
  3. ^ Bailey, Dustin (March 22, 2018). "With $4.3 billion in sales, 2017 was Steam's biggest year yet". PCGamesN. Retrieved March 22, 2018.
  4. ^ "Steamworks Development - Steam - 2021 Year in Review - Steam News". store.steampowered.com. March 8, 2022. Retrieved July 12, 2022.
  5. ^ Sayer, Matt; published, Tyler Wilde (September 12, 2022). "The 19-year evolution of Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on August 13, 2017. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
  6. ^ Case, Loyd (March 22, 2002). "Valve Changes Online Gaming Rules". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on March 2, 2016. Retrieved February 14, 2016.
  7. ^ Lee, James (April 30, 2008). "The Last of the Independents?". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved July 9, 2010.
  8. ^ a b c Luke Plunkett (September 12, 2013). "Steam Is 10 Today. Remember When It Sucked?". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  9. ^ Rohan Pandy (May 24, 2007). "Steam Registers 13 million Active Accounts". Gameguru.in. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  10. ^ "GDC 2002: Valve unveils Steam". GameSpot.com. March 22, 2002. Archived from the original on July 17, 2014. Retrieved September 7, 2006.
  11. ^ "BETA TEST STEAM". steampowered.com. March 22, 2002. Archived from the original on March 22, 2002. Retrieved March 1, 2018.
  12. ^ Walker, Trey. "GDC: Steam pushes software over Net". ZDNet. Archived from the original on August 22, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2010.
  13. ^ a b c Au, Wagner James (April 16, 2002). "Triumph of the mod". Salon. Archived from the original on July 3, 2015. Retrieved November 16, 2009.
  14. ^ a b Feldman, Curt (December 15, 2004). "Valve vs. Vivendi Universal dogfight heats up in US District Court". GameSpot. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  15. ^ Craddock, David (November 13, 2020). "Bet on Black: How Microsoft and Xbox Changed Pop Culture, Part 1 - Chapter 11: Mergers and Near-Acquisitions". Shacknews. Archived from the original on August 16, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2020.
  16. ^ Karl Bode (August 9, 2003). "Steam Powered – Broadband distribution system to go live". DSLReports. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  17. ^ Sayer, Matt (July 28, 2016). "The 13-year evolution of Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on August 13, 2017. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  18. ^ Karl Bode (September 15, 2003). "Losing Steam – Broadband distribution's rocky road". DSLReports. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved August 14, 2017.
  19. ^ Bramwell, Tom (September 8, 2003). "Valve's Steam to relaunch on Wednesday". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 9, 2023. Retrieved February 9, 2023.
  20. ^ Golze, Benjamin (July 15, 2004). "Valve to shut down WON servers". Gamespot. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved April 17, 2014.
  21. ^ "BBC NEWS – Technology – Gamers get playing Half-Life 2". November 17, 2004. Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  22. ^ "Half-Life 2 now preloading via Steam". GameSpot. Archived from the original on July 21, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  23. ^ Kohler, Chris (November 4, 2013). "Full Steam Ahead: Inside Valve's Grand Plan to Replace Game Consoles With PCs". Wired. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  24. ^ a b Rich Stanton (August 21, 2012). "Full Steam Ahead: How Valve's Platform Just [Becomes] Hotter". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
  25. ^ "Strategy First to Deliver Multiple Titles On-Line via Steam". Strategy First (Press release). December 8, 2005. Archived from the original on March 28, 2006. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
  26. ^ "Digital distribution: Keep the money and run?". The Hollywood Reporter. June 13, 2005. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2010. Valve won't talk about how many units it's sold through Steam, but Lombardi describes the venture as being 'extremely successful. Even though the lion's share of our sales is still at retail, the digital units are wildly more profitable for us.'
  27. ^ Tom Bramwell (August 4, 2007). "id Games Added to Steam". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
  28. ^ Robert Purchese (March 16, 2007). "Eidos Embrace Steam Power". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
  29. ^ Tom Bramwell (June 12, 2007). "Capcom Sign Up to Steam". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
  30. ^ "Steam Surpasses 13 Million Accounts". Valve. Archived from the original on March 1, 2010. Retrieved January 31, 2010.
  31. ^ Tom Bramwell (May 24, 2007). "Steam logs 13 millionth user". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 15, 2017. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
  32. ^ Simms, Criag (April 18, 2008). "Getting Steamed: digital distribution for games isn't there yet". CNET Australia. Archived from the original on May 31, 2011.
  33. ^ Walker, John (December 19, 2008). "EA Arrives On Steam, But Only A Bit". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on May 18, 2021. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  34. ^ Goldstein, Maarten (May 30, 2007). "Free Steam Games For ATI Radeon Owners". Shacknews. Archived from the original on May 13, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  35. ^ Androvich, Mark (January 8, 2008). "Valve offers Portal: First Slice to NVIDIA customers". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on June 28, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  36. ^ a b Plunkett, Luke (November 5, 2009). "Online Retailers Refusing To Sell Modern Warfare 2". Kotaku. Archived from the original on March 21, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  37. ^ "Fallout: New Vegas to include Steamworks DRM". VG247. June 9, 2010. Archived from the original on April 4, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  38. ^ "Dragon Age II to use Steam DRM, retail version to require occasional online verification". VG247. February 1, 2011. Archived from the original on April 4, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  39. ^ Weber, Rachel (July 28, 2011). "EA blames Steam's "restrictive terms" for Dragon Age 2 disappearance". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on January 22, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  40. ^ Tom Senior (August 18, 2011). "Gabe Newell on disappearing EA Steam games and Origin: "yeah, I've tried it"". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 3, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  41. ^ Matt Bradford (January 16, 2012). "Mass Effect 3 for PC will require Origin activation, not launching on Steam". Gamesradar. Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  42. ^ Crossley, Rob (July 17, 2011). "Newell: We have to convince EA to come back". Develop. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  43. ^ Gilbert, Gilbert (October 10, 2013). "Valve hosting first Steam Dev Days game developer conference in January 2014". Engadget. Archived from the original on January 22, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  44. ^ "Dogged: Watch_Dogs To Require Uplay, Even On Steam". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. April 9, 2014. Archived from the original on January 23, 2021. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  45. ^ Bailey, Jason M. (August 27, 2019). "Fortnite Maker Wants to Sell More Games, and Build a Platform to Do It". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on April 15, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  46. ^ Statt, Nick (May 30, 2019). "Microsoft will distribute more Xbox titles through Steam and finally support Win32 games". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 7, 2019. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  47. ^ Pereria, Chris (June 4, 2020). "EA Access Coming To Steam, More EA Games Release On The Store". GameSpot. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  48. ^ Hornshaw, Phil (June 18, 2020). "EA Adds More Games To Steam, Including Titanfall 2 And Dead Space 3". GameSpot. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  49. ^ Hollister, Sean (November 21, 2022). "Ubisoft is back to releasing games on Steam, including Assassin's Creed Valhalla". The Verge. Archived from the original on December 22, 2022. Retrieved December 22, 2022. "We're constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are, while providing a consistent player ecosystem through Ubisoft Connect," reads part of a statement from Ubisoft spokesperson Jessica Roache to The Verge.
  50. ^ Savage, Phil (July 27, 2015). "Market data firm claims Valve made $730 million last year". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 28, 2017.
  51. ^ Bailey, Dustin (October 23, 2018). "Steam player count has jumped by 23 million in less than a year". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  52. ^ Wes, Fenlon (January 14, 2019). "Steam delivered 15 billion gigabytes of data in 2018". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 23, 2021. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  53. ^ Martin, Joe (May 2, 2008). "Valve releases Steamworks SDK". Bit-tech.net. Archived from the original on September 13, 2016. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
  54. ^ Alexander, Leigh (March 24, 2009). "Valve Unveils New Anti-Piracy, In-Game DLC Features To Steamworks". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 24, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  55. ^ Demerjian, Charlie (March 26, 2009). "A closer look at Valve's CEG". The Inquirer. Archived from the original on August 13, 2016. Retrieved August 9, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  56. ^ Peckham, Matt (September 8, 2011). "Steam PC Gaming Client Gets Surprise Facelift". PC World. Archived from the original on November 27, 2011. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  57. ^ MEer, Alec (July 16, 2012). "UDon'tPlay: UbiDRM Servers Wobble During Steam Sale". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
  58. ^ Robinson, Andy (November 26, 2007). "Valve brings achievements to Steam". Gamesradar. Archived from the original on January 1, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  59. ^ Breckon, Nick (May 29, 2008). "Valve Announces Steam Cloud; Online Network to Store Saved Games Indefinitely". Shacknews. Archived from the original on September 5, 2008. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
  60. ^ "Steam client update released". Valve. July 1, 2010. Archived from the original on July 4, 2010. Retrieved July 5, 2010.
