VALVE goes - OH VALVE!! :O

VALVE GIVES USERS THE POWER TO GREENLIGHT STEAM GAMES!!

Few days back valve announced a new system that enlists the community's help in picking some of the next games to be released on Steam

Using the new “GreenLight” service, game developers post information, screenshots, and videos for their game and seek a critical mass of community support in order to get selected for distribution.

“Over the many years that Steam has been selling games, the release rate of games on Steam has continued to grow significantly,” the company explained. “But given Steam's existing technological pipeline for releasing games, there's always been a reliance on a group of people to make tough choices on which games to not release on Steam. There are titles that have tied up this internal greenlight group in the past, and we knew there had to be a better way.”

Needless to say, the new system applies to smaller games only whereas blockbusters from large publishers such as Activision and EA will be published directly.

And no that's not all....

STEAM TO OFFER NON-GAMING SOFTWARE?

Steam could be set to offer more than just games to its users, if a screenshot of the Android application is anything to go by.

Displaying a variety of other "genres" beyond traditional games, the image shows: Accounting, Animation and Modelling, Audio Production, Design and Illustration, Education, Photo Editing, Software Training and Utilities. According to user comments at The Verge, currently none of the categories have anything in them, but it seems likely that at some point they will, suggesting that on Android at least, Valve is looking to expand the functionality of Steam.

The real question though is why? Photo editing, accounting, these are things that can be done with free and commercial software already. What does Valve stand to gain from making it possible to do these things through Steam? The best guess would be that it could make money, maybe partnering with established developers in these areas and either charging a few pence per usage, or some sort of subscription fee. Valve could also be looking to do a Steam Premium account system that costs a certain amount each month, and grants access to extra features.

Somewhere somehow, Valve will make a bit of cash from this. But maybe it won't be from consumers, it could instead be from the developers themselves. Perhaps those companies will end up paying Valve to use Steam as their distribution and promotional tool.

Whatever the delivery method in the end, Valve is pushing Steam forward. Whether it's because the company is just getting round to it now, or because EA's Origin put the scare in it a bit, who knows, but it's a good thing.

And plus, lastly but not least.....

VALVE ANNOUNCES PLANS TO BRING STEAM AND GAMES TO LINUX!!

Valve has decided to add Linux to its list of supported platforms.

As part of the new initiative, Valve will release a full-featured Steam client for Ubuntu 12.04 in the near future. After that, the company will release a complete port of Left 4 Dead 2 followed by additional first party titles for the same Linux distribution.

Valve’s Linux team is also working on porting the company’s Source Engine to Linux so that third party developers would be able to use it to develop games for the free and open operating system.

For the time being, Valve is focusing its Linux development efforts on Ubuntu. Support for other Linux distributions might get added later. In the meanwhile, you can check Valve’s Linux team blog for updates on their progress.

Oh yes! STEAM gonna go big this summer! :D