Steam, it's not just for games

by: John - posted: 8/9/2012 7:31:00 AM

Yesterday, Valve announced that Steam, the premier digital distribution system on the PC, will be expanding to other products. It won't just be serving games anymore.

Productivity and creative products will be offered through their service. What's nice is that the products offered will get the Steam features of auto updates, remote installs, Cloud saving, etc. No titles were announced yet, but I'm really interested to see what they are going to sell.

Of course, we're all going to wait for the Steam sale of apps to pick up most of what we want. I think they should hold a Winter Steam sale and keep the Summer for games. I'm joking of course, but wouldn't it be cool if they did do a Steam App Sale week?

STEAM EXPANDS BEYOND GAMES

Launch Set of "Software" Titles Coming Sept 5

Aug 8, 2012 -- Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first set of Software titles are heading to Steam, marking a major expansion to the platform most commonly known as a leading destination for PC and Mac games.

The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.

More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight.

"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Mark Richardson at Valve. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests."

For more information, please visit www.steampowered.com.