  61. ^ a b Mackovich, Sam (January 24, 2022). "Steam Deck will get the trippiest cloud-save functionality we've ever seen". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on March 20, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  62. ^ Rose, Mike (May 2, 2012). "Steam Beta client adds remote management functionality". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 6, 2012. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  63. ^ "Steamworks – Retail Support". Valve. Archived from the original on March 5, 2011. Retrieved March 4, 2011.
  64. ^ "Steam offers gamers in-game downloadable content". Valve. March 16, 2009. Archived from the original on March 20, 2009. Retrieved March 20, 2009.
  65. ^ Tom Bramwell (March 17, 2009). "Steam Now Supports Premium DLC". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
  66. ^ "Steam Announces Family Sharing". Valve. September 13, 2013. Archived from the original on September 14, 2013. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
  67. ^ O'Brien, Lucy (January 9, 2014). "Steam Family Options Now Out of Beta". IGN. Archived from the original on May 24, 2015. Retrieved May 23, 2015.
  68. ^ Chalk, Andy (March 18, 2024). "Valve is improving how Steam Family Sharing works—but if your brother gets banned for cheating, so do you". PC Gamer. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  69. ^ Walker, John (February 1, 2012). "Thought: Do We Own Our Steam Games?". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on June 4, 2013. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
  70. ^ Webster, Andrew (March 14, 2011). "Steam user violates subscriber agreement, loses $1,800 in games". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  71. ^ Usher, William (April 21, 2012). "Valve Updates Steam's Account Policy, You Can Now Access Your Games While Banned". Cinema Blend. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
  72. ^ Goldfarb, Andrew (September 24, 2012). "Valve Facing Legal Trouble over Steam Agreement – German consumer advocacy group objects to Steam's policy". IGN. Archived from the original on March 22, 2014. Retrieved March 22, 2014.
  73. ^ Hillier, Brenna (April 29, 2015). "Steam Game Ban system lets developers determine who to block". VG247. Archived from the original on May 2, 2015. Retrieved April 29, 2015.
  74. ^ "Content Server Stats". Valve. Archived from the original on November 4, 2008. Retrieved November 15, 2008. (click "View individual server statistics")
  75. ^ "Steam introduces Indian currency to its online store". IGN. November 5, 2015. Archived from the original on July 28, 2017.
  76. ^ "Steam News  – European Local Currency Available". Valve. December 17, 2008. Archived from the original on December 18, 2008. Retrieved December 18, 2008.
  77. ^ "WebMoney Now Available on Steam". Valve. Archived from the original on November 28, 2011.
  78. ^ Frank, Allegra (April 7, 2016). "Steam now lets you buy your games in bitcoin". Polygon. Archived from the original on April 28, 2016. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  79. ^ Chalk, Andy (December 6, 2017). "Valve drops Bitcoin as a Steam payment option". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on December 6, 2017. Retrieved December 6, 2017.
  80. ^ "Steam Translation Server – Welcome". Valve. Archived from the original on August 6, 2010.
  81. ^ Clayton, Natalie (October 17, 2018). "Steam now officially supports Vietnamese and Latin American Spanish languages". pcgamesinsider.biz. Archived from the original on December 23, 2022. Retrieved December 23, 2022.
  82. ^ Futter, Mike (February 6, 2015). "Valve Gives Developers Power To Create In-Game Steam Inventory Drops Like Team Fortress 2". Game Informer. Archived from the original on February 9, 2015. Retrieved February 6, 2015.
  83. ^ Garrett, Patrick (June 25, 2014). "Bargain basement: Has the Steam Sale finally jumped the shark?". VG247. Archived from the original on July 7, 2015. Retrieved April 28, 2015.
  84. ^ Grayson, Nathan (May 4, 2017). "Steam Users Are Concerned About Valve's New Gift Policy". Kotaku. Archived from the original on May 5, 2017. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  85. ^ Saed, Sherid (August 5, 2016). "Steam imposes new restrictions on gifting multiplayer VAC-protected games, could impact honest users". VG247. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  86. ^ Saed, Sharif (May 5, 2017). "Steam introduces a big limitation to the way gifting works". VG247. Archived from the original on May 8, 2017. Retrieved May 5, 2017.
  87. ^ McAloon, Alissa (May 4, 2017). "Valve has overhauled the way Steam handles game gifting". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 5, 2017. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  88. ^ Wolens, Joshua (November 21, 2023). "'Today is the end of Steam': Argentina and Turkey floored by new Steam price hikes as high as 2900%". PC Gamer. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  89. ^ Federspiel, Isaac (March 28, 2014). "Retailer Scam Re-Sells Humble Bundle Games, Reaps Profit Off Charity". Game Informer. Archived from the original on March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  90. ^ Gnade, Michael (March 9, 2016). "How Steam key Reselling is Killing the Little Guys". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on March 9, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  91. ^ Parlock, Joe (October 7, 2015). "Riot bans key reseller G2A from sponsoring League teams". Destructoid. Archived from the original on January 5, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  92. ^ Cosimano, Mike (January 26, 2015). "Ubisoft kills copies of Far Cry 4 sold through third parties". Destructoid. Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  93. ^ Winchester, Henry (December 21, 2011). "Humble Indie Bundle sets minimum $1 donation thanks to Steam scam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  94. ^ Taylor, Mollie (June 23, 2021). "Steam is making it harder to get cheap games from other regions". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 12, 2022. Retrieved June 27, 2021.
  95. ^ Kerr, Chris (November 25, 2013). "Valve gives players a louder voice with Steam Reviews". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 21, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2016.
  96. ^ Kerr, Chris (May 4, 2016). "Steam user reviews updated to better reflect changing game experiences". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 5, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2016.
  97. ^ Arif, Shabana (September 13, 2016). "Steam review system overhauled to prevent abuse". VG247. Archived from the original on September 14, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  98. ^ Te, Zorine (September 13, 2016). "Steam Updates Reviews System, Will Ban Developers Who Inflate Review Scores". GameSpot. Archived from the original on September 16, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  99. ^ Liptak, Andrew (March 15, 2019). "Valve says it will investigate Steam review bombing campaigns and hide bad-faith scores". The Verge. Archived from the original on May 28, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
  100. ^ Orland, Kyle (April 5, 2019). "Borderlands review bomb triggers Steam's 'off topic' fix". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 18, 2020. Retrieved April 6, 2019.
  101. ^ Brown, Mark (June 15, 2011). "Valve Introduces Free-to-Play Games to Steam". Wired. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
  102. ^ Cifaldi, Frank (September 6, 2011). "Valve's Steam Trading Leaves Beta, Adds Portal 2 Support". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 9, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2011.
  103. ^ Curtis, Tom (December 7, 2011). "Valve Ups Monetization Options With Steam Coupons". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 28, 2012. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
  104. ^ Johnston, Casey (May 14, 2012). "GameStop to sell Steam Wallet cards in-store". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on April 5, 2022. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  105. ^ Makuch, Eddie (December 12, 2012). "Valve launches Steam Market". GameSpot. Archived from the original on December 15, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  106. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (April 25, 2013). "Steam introduces subscription plans". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on April 27, 2013. Retrieved April 25, 2013.
  107. ^ Petitte, Omri (October 2, 2012). "Steam opens non-game software store". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on October 3, 2012. Retrieved October 2, 2012.
  108. ^ McWhartor, Michael (August 8, 2012). "Valve to sell non-gaming software on Steam starting September 5th". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 10, 2012. Retrieved August 8, 2012.
  109. ^ Crossley, Rob (September 25, 2014). "Valve Gives Away Game Soundtracks as Steam Music Goes Live". GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 4, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2015.
  110. ^ Carpenter, Nicole (January 8, 2020). "Valve just made it way easier to buy game soundtracks on Steam". Polygon. Archived from the original on April 10, 2022. Retrieved January 8, 2020.
  111. ^ Matulef, Jeffery (March 31, 2015). "Steam releases its first non-documentary movie via Devolver Digital". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on May 3, 2015. Retrieved April 28, 2015.
  112. ^ Kerr, Chris (September 1, 2015). "Valve now selling all four Mad Max movies on Steam". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 21, 2016. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  113. ^ Wawro, Alex (April 25, 2016). "Steam expands its streaming movie biz with Lionsgate partnership". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on April 26, 2016. Retrieved April 25, 2016.
  114. ^ Frank, Allegra (March 31, 2017). "Steam's anime library gets better, thanks to Crunchyroll". Polygon. Archived from the original on March 31, 2017. Retrieved March 31, 2017.
  115. ^ Saed, Sharif (February 20, 2019). "Steam is getting rid of its video and movie section". VG247. Archived from the original on April 10, 2021. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  116. ^ Dingman, Hayden (March 6, 2015). "Valve adds new Steam Machine-stuffed hardware section to Steam store". PC World. Archived from the original on March 7, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  117. ^ Orland, Kyle (April 4, 2019). "Why Valve actually gets less than 30 percent of Steam game sales". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 22, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
  118. ^ Horti, Samuel (December 2018). "Valve's new Steam revenue splits favour big-budget games, and indie devs aren't happy". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 20, 2019. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  119. ^ Orland, Kyle (December 3, 2018). "Valve changes developer terms to try to retain top games". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 22, 2022. Retrieved December 3, 2018.
