- Credits
- 23,481
Games maker Valve has announced that it will begin offering non-game software through its popular Steam online content delivery platform, expanding the role of the service from a gaming destination to a general-purpose app store for desktop computers.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," Valve's Mark Richardson said in a statement. "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."
The creator of the Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Portal game franchises did not reveal what non-game titles would be available on the revamped service, which launched on September 5, but said that they would range "from creativity to productivity."
Developers who create applications for the Steam platform will be able to take advantage of Valve's Steamworks APIs, which enable such features as automatic software updates and the ability to save files to Valve-hosted servers, the company said.
The Register
Interesting, I wonder would Steam also provide technical support, fix problems with the software, help tutorials, and education on how to use the software the user bought since regular software like Word Processors, and Photo editors are very different then computer games.
This would be good for people who are not very tech savvy, and rarely update their software to the latest version since Steam supports automatic updates according to the article.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," Valve's Mark Richardson said in a statement. "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."
The creator of the Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Portal game franchises did not reveal what non-game titles would be available on the revamped service, which launched on September 5, but said that they would range "from creativity to productivity."
Developers who create applications for the Steam platform will be able to take advantage of Valve's Steamworks APIs, which enable such features as automatic software updates and the ability to save files to Valve-hosted servers, the company said.
The Register
Interesting, I wonder would Steam also provide technical support, fix problems with the software, help tutorials, and education on how to use the software the user bought since regular software like Word Processors, and Photo editors are very different then computer games.
This would be good for people who are not very tech savvy, and rarely update their software to the latest version since Steam supports automatic updates according to the article.