  120. ^ Blake, Vikki (December 2018). "Steam revises revenue share policy to let "big game" developers keep more of their profits". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on March 17, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  121. ^ Arif, Shabana (December 2, 2018). "Steam's new tiered revenue share system draws backlash from indie devs". VG247. Archived from the original on April 20, 2021. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  122. ^ Wilde, Thomas (December 2, 2018). "Valve's new Steam revenue-sharing tiers spur controversy among indie game developers". GeekWire. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
  123. ^ Goslin, Austin (December 11, 2019). "The Game Awards offers an E3-esque buffet of Steam demos for unreleased games". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 11, 2019. Retrieved October 2, 2021.
  124. ^ Lyons, Kim (September 18, 2021). "Valve's latest Steam Next Fest for upcoming games will open on October 1st". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved October 2, 2021.
  125. ^ Goslin, Austen (June 25, 2020). "Steam's Summer Sale is here". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved June 25, 2020.
  126. ^ Bailey, Dustin (June 25, 2020). "Steam Points are Valve's new loyalty reward system – here's how they work". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved June 26, 2020.
  127. ^ Johnson, Casey (October 11, 2011). "Valve confirms Steam hack: credit cards, personal info may be stolen". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on November 11, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2011.
  128. ^ Leyden, John (September 11, 2011). "Steam games forum down amid hack fears". The Register. Archived from the original on November 10, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2011.
  129. ^ Yoon, Andrew (March 3, 2011). "Valve introduces Steam Guard to fight account phishing and hijacking". Joystiq. Archived from the original on October 28, 2014. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  130. ^ Caoili, Eric (March 3, 2011). "Valve Unveils Steam Guard For Account Security". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on March 5, 2011. Retrieved March 3, 2011.
  131. ^ McWhertor, Michael (April 15, 2015). "Valve adds two-factor login authentication to Steam mobile app". Polygon. Archived from the original on September 8, 2015. Retrieved September 8, 2015.
  132. ^ a b Makuch, Eddie (March 2, 2016). "New Steam Security Updates Coming Next Week". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  133. ^ O'Conner, Alice (December 10, 2015). "77,000 Steam Accounts Hijacked Each Month For Items". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on December 11, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
  134. ^ Frank, Allegra (July 13, 2016). "Valve says it's going after gambling sites that use Steam". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
  135. ^ Senior, Tom (October 16, 2012). "Steam browser security loophole spotted". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on August 12, 2013. Retrieved May 29, 2013.
  136. ^ Orland, Kyle (October 17, 2012). "Steam vulnerability can lead to remote insertion of malicious code". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on December 2, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013.
  137. ^ a b "Report: Steam poses security risk". The H Security. October 17, 2012. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  138. ^ "Ubisoft DRM opens backdoor". The H Security. July 30, 2012. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  139. ^ Darlene Storm (July 27, 2015). "Valve patches huge password reset hole that allowed anyone to hijack Steam accounts". Computerworld. Archived from the original on December 28, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  140. ^ "Steam's account-stealing password reset bug fixed". Naked Security. July 27, 2015. Archived from the original on December 25, 2015. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  141. ^ Adi Robertson (December 25, 2015). "Steam security issue exposes users' personal information". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on January 6, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  142. ^ Russell Brandom (December 30, 2015). "Valve apologizes for Christmas breach, citing denial-of-service attack". The Verge. Vox Media. Archived from the original on January 4, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  143. ^ Hall, Charlie (April 11, 2018). "Steam tweaks privacy settings, will soon let you be invisible while online". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  144. ^ Grayson, Nathan (April 11, 2018). "Game Developers Mourn (And Celebrate) The End Of Steam Spy". Kotaku. Archived from the original on April 11, 2018. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  145. ^ Wawro, Alex (May 10, 2018). "Valve debuts public bug bounty board in an effort to improve security". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 11, 2018. Retrieved May 10, 2018.
  146. ^ Salter, Jim (August 7, 2019). "Severe local 0-Day escalation exploit found in Steam Client Services". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
  147. ^ Horti, Samuel (August 25, 2019). "Valve admits it mistakenly dismissed Steam security flaw". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved August 26, 2019.
  148. ^ D'Anastasio, Cecilia (April 30, 2020). "The ADL Calls Out Steam for Giving Extremists a Pass". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
  149. ^ Orland, Kyle (November 30, 2021). "Why hundreds of thousands of bots descended on one Steam arcade collection". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 14, 2022. Retrieved July 14, 2022.
  150. ^ Nathan Grayson (November 26, 2013). "Betacritic: Valve Add Community-Powered Steam Reviews". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on June 27, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  151. ^ "Steam mod hosting announcement". Valve. Archived from the original on September 28, 2008. Retrieved October 1, 2008.
  152. ^ Yam, Marcus (February 24, 2010). "Valve's Steam Ditches Internet Explorer for WebKit". Tom's Hardware. Archived from the original on December 19, 2011. Retrieved August 3, 2011.
  153. ^ Tom Senior (February 1, 2011). "Steam Screenshot Feature Now in Beta". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  154. ^ Steve Watts (February 25, 2011). "Steam Screenshot Feature Out of Beta". Shacknews. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  155. ^ "Valve Announce "Big Picture Mode" for Steam". PC Gamer. February 27, 2011. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  156. ^ Mlot, Stephanie (December 3, 2012). "Valve Takes Steam's Big Picture Gaming Mode Public". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on December 5, 2012. Retrieved December 3, 2012.
  157. ^ Benedetti, Winda (August 17, 2012). "Valve will put PC games on your TV this fall". MSNBC. Archived from the original on August 21, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2012.
  158. ^ Prescott, Shaun (July 20, 2021). "Steam's Big Picture mode will be replaced by Steam Deck's UI". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved July 20, 2021.
  159. ^ Smith, Graham (October 27, 2022). "Steam's new Big Picture UI is now available for testing". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on October 28, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  160. ^ Wales, Matt (February 1, 2023). "Steam Big Picture's Steam-Deck-inspired UI overhaul finally gets its full release". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on February 2, 2023. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  161. ^ "foundry10 - education research". www.foundry10.org. Archived from the original on June 22, 2022. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  162. ^ Narcisse, Evan (June 20, 2012). "Valve Gives Away Portal 2 for Free to Teachers with 'Steam for Schools'". Kotaku. Archived from the original on June 23, 2012. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  163. ^ Gilbert, Ben (June 20, 2012). "'Steam for Schools' is a free version of Steam for students, facilitates Portal 2-based lessons". Joystiq. Archived from the original on August 3, 2012. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
  164. ^ Lein, Tracey (May 21, 2014). "Steam In-Home Streaming now available for everyone". Polygon. Archived from the original on May 21, 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  165. ^ Brown, Fraser (June 14, 2019). "Steam In-Home Streaming is now available outside the home". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved June 14, 2019.
  166. ^ Prescott, Shaun (October 9, 2019). "Steam's 'Remote Play Together' will introduce online support for all local multiplayer games". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved October 9, 2019.
  167. ^ Chalk, Adam (October 21, 2019). "Steam Remote Play Together is now available to try in beta". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 10, 2022. Retrieved October 21, 2019.
  168. ^ Nunneley, Stephany (November 20, 2019). "Steam Remote Play Together feature is out of beta and available to all Steam users". PC Gamer ]. Archived from the original on August 16, 2021. Retrieved November 20, 2019.
  169. ^ Porter, Jon (February 25, 2021). "Steam's multiplayer game streaming now works with friends without Steam accounts". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved February 25, 2021.
  170. ^ Miller, Ross (September 13, 2007). "Steam Community officially launched". Joystiq. Archived from the original on February 3, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2010.
  171. ^ Greenwald, Will (December 14, 2012). "Steam Review & Rating". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014. Retrieved January 16, 2014.
  172. ^ "Steam Realizes Extraordinary Growth in 2009". Valve. January 29, 2010. Archived from the original on February 1, 2010. Retrieved January 29, 2010.
  173. ^ Nunneley, Stepheny (July 12, 2012). "Valve launches Steam Badges on the service". VG247. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2012.
  174. ^ Nunneley, Stephany (May 15, 2013). "Steam Trading Cards now in beta". VG247. Archived from the original on June 7, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
  175. ^ McElroy, Griffon (June 24, 2013). "Steam Trading Cards leaving beta June 26, Summer Sale teased". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 28, 2013. Retrieved June 24, 2013.
  176. ^ TF2 Team (July 1, 2010). "Steam Web APIs". Team Fortress 2 blog. Archived from the original on May 12, 2011. Retrieved July 2, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  177. ^ "Steam Web API Documentation". Steam Community. Valve. Archived from the original on February 10, 2012. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  178. ^ Nutt, Christian (April 17, 2015). "Steam now restricts accounts to protect against spam and phishing". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on April 19, 2015. Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  179. ^ Valve. "Steam Support  – Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC)". Archived from the original on December 27, 2009. Retrieved January 18, 2010.
  180. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (August 13, 2012). "Steam to highlight the best user-created content". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 16, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
  181. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (December 14, 2012). "Valve takes on GameFAQs with Steam Game Guides". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on December 16, 2012. Retrieved December 14, 2012.
  182. ^ McWhertor, Michael (December 2, 2014). "Valve brings livestreaming to Steam with Steam Broadcasting". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 2, 2014.
  183. ^ Prescott, Shaun (January 19, 2015). "Steam Broadcasting and FPS overlay is now available to all". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 20, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2015.
  184. ^ Hallister, Sean (August 20, 2018). "Steam.tv is live again -- say hello to Valve's Twitch competitor?". CNet. Archived from the original on June 13, 2021. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  185. ^ Wilde, Tyler (August 20, 2018). "Valve's new streaming platform, Steam.tv, is officially live now". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on August 21, 2018. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  186. ^ Clark, Tim (November 13, 2018). "Valve updates Artifact FAQ with new launch details". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  187. ^ Fogel, Stefanie (November 9, 2018). "The Game Awards To Stream Across 40 Global Video Networks". Variety. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved December 5, 2018.
  188. ^ Tarason, Dominic (February 4, 2019). "Steam Lunar New Year sale offers extra discounts for big spenders". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on February 5, 2019. Retrieved February 4, 2019.
  189. ^ Honorof, Marshall (September 25, 2014). "Valve Debuts Steam Music, Announces Big Game Sales". Tom's Guide US. Archived from the original on September 28, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  190. ^ Sarkar, Samit (February 3, 2014). "Steam Music will let you listen to your music library while gaming". Polygon. Archived from the original on February 21, 2014. Retrieved February 4, 2014.
  191. ^ Chalk, Andy (June 12, 2018). "Valve releases a new and very improved chat client for Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 27, 2022. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
  192. ^ Chalk, Andy (July 24, 2018). "Steam's new chat client is out of beta, Valve says more changes are coming". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 16, 2022. Retrieved July 24, 2018.
  193. ^ Byford, Sam (May 21, 2019). "Valve releases Steam Chat app for iOS and Android". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
  194. ^ Peters, Jay (October 30, 2019). "Steam's redesigned library is out now for everyone". The Verge. Archived from the original on October 31, 2019. Retrieved October 30, 2019.
  195. ^ McWhertor, Michael (March 21, 2019). "Valve redesigns Steam game library, adding Steam Event". Polygon. Archived from the original on July 30, 2022. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
  196. ^ Machkovech, Sam (September 4, 2019). "Steam's new, handsome 'Library' update is better 16 years late than never". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2019.
  197. ^ Macgregeor, Jody (June 14, 2023). "Steam's big update has left beta: now everyone can pin notes, videos, and web pages to the screen while they play". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on June 15, 2023. Retrieved June 14, 2023.
  198. ^ Handrahan, Matthew (April 22, 2020). "Valve's top tips for launching a game on Steam". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  199. ^ a b c Handrahan, Matthew (April 22, 2020). "Valve's advice for making your game thrive after launch". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  200. ^ "Steamworks Integration Now Available to Unreal Engine 3 Licensees". Epic Games. March 11, 2010. Archived from the original on May 17, 2010.
  201. ^ "Steamworks API Overview". Steamworks partner site. Valve. May 1, 2008. Archived from the original on May 12, 2011. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
  202. ^ Graft, Kris (October 12, 2016). "Steam to expand PlayStation 4 gamepad support in new update". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on October 13, 2016. Retrieved October 12, 2016.
  203. ^ Good, Owen (May 4, 2018). "Switch Pro Controller support comes to Steam". Polygon. Archived from the original on November 9, 2020. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  204. ^ Porter, Jon (November 23, 2020). "Steam adds PS5 controller support". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  205. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (November 14, 2020). "Steam beta adds support for PS5 DualSense controller". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on September 12, 2021. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  206. ^ Andy Chalk published (November 23, 2020). "Controller usage on Steam has doubled over the past 2 years". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2022. Retrieved March 28, 2022.
  207. ^ Staff, Ars (March 15, 2019). "Any Steam game can now use Valve's low-latency, DoS-proofed networking". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 20, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  208. ^ Orland, Kyle (February 27, 2014). "Steam teases plan to allow developers to create their own sales". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved February 28, 2014.
  209. ^ Purchese, Robert (November 14, 2007). "Steam survey under way". Eurogamer.net. Archived from the original on June 2, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  210. ^ Lee, Garnett (August 24, 2010). "July Steam Survey Data Includes Installed Programs". Shacknews. Archived from the original on May 28, 2023. Retrieved June 20, 2023.
  211. ^ Nunneley, Stephany (March 20, 2013). "Steam page now offers paid-Alphas, Introversion says such sales are 'way forward' for indies". VG247. Archived from the original on March 24, 2013. Retrieved March 20, 2013.
  212. ^ a b Sarkar, Samit (December 1, 2016). "Almost two-fifths of Steam's entire library was released in 2016". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 2, 2016. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
  213. ^ McAloon, Alissa (August 19, 2017). "Valve engineer comments on restrictions to high-volume Steam key requests". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved August 19, 2017.
  214. ^ McAloon, Alissa (June 3, 2021). "Steam now lets devs join forces and create their own bundles". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  215. ^ "Team Fortress 2: the best of the Steam Workshop". PC Gamer. October 19, 2011. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2012.
  216. ^ Rosenberg, Adam (January 20, 2012). "Skyrim Patch v1.4 Coming For All Platforms, PC Mod Tools Not Far Behind". G4TV. Archived from the original on January 13, 2013. Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  217. ^ Molina, Brett (April 28, 2012). "'Portal 2' puzzle creator launches May 8". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 1, 2012. Retrieved May 2, 2012.
  218. ^ Hillier, Brenna (May 3, 2012). "Free Dungeons of Dredmor DLC adds Steam Workshop support". VG247. Archived from the original on May 7, 2012. Retrieved May 3, 2012.
  219. ^ Williams, Katie (June 17, 2012). "Dota Workshop Opens". GameSpy. Archived from the original on June 19, 2012. Retrieved May 20, 2012.
  220. ^ Boudreau, Ian (March 29, 2020). "Gabe Newell tried gold farming in World of Warcraft to test a theory about games". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on March 29, 2020. Retrieved March 29, 2020.
  221. ^ a b Wawro, Alex (January 28, 2015). "Steam Workshop creators can now sell content for non-Valve games". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 1, 2015. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  222. ^ Purchase, Robert (April 23, 2015). "Steam Workshop now allows modders to sell their work". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on April 25, 2015. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  223. ^ "Introducing New Ways to Support Workshop Creators". Valve. April 23, 2015. Archived from the original on April 23, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  224. ^ Futter, Mike (April 15, 2014). "Valve To Allow Other Developers To Split Profits With User-Generated Content Creators". Game Informer. Archived from the original on April 17, 2014. Retrieved April 15, 2014.
  225. ^ Purchase, Robert (April 24, 2015). "A paid Skyrim Steam Workshop mod has already been pulled". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on April 26, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  226. ^ Grayson, Nathan (April 23, 2015). "Steam Users See Big Problems With Charging For Mods". Kotaku. Archived from the original on April 24, 2015. Retrieved April 24, 2015.
  227. ^ Prescott, Shaun (April 27, 2015). "Valve has removed paid mods functionality from Steam Workshop". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved April 27, 2015.
  228. ^ Grayson, Nathan (October 15, 2015). "Even After The Skyrim Fiasco, Valve Is Still Interested In Paid Mods". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 16, 2015. Retrieved October 15, 2015.
  229. ^ Matulef, Jeffrey (November 4, 2015). "Steam launches official developer-run Item Stores". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on November 6, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  230. ^ Wawro, Alex (November 4, 2015). "Devs open item shops on Steam to sell in-game items for cash". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 6, 2015. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
  231. ^ Grayson, Nathan (November 4, 2015). "Steam has added a new 'item store' feature". Kotaku. Gawker Media. Archived from the original on September 21, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  232. ^ a b Hollister, Sean (March 16, 2016). "Valve's 'Lab' and desktop theater mode could be the perfect introduction to virtual reality (hands-on)". CNet. Archived from the original on March 17, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  233. ^ Phil Savage (January 13, 2014). "Valve Launch SteamVR Beta Ahead of Their Dev Days Event". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 2, 2015. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  234. ^ Orland, Kyle (March 5, 2015). "Hands-on: Valve/HTC Vive opens up the virtual reality experience". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on November 5, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  235. ^ Machkovech, Sam (June 12, 2015). "SteamVR: The room-scale VR world that feels like an 'IMAX in your house'". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on July 16, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  236. ^ Mackovech, Sam (March 4, 2015). "Steam Controller, SteamVR, Steam Machines: Valve's hardware push in photos". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on March 9, 2015. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
  237. ^ DeAngelis, Marc (May 1, 2020). "Valve will no longer support SteamVR on macOS". Engadget. Archived from the original on June 20, 2020. Retrieved May 1, 2020.
  238. ^ Peters, Jay (October 25, 2023). "Valve officially releases SteamVR 2.0". The Verge. Retrieved December 5, 2023.
  239. ^ a b c d Grubb, Jeff (February 13, 2017). "Valve won't manually curate Steam because it dominates PC gaming". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on February 13, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2017.
  240. ^ Caoili, Eric (August 30, 2012). "Steam Greenlight open for business and accepting submissions". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on August 31, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  241. ^ Curtis, Tom (July 9, 2012). "Steam Greenlight lets users rally behind the games they want to play". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 11, 2012. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
  242. ^ Rose, Mike (August 31, 2012). "Discoverability on Steam Greenlight? It's nonexistent". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 3, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2012.
  243. ^ Cifaldi, Frank (September 5, 2012). "Valve's solution for Steam Greenlight's noise: A $100 fee". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 6, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2012.
  244. ^ a b Williams, Mike (February 13, 2017). "Steam Greenlight Is Dead, Long Live Steam Direct". US Gamer. Archived from the original on February 15, 2017. Retrieved February 13, 2017.
  245. ^ Akerman, Nick (October 18, 2012). "Valve adds concept section to Greenlight". VG247. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  246. ^ McWhertor, Michael (October 17, 2012). "Steam Greenlight now allows non-gaming software and early concept submissions". The Verge. Archived from the original on October 18, 2012. Retrieved October 17, 2012.
  247. ^ Rose, Mike (September 5, 2012). "Steam Greenlight: Developers Speak Out". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 28, 2013. Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  248. ^ Cook, Dave (February 1, 2013). "Newell on Steam 'bottleneck', wants to open up publishing to everyone". vg247. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved October 2, 2013.
  249. ^ Rossignol, Jim (February 1, 2013). "Gabe Newell On Removing Valve From Steam". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved October 2, 2013. But what is perhaps most remarkable is that around 44 minutes, he talks about the problem of Steam being a curated store, and goes on to suggest that Valve are a bottleneck for publishing on the platform, and then even more radically, that they should remove themselves from the equation entirely.
  250. ^ Graft, Kris (August 29, 2013). "For Gabe Newell, Greenlight is just a stepping stone to a bigger endgame". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on August 31, 2013. Retrieved August 29, 2013.
  251. ^ a b Matulef, Jeffery (June 6, 2017). "Steam Greenlight to be replaced with Steam Direct next week". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on June 7, 2017.
  252. ^ Wawro, Alex (February 10, 2017). "Valve to replace Steam Greenlight with a fee-based game submission system". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 10, 2017. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  253. ^ Brightman, James (June 2, 2017). "Steam Direct fee set at $100". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on June 2, 2017. Retrieved June 2, 2017.
  254. ^ Orland, Kyle (June 2, 2017). "Want to get your game on Steam? $100 is all you need". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 2, 2017. Retrieved June 2, 2017.
  255. ^ Handradan, Matthew (June 14, 2017). "Valve: Steam Direct submissions could be "somewhat higher" than Greenlight". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on June 14, 2017. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  256. ^ Pereira, Chris (February 14, 2017). "With Steam's Greenlight Replacement Raising Concerns, Indie Publisher Extends A Helping Hand". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 6, 2018. Retrieved February 14, 2017.
  257. ^ Williams, Mike (February 17, 2017). "Fig Also Promises To Help Indies With Steam Direct". US Gamer. Archived from the original on February 17, 2017. Retrieved February 17, 2017.
  258. ^ Wood, Austin (October 16, 2023). ""We don't think Steam should be pay to win": Valve explains how "games we would've never predicted" pop off so hard". GamesRadar. Retrieved October 28, 2023.
  259. ^ Wilde, Tyler (September 23, 2014). "Big changes to Steam: 'Discovery Update' adds curators, recommendations, and hides unpopular new releases". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on September 25, 2014. Retrieved September 24, 2014.
  260. ^ Pearson, Dan (March 27, 2015). "Steam data reveals impact of Discovery update". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on November 4, 2016. Retrieved November 1, 2016.
  261. ^ Wawro, Alex (November 1, 2016). "Valve cracks down on Steam store screenshots ahead of 'Discovery 2.0' update". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 3, 2016. Retrieved November 1, 2016.
  262. ^ Wawro, Alex (November 7, 2016). "Valve aims to make Steam easier to sift through with 'Discovery 2.0' update". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  263. ^ Saed, Sharif (February 9, 2017). "Thanks to Steam's Discovery Updates, more games are being purchased, and played, than ever before". VG247. Archived from the original on February 9, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2017.
  264. ^ McAloon, Alissa (December 8, 2017). "Report: Steam's 'Curator Connect' overhaul is now live for devs and curators". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on December 9, 2017. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  265. ^ Wawro, Alex (April 3, 2017). "Valve meets with YouTubers in ongoing effort to fix Steam's discoverability issues". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on April 4, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  266. ^ McCormick, Rich (April 4, 2017). "Valve admits Steam has a 'fake games' problem". The Verge. Archived from the original on April 4, 2017. Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  267. ^ McAloon, Alissa (July 11, 2019). "Steam Labs is Valve's new home for experimental Steam features". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 11, 2019. Retrieved July 11, 2019.
  268. ^ Chalk, Andy (March 18, 2020). "Steam's Interactive Recommender is now built into the store to help you find hidden gems". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on March 19, 2020. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  269. ^ Grayson, Nathan (September 17, 2019). "Steam's Big Discovery Update Is Hurting Some Indie Developers' Games". Kotaku. Archived from the original on March 25, 2020. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  270. ^ Brown, Fraser (September 16, 2019). "Steam's Discovery update is making things worse for some indie developers". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 25, 2020. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  271. ^ Allsop, Ken (September 23, 2022). "New Steam charts showcase the platform's best selling games". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on September 24, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2022.
  272. ^ Kuchera, Ben (June 2, 2015). "Steam now offering refunds for games purchased online". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 2, 2015. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  273. ^ Nunneley, Stephany (August 24, 2011). "Steam officially offering refunds for From Dust over DRM troubles". VG247. Archived from the original on April 3, 2013. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  274. ^ Rose, Mike (December 20, 2012). "How not to launch a video game, starring The War Z". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on December 23, 2012. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  275. ^ Good, Owen (May 6, 2014). "Steam yanks $19.99 game from Early Access, offers full refunds". Polygon. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
  276. ^ a b Usher, William (November 15, 2012). "GTA: Vice City No Longer On Steam Due To RIAA Copyright Claim". Cinema Blend. Archived from the original on November 18, 2012. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  277. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (July 11, 2011). "Why you can't buy Crysis 2 from Steam". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  278. ^ McWhertor, Michael (June 27, 2016). "Activision gets dino-shooter Orion pulled from Steam over allegedly stolen assets". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 29, 2016. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  279. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (July 1, 2016). "Orion dev admits his game ripped off Call of Duty assets". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  280. ^ a b Grayson, Nathan (June 6, 2018). "Valve Says It Will Now Allow 'Everything' On Steam, Unless It's Illegal Or 'Straight Up Trolling'". Kotaku. Archived from the original on June 6, 2018. Retrieved June 6, 2018.
  281. ^ a b Prescott, Shaun (September 5, 2018). "Valve is changing the way games with nudity, violence, and sexual content are presented on Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on September 6, 2018. Retrieved September 5, 2018.
  282. ^ Grubb, Jeff (June 7, 2018). "Valve's confusing Steam policy is about Flappy Bird, not bigotry". Venture Beat. Archived from the original on June 7, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  283. ^ Macgregor, Jody (September 30, 2018). "Over 170 more games have been removed from Steam in recent weeks". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on October 1, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
  284. ^ Orland, Kyle (May 16, 2017). "Steam tries to shut down "fake" games that abuse Trading Card system". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 16, 2017. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  285. ^ Wawro, Alex (May 16, 2017). "In the name of the algorithm, Valve nerfs Steam Trading Cards". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 19, 2017. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  286. ^ Wilde, Tyler (June 15, 2018). "Steam will restrict 'fake games' which exist solely for achievement farming". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on June 16, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  287. ^ Bailey, Dustin (January 8, 2019). "Wandersong's user reviews are so good Steam doesn't believe it's a real game". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on January 9, 2019. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
  288. ^ Livingstone, Christopher (May 21, 2018). "10 reasons games disappear from Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 22, 2018. Retrieved May 21, 2018.
  289. ^ Mendelsohn, Tom (September 19, 2016). "Valve bans developer from Steam after it sues customers over bad reviews". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  290. ^ Frank, Allegra (September 26, 2017). "Valve removes nearly 200 cheap, 'fake' games from Steam". Polygon. Archived from the original on September 26, 2017. Retrieved September 26, 2017.
  291. ^ Orland, Kyle (February 14, 2018). "Valve bans developer after employees leave fake user reviews". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on February 14, 2018. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  292. ^ McAloon, Alissa (July 30, 2018). "Steam game accused of covertly mining for cryptocurrency". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 30, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  293. ^ Wood, Austin (July 31, 2018). "Valve adds scam protection to Steam trades following wave of counterfeit items". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 31, 2018. Retrieved July 31, 2018.
  294. ^ Chalk, Andy (November 26, 2019). "Valve removed 1000 games from Steam because publishers were 'abusing' Steamworks". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on November 26, 2019. Retrieved November 26, 2019.
  295. ^ Holt, Kris (October 15, 2021). "Steam bans games that allow cryptocurrency and NFT trading". Engadget. Archived from the original on October 15, 2021. Retrieved October 15, 2021.
  296. ^ "Valve says AI-generated content policy goal is "not to discourage the use of it on Steam"". Eurogamer.net. July 3, 2023.
  297. ^ "Steam adds in-game reporting of "illegal content" in AI games". Eurogamer.net. January 10, 2024.
  298. ^ Orland, Kyle (August 1, 2017). "Sexually explicit game returns to Steam after adding "censor" bars". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on May 23, 2018. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
  299. ^ Chalk, Andy (May 21, 2018). "Valve rolls back crackdown against sexual content on Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 22, 2018. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
  300. ^ "Who Gets To Be On The Steam Store?". steamcommunity.com. June 6, 2018.
  301. ^ Kidwell, Emma (July 16, 2018). "Valve is temporarily withholding adult games from Steam". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 17, 2018. Retrieved July 16, 2018.
  302. ^ Kim, Matt (July 16, 2018). "Some Adult Games on Steam Are on Hold Until Valve's New Filter Tools Are Ready". USGamer. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved July 16, 2018.
  303. ^ McAloon, Alissa (August 16, 2018). "Steam's content-driven freeze on game approvals expected to last for months". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on August 17, 2018. Retrieved August 16, 2018.
  304. ^ McAloon, Alissa (September 18, 2018). "Steam's uncensored adult game Negligee isn't available in every country". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 19, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  305. ^ Taylor, Haydn (December 10, 2018). "Valve banning "child exploitation" games from Steam". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on December 10, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  306. ^ Wales, Matt (March 4, 2019). "Valve under fire as sexually explicit game glorifying rape is listed on Steam". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on March 5, 2019. Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  307. ^ Orland, Kyle (March 7, 2019). "With Rape Day ban, Steam shows it's not as "hands off" as it claims". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on March 8, 2019. Retrieved March 8, 2019.
  308. ^ a b c Faylor, Chris (March 8, 2010). "Steam Coming to Mac in April, Portal 2 This Fall". Shacknews. Archived from the original on March 10, 2010. Retrieved March 8, 2010.
  309. ^ Brinkmann, Martin (February 8, 2016). "Steam uses insecure, out-of-date Chromium browser". Ghacks Technology News. Archived from the original on October 9, 2019. Retrieved March 9, 2019.
  310. ^ Chalk, Andy (June 12, 2018). "Steam will drop Windows XP and Vista support at the end of the year". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on June 13, 2018. Retrieved June 12, 2018.
  311. ^ Prescott, Shaun (March 27, 2023). "Steam will ditch Windows 7 and 8 support next year". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved March 29, 2023.
  312. ^ "A Brand New Steam". Valve. February 23, 2010. Archived from the original on December 30, 2010. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
  313. ^ Leahy, Brian (February 23, 2010). "Valve Launches Public Beta For New Steam UI". Shacknews. Archived from the original on February 24, 2010. Retrieved February 24, 2010.
  314. ^ "New Steam Client Officially Released!". Valve. April 26, 2010. Archived from the original on April 29, 2010. Retrieved April 26, 2010.
  315. ^ Nelson, J. R. (March 7, 2010). "Valve All But Confirms Steam and Portal 2 Coming to Mac OS X". Desktop Preview. Archived from the original on May 12, 2010. Retrieved March 8, 2010.
  316. ^ Slivka, Eric (March 3, 2010). "Valve Leaks Teaser Images for Announcement of Steam (and Games) for Mac". Mac Rumors. Archived from the original on March 6, 2010. Retrieved March 8, 2010.
  317. ^ Leahy, Brian (May 25, 2010). "Half-Life 2 Hits Mac Steam Tomorrow; Teased via Epic Homage Trailer". Shacknews. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
  318. ^ Remo, Chris (April 29, 2010). "Valve Dates Steam Mac For May 12, Updates Steam PC". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on May 8, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
  319. ^ Faylor, Chris (May 13, 2010). "Steam's Cross-Platform PC/Mac Game Availability Explained: Some Must Be Bought Again". Shacknews. Archived from the original on May 15, 2010. Retrieved May 13, 2010.
  320. ^ a b "Steam'd Penguins". Valve. July 16, 2012. Archived from the original on August 12, 2013. Retrieved July 24, 2013.
  321. ^ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. (May 6, 2010). "Running Windows Games on Linux Gets Easier". PC World. Archived from the original on March 15, 2013. Retrieved March 7, 2013.
  322. ^ a b Jackson, Mike (July 25, 2012). "Newell: 'Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space'". Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on December 26, 2012. Retrieved January 6, 2013.
  323. ^ a b Caoili, Eric (July 17, 2012). "Valve throws support behind Linux with Steam, ports". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 20, 2012. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
  324. ^ Hussain, Tamoor (September 27, 2012). "Valve to test Linux Steam next week". Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on September 30, 2012. Retrieved September 27, 2012.
  325. ^ Miot, Stephanie (November 6, 2012). "Valve Launches Closed Steam for Linux Beta". PC Magazine. Archived from the original on November 9, 2012. Retrieved November 7, 2012.
  326. ^ Purchase, Robert (December 20, 2012). "Steam for Linux beta opened to all". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on December 31, 2012. Retrieved December 20, 2012.
  327. ^ Cifaldi, Frank (February 14, 2013). "Steam Box phase one complete: Steam's Linux client is out now". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on July 7, 2014. Retrieved February 14, 2013.
  328. ^ Lein, Tracey (July 16, 2012). "'Left 4 Dead 2' to be first Valve game on Linux". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 19, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
  329. ^ Linux team, Valve (August 1, 2012). "Faster Zombies!". Valve. Archived from the original on August 10, 2012. Retrieved August 12, 2012.
  330. ^ "[Phoronix] Steam Lands In Fedora / RHEL RPM Fusion Repository". Phoronix. October 31, 2013. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  331. ^ Larabel, Michael (June 5, 2014). "There's Now 500 Games On Steam For Linux". Phoronix. Archived from the original on June 11, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  332. ^ Conditt, J. (February 19, 2019). "Linux gaming is on a life-support system called Steam". Engadget. Archived from the original on February 26, 2022. Retrieved February 26, 2022.
  333. ^ Francis, Bryant (August 21, 2018). "Valve makes Windows games playable on Linux with Steam Play update". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on August 22, 2018. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  334. ^ Dexter, Alan (August 9, 2021). "This is why Valve is switching from Debian to Arch for Steam Deck's Linux OS". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on May 26, 2023. Retrieved August 9, 2021.
  335. ^ Hollister, Sean (September 23, 2021). "One of the Steam Deck's biggest hurdles just disappeared: EAC has come to Linux". The Verge. Archived from the original on September 23, 2021. Retrieved September 23, 2021.
  336. ^ "BattlEye anti-cheat confirms Steam Deck support". PC Gamer. September 25, 2021. Archived from the original on March 20, 2022. Retrieved September 25, 2021.
  337. ^ a b Archer, James (October 18, 2021). "Exclusive: Here's how you'll know which games will run on Valve's Steam Deck". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on October 18, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
  338. ^ Binns, Theo (June 3, 2021). "Nvidia and Valve bring Steam-based Linux gaming PCs one step closer to Windows 10". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on June 3, 2021. Retrieved June 3, 2021.
  339. ^ Willetts, Samuel (November 25, 2021). "Proton now officially supports Nvidia DLSS, but it won't come to Valve's Steam Deck". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  340. ^ Thorsen, Tor (June 15, 2010). "Portal 2, Steamworks PS3-bound in 2011". GameSpot. Archived from the original on July 21, 2016. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  341. ^ "Portal 2 PS3, Steam cross-platform play". Eurogamer. January 18, 2011. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016.
  342. ^ Orland, Kyle (August 26, 2011). "PS3 Counter-Strike: GO Gets Added Control Options, Cross-Platform Play". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 9, 2011. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
  343. ^ Savage, Phil (January 29, 2013). "Steam concurrent users growing 300% faster than start of 2012, Dota 2 players rising steadily". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on February 3, 2013. Retrieved January 30, 2013.
  344. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (August 25, 2011). "Valve's Gabe Newell – Interview". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 27, 2011. Retrieved September 12, 2011.
  345. ^ Hinkle, David (March 5, 2012). "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive loses cross-play". Joystiq. Archived from the original on May 30, 2012. Retrieved March 6, 2012.
  346. ^ Robinson, Andy (August 25, 2010). "Valve would 'love' Xbox Steamworks". Computer and Video Games. Archived from the original on May 9, 2013. Retrieved December 3, 2012.
  347. ^ Garrett, Patrick (January 31, 2012). "Steam mobile app goes live for all". VG247. Archived from the original on February 3, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
  348. ^ Crossley, Rob (January 26, 2012). "Valve launches Steam app for iOS and Android". Develop. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  349. ^ Saed, Sharif (June 29, 2016). "Valve releases official Steam app on Windows Phone, for all five of you who still use it". VG247. Archived from the original on June 30, 2016. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  350. ^ Takahashi, Dean (May 17, 2018). "Steam Chat goes live on iOS and Android". VentureBeat. Archived from the original on November 5, 2019. Retrieved November 5, 2019.
  351. ^ Kim, Matt (May 24, 2018). "Apple Just Removed Valve's Steam Link App From the iOS App Store". USGamer. Archived from the original on April 14, 2021. Retrieved May 24, 2018.
  352. ^ Nellis, Stephan (June 4, 2018). "Apple issues new App Store rules aimed at streaming PC-based games". Reuters. Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  353. ^ Saed, Sharif (June 15, 2018). "Valve submits an updated version of Steam Link iOS app". VG247. Archived from the original on June 15, 2018. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  354. ^ Byford, Sam (May 15, 2019). "Valve's Steam Link app is finally available for iOS and Apple TV". The Verge. Archived from the original on May 16, 2019. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
  355. ^ Scheirer, Jason (December 8, 2012). "Gabe Newell: Living Room PCs Will Compete With Next-Gen Consoles". Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
  356. ^ Schreier, Jason (September 23, 2013). "Valve Announces Steam OS". Kotaku. Archived from the original on November 15, 2013. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
  357. ^ Goldfarb, Andrew (November 4, 2013). "Valve Will Announce Steam Machine Partners at CES 2014". IGN. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved November 6, 2013.
  358. ^ Phillips, Tom (April 4, 2018). ""It's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves"". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on December 7, 2018. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  359. ^ Hollister, Sean (November 26, 2019). "Pour One Out for the Steam Controller, now on closeout sale for just $5 plus shipping". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 27, 2019. Retrieved November 27, 2019.
  360. ^ Hollister, Sean (November 19, 2018). "Farewell to the Steam Link, the best wireless HDMI gadget ever made". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 20, 2018. Retrieved November 19, 2018.
  361. ^ "Valve's Steam Link is dead, and that sucks". PCWorld. November 20, 2018. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved December 15, 2018.
  362. ^ McWhertor, Michael (March 14, 2019). "Valve's new Steam Link update lets you stream anywhere". Polygon. Archived from the original on March 15, 2019. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
  363. ^ Peters, Jay (November 10, 2021). "Steam Deck launch delayed by two months". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved November 29, 2021.
  364. ^ Peters, Jay (July 15, 2021). "Valve's gaming handheld is called the Steam Deck and it's shipping in December". The Verge. Archived from the original on July 16, 2021. Retrieved July 15, 2021.
  365. ^ Larabel, Michael (February 25, 2022). "For Linux Enthusiasts Especially, The Steam Deck Is An Incredible & Fun Device". Phoronix. Archived from the original on February 25, 2022. Retrieved February 28, 2022.
  366. ^ Goldman, Joshua. "Steam Is on Chrome OS: Here's How to Start Gaming on a Chromebook". CNET. Archived from the original on April 3, 2022. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
  367. ^ Chin, Monica (November 3, 2022). "Steam on Chromebook enters beta". The Verge. Archived from the original on November 5, 2022. Retrieved November 6, 2022.
  368. ^ Saed, Sherif (May 28, 2020). "Steam Cloud Play beta now available to developers, supports Geforce Now". VG247. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2020.
  369. ^ Chalk, Andy (October 18, 2018). "Steam surpasses 30 million users in China". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved October 18, 2018.
  370. ^ Hall, Charlie (December 22, 2017). "PUBG creator on the rise of China and the future of Battlegrounds". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 26, 2017. Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  371. ^ a b c d Tapsell, Chris (August 21, 2019). "Valve talks Steam China, curation and exclusivity". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on August 29, 2019. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  372. ^ Chalk, Andy (December 19, 2017). "Steam Community access has been blocked in China". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  373. ^ Chalk, Andy (June 11, 2018). "Valve and Perfect World are bringing Steam to China". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 16, 2021. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  374. ^ Kerr, Chris (August 21, 2019). "Steam is heading to China as a standalone marketplace". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on April 15, 2021. Retrieved August 21, 2019.
  375. ^ Clark, Mitchell (February 8, 2021). "Steam has officially come to China, and Sony's PS5 is officially coming too". The Verge. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  376. ^ a b "Chinese regulators ban game distributor Steam citing 'unlawful behaviors'". KrASIA. December 29, 2021. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  377. ^ Whitwam, Brian (December 28, 2021). "China Appears to Have Blocked the Global Steam Store". ExtremeTech. Archived from the original on December 29, 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  378. ^ Matt, Smith (August 16, 2012). "Why I'm No Longer Buying Games On Steam". makeuseof. Archived from the original on December 25, 2013. Retrieved December 24, 2013.
  379. ^ M. S., Smith (March 16, 2010). "Steam: A Monopoly In the Making". The Escapist. Archived from the original on December 25, 2013. Retrieved December 24, 2013.
  380. ^ Paul, Ryan (July 31, 2012). "GNU founder Stallman calls DRM'd Steam for Linux games "unethical"". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on March 29, 2022. Retrieved March 29, 2022.
  381. ^ a b Grayson, Nathan (March 13, 2015). "Valve Is Not Psyched They Got An 'F' In Customer Service". Kotaku. Archived from the original on October 4, 2015. Retrieved October 2, 2015.
  382. ^ Grayson, Nathan (May 2, 2017). "Valve Wants To Be More Transparent About How Busy Steam Customer Support Is". Kotaku. Archived from the original on May 3, 2017. Retrieved May 3, 2017.
  383. ^ "Steam Business Update", Steam Dev Days, Valve, February 11, 2013, archived from the original on July 21, 2016, We reached a huge number just at the end of December of 75m active users. These aren't user accounts, these are actually users who own a product or have been active in the community in the last 90 days.
  384. ^ a b c Supor, Taylor (August 3, 2017). "Valve reveals Steam's monthly active user count and game sales by region". GeekWire. Archived from the original on December 16, 2017. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
  385. ^ Walker, Alex (March 30, 2016). "Valve Says Around 2.2 Million Australians Use Steam". Kotaku. Archived from the original on September 27, 2017. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
  386. ^ McAloon, Alissa (January 9, 2018). "Steam sets new concurrent user record at 18.5M". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 11, 2018. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  387. ^ TomB. "Steam - 2018 Year in Review". steamcommunity.com. Archived from the original on January 15, 2019. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  388. ^ Robinson, Andy (March 30, 2020). "Steam has now broken its active player record". Video Games Chronicle. Archived from the original on April 8, 2020. Retrieved March 30, 2020.
  389. ^ Bolding, Jonathan (December 12, 2020). "Steam hits new highest concurrent user count: 24.7M". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on December 13, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2020.
  390. ^ Bolding, Jonathan (January 2, 2021). "Steam cracks 25M concurrent users as the new year begins". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 3, 2021. Retrieved January 4, 2021.
  391. ^ Senior, Tom (March 17, 2012). "Garry's Mod has sold 1.4 million copies, Garry releases sales history to prove it". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013.
  392. ^ Garry Newman. "Twitter / garrynewman: @arstechnica @KyleOrl Not bad, ..." Archived from the original on April 20, 2014. Retrieved May 25, 2014. Garry's Mod Units 4,802,144
  393. ^ a b McAloone, Alissa (January 10, 2018). "7,672 games hit Steam in 2017 alone, says Steam Spy". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 11, 2018. Retrieved January 10, 2018.
  394. ^ Calvin, Alex (January 14, 2019). "There are now over 27,000 games on Steam". PC Games Insider.biz. Archived from the original on January 15, 2019. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  395. ^ Calvin, Alex (January 2, 2020). "Over 8,000 games were released on Steam in 2019, according to SteamSpy". PCGamesInsider.biz. Archived from the original on January 2, 2020. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
  396. ^ Bolding, Jonathan (January 14, 2019). "Steam now has 30,000 games". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 13, 2019. Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  397. ^ Bailey, Dustin (February 12, 2021). "Steam just reached 50,000 total games listed". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved February 12, 2021.
  398. ^ McAloon, Alissa (June 28, 2018). "Steam Direct sees 180 game releases per week, over twice as many as Greenlight did". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved June 29, 2018.
  399. ^ Pearson, Dan (April 21, 2011). "Valve: no Steam data for digital sales charts". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on November 11, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  400. ^ Parfitt, Ben (April 21, 2011). "Digital charts won't pick up Steam". MCV. Archived from the original on November 11, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  401. ^ Kuchera, Ben (July 2, 2012). "Why it's time to grow up and start ignoring the monthly NPD reports". Penny Arcade Report. Archived from the original on March 6, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  402. ^ OhmWrecker. "Garry's Mod Breaks 1 Million Sold, First Peek At Sales Chart". Voodoo Extreme. IGN. Archived from the original on November 11, 2013. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  403. ^ Hall, Charlie (April 3, 2015). "Steam Spy scrapes Steam user accounts to estimate sales data". Polygon. Archived from the original on August 15, 2015. Retrieved September 1, 2015.
  404. ^ Bratt, Chriss (April 11, 2018). "Why Steam Spy has to close, from the creator himself". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on February 27, 2019. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  405. ^ Bailey, Dustin (July 4, 2018). "Valve shuts down another way to estimate Steam sales, and indie devs aren't happy". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on July 4, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
  406. ^ Bailey, Dustin (June 28, 2018). "Valve plans to replace Steam Spy with 'something better'". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved June 29, 2018.
  407. ^ Bourdeau, Ian (August 7, 2020). "You can estimate how many copies a game has sold on Steam using reviews". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on August 26, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  408. ^ Cobbett, Richard (September 19, 2010). "Is indie gaming the future?". TechRadar. Archived from the original on December 4, 2022. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  409. ^ Abrishamchian, Babak (April 24, 2018). "Valve Has A Serious Curation Problem, And It Could Ruin Steam For Everyone". Kinja. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  410. ^ Douglas, Dante (February 5, 2018). "Steam Has Failed at Curation and Moderation". Paste. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  411. ^ Lee, Dave (June 7, 2018). "Steam games store to 'allow everything'". BBC. Archived from the original on June 8, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  412. ^ Donnelly, Joe (June 7, 2018). "The games industry reacts to Valve's divisive Steam Store curation policy". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on June 7, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  413. ^ Orland, Kyle (June 7, 2018). "Op-ed: Valve takes a side by not 'taking sides' in curation controversy". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 7, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  414. ^ Kidwell, Emma (June 7, 2018). "Valve's new policy on Steam games splits opinions among devs". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  415. ^ Fogel, Stefanie (June 8, 2018). "National Center on Sexual Exploitation Denounces New Steam Policy". Variety. Archived from the original on June 8, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  416. ^ Hartley, Adam. "Does Steam have an unfair monopoly over PC gaming?". TechRadar. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  417. ^ Morrison, Angus (January 5, 2016). "Steam games market worth $3.5 billion in 2015". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  418. ^ a b Graft, Kris (November 19, 2009). "Stardock Reveals Impulse, Steam Market Share Estimates". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on November 21, 2009. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
  419. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (November 11, 2010). "Shops slam Steam 'monopoly'". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  420. ^ Lockley, Greg (November 8, 2013). "Breaking the Steam monopoly". MCV. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
  421. ^ Barrett, Ben (April 11, 2016). "Is Steam too powerful? Indie devs consider Valve's dominant position". PCGamesN. Network N. Archived from the original on April 11, 2016. Retrieved April 11, 2016.
  422. ^ Chiang, Oliver. "The Master of Online Mayhem". Forbes. Archived from the original on February 13, 2011. Retrieved February 14, 2011.
  423. ^ Marks, Tom (October 7, 2019). "Report: Steam's 30% Cut Is Actually the Industry Standard". IGN. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 7, 2019.
  424. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (January 24, 2019). "Just 6% of devs say Steam earns its 30% cut - Survey". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 3, 2023. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  425. ^ Jones, Richard-Scott (August 23, 2017). "Steam could be profitable with an 8% cut rather than 30%, says Tim Sweeney". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on January 20, 2019. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  426. ^ Frank, Allegra (December 4, 2018). "Epic Games is launching its own store, and taking a smaller cut than Steam". Polygon. Archived from the original on January 20, 2019. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  427. ^ Goslin, Austin (December 14, 2018). "In the race to beat Steam, the Discord Store just made a huge move". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 14, 2018. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  428. ^ Alex, Leigh (November 6, 2009). "Direct2Drive Tussles With Valve By Declining To Sell Steamworks-Powere". Game Developer. Archived from the original on May 28, 2023. Retrieved July 16, 2022.
  429. ^ Martin, Matt (November 26, 2009). "Valve: Rivals miss out by boycotting Steamworks games". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved July 16, 2022.
  430. ^ DRING, CHRISTOPHER (December 11, 2010). "Retail threatens Steam ban". MCV. ISSN 1469-4832. Archived from the original on June 4, 2022. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  431. ^ "Australia deflates Valve with Steam sueball". The Register. September 1, 2014. Archived from the original on January 5, 2016. Retrieved January 8, 2016.
  432. ^ Good, Owen (March 29, 2016). "Court rules Valve broke Australian consumer law". Polygon. Archived from the original on March 29, 2016. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
  433. ^ Walker, Alex (December 23, 2016). "Australian Court Fines Valve $2.1 Million Over Refund Policy". Kotaku. Archived from the original on December 24, 2016. Retrieved December 25, 2016.
  434. ^ Makuch, Eddie (January 22, 2018). "Ordered To Pay $3 Million Fine, Valve Files Another Appeal In Australia". GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 23, 2018. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  435. ^ Makuch, Eddie (April 19, 2018). "Valve Loses Appeal For $3 Million Fine In Australia". GameSpot. Archived from the original on April 20, 2018. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  436. ^ Bailey, Dustin (September 18, 2018). "Steam and Uplay are both getting fined in France for bad refund policies". PCGamesN. Archived from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
  437. ^ Nutt, Christian (December 17, 2015). "French consumer group sues Valve over Steam policies". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on December 18, 2015. Retrieved December 17, 2015.
  438. ^ Tarason, Dominiac (September 19, 2019). "Valve will appeal French courts ruling that Steam cannot ban resale of 'dematerialised' games (updated)". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 9, 2020. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
  439. ^ Campbell, Colin (September 19, 2019). "French court rules that Steam's ban on reselling used games is contrary to European law". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 19, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
  440. ^ Calvin, Alex (September 23, 2019). "European video games trade body says France's Steam ruling goes against EU law". PC Games Insider. Archived from the original on September 23, 2019. Retrieved September 23, 2019.
  441. ^ Warr, Philippa (August 31, 2016). "BT Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Valve". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  442. ^ Handrahan, Matthew (February 2, 2017). "Valve under investigation by European Commission for Steam geo-blocking". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  443. ^ Sinclair, Brendan (February 3, 2017). "SNJV takes issue with Steam investigation". GamesIndustry.biz. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  444. ^ Yin-Poole, Wesley (January 20, 2021). "European Commission fines Valve and five publishers €7.8m for geo-blocking Steam games". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  445. ^ Magdiril, Phoebe. "Valve, 5 publishers face EU fines over 'geo-blocking'". S&P Global. Archived from the original on December 29, 2021. Retrieved December 29, 2021.
  446. ^ Gardner, Eriq (January 29, 2021). "Popular Gaming Platform Accused of Abusing Market Power Through Contracts". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on January 29, 2021. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  447. ^ Carless, Simon (February 1, 2021). "Is Steam really conspiring to price fix?". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 1, 2021. Retrieved February 1, 2021.
  448. ^ Chalk, Andy (April 29, 2021). "Overgrowth developer Wolfire Games files antitrust lawsuit against Valve". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on April 29, 2021. Retrieved April 29, 2021.
  449. ^ Chalk, Andy (July 29, 2021). "Valve responds to antitrust lawsuit, defends Steam's 30% cut". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on July 29, 2021. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
  450. ^ Chalk, Andy (November 19, 2021). "Judge dismisses antitrust lawsuit filed against Valve". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on November 20, 2021. Retrieved November 19, 2021.
  451. ^ Leonard, Mike (May 9, 2022). "Valve Loses Bid to End Antitrust Case Over Steam Gaming Platform". Bloomberg Law. Archived from the original on May 10, 2022. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  452. ^ McEvoy, Sophie (November 24, 2023). "Gabe Newell ordered to make in-person deposition for Valve v. Wolfire Games lawsuit". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved November 24, 2023.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]