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Productivity and Creativity Software Coming To Steam
lga writes "Valve announced today in a press release that they are expanding Steam beyond games and will start to deliver other software. This means that Steam will compete directly with Microsoft's Windows Store and perhaps explains some of Gabe Newell's disdain for Windows 8. The ability to save documents to Steam Cloud space also brings Valve into competition with the likes of Dropbox and Skydrive. According to the press release, '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.'"
Just do it after you create and release Half-Life 3.
Their focus on Linux suddenly starts looking differently ...
Valve has, numerous times, banned users from Steam for violating policies (such as cheating). When only games are affected this is draconian, but understandable. However, what about when your kid cheats, and that gets your copy of Office taken away? All the documents you created?
This is something that will have to be addressed in the TOS before I would be comfortable putting too much in their care.
I should note the same issue affects Google... this is not unique to Steam.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
I hope that you can install the applications anywhere instead of only under the Steam directory without having to resort to symlinks like you do now if you want to split up your SteamApps directory to different locations.
If they come out with an operating system to compete with Windows and other windowed environments, it had better be 3d and run on the steam engine. The whole desktop ought to be a virtual 3D desktop, and all office productivity can now be done via gaming joystick. That might be awesome.
... software just based on how long it takes to launch things. If I want to play something it's not a big deal to wait the 10-20 seconds it takes to launch steam and waiting for it to connect to my account to allow the game to launch, but if I have some software I need to use for work and/or open/close several times that would get pretty annoying.
This said the steam advantages (and the inevitable steam sales) might make it more likely that people would overlook the speed issues, I am not sure.
-- the cake is a lie
You gotta love that name.
I should have said in the summary that this all starts on the 5th of September.
A latent existence
I doubt you're in their target market.
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I'm not sure what to think of this- by becoming a direct competitor to the Windows 8 app store, isn't Steam losing its differentiation as a specialty store for games? This might end up hurting them in the long run.
I like the sound of this initially. One drawback to current App stores is they are locked to a single platform (ie. OS). Apple's App store only works on Apple devices. Android's various marketplaces only work on Android devices. the Windows App store apps will work only on Windows devices.
Here Steam has the chance to let the same apps work on any OS you want as long as the app developers will support it. Login to your Steam account anywhere and install that must-have-software on any machine no matter where you are or what you have. And if your application can be easily distributed through one channel to all your users, so much the better for you! I hope Steam finds success here.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
I think he means with the windows 8 store. Valve is desperately (not necessarily correctly) trying to find something to keep them alive when the windows 8 app store rolls around. They are thinking (possibly completely wrongly) that people won't want to use steam when there's an official MS store.
I suspect they're wrong though, I suspect that the windows store will end up full of crap, including apps for webpages and that nonsense, and valve can own a chunk of the premium store market for windows (and linux).
So, out of curiosity I decided to disagree to the last update to Steam EULA - you will lose *all* access, not just future updates, but everything you have or had with steam will be blocked unless you agree to their terms. Note, their terms and conditions specifically calls for a 30 days heads up for you to save your stuff, this is nice and all, except you don't get 30 days warning and you sure as hell don't get to access your offline items.
And they want us to trust them with our files?
Oh, and their support response to inquiries with regards to the illegal blockage of my applications. "We believe this update to terms and conditions are in your best interest".
Most parents would not want to buy 3 copies of a game for ONE COMPUTER just so their kids could play too.
On the other hand, my aunt already bought two copies of a Mojang title so that two of her kids could play together. It's too bad most PC game developers are too greedy to implement spawn installation or screen sharing.
I would never use a system like this for business or produtivity (that includes all cloud crap like Office 365, Google Docs etc as well). The motivation is purely to stone-wall other app stores off (such as the Windows App Store) and take as much market share and control as possible rather than to provide a fair and reasonable service.
The moment you're a customer, they don't care about you as you're locked in. Also the motivations - sorry but:
easy installation - it's not hard to install anything.
automatic updating - most software does this.
ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you - I've got a fucking laptop with a hard disk dammit.
I hate saying this but you've got to be very lazy or stupid to trust one of these services.
Don't underestimate the energy that Microsoft will put behind squashing the competition once they roll out their own product.
They will put every single effort they can trying to kick Steam out of the business.
Yup, probably that the official MS store will be crap. But Microsoft has an history of successfully managing to destroy competition by bundling inferior products (As an example: real-time compression almost died during the Stacker vs. Doublespace saga).
Valve is completely right in attempting to get prepared for the worst.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Also, when you're able to run them anywhere.
Steam needs to separate accounts from app instances. For example, I should be able to run Photoshop or Maya from computer "A" while my game is running on computer "B", despite them being on the same account. What should be blocked is running a copy of the same application simultaneously on computer "A" and "B".
At the moment, instance permission is account-level, rather than application-level. If they want to bring in non-games, that would be a deal-breaker for me as I often may have multiple things going on at once (say playing a game while something is rendering, etc)
This is the part I can't understand. Why would a Microsoft App Store make it less likely people will use Steam? Is Microsoft going to have distribution deals with every game developer?
Right now, the number of games that I'd be interested in that are NOT on Steam is extremely small. In the past year, there's been only one game I wanted to check out that I couldn't buy on Steam. Fortunately I was able to play it before I bought it because it didn't turn out to be any good after all.
Steam covers my PC gaming needs. I really don't see myself suddenly deciding I'm only going to buy games from Microsoft, especially since the only time I think of "games" and "Microsoft" in the same context is whenever I get angry at how horrible Windows Live for Games is. Every time I go to play a game and see "Games for Windows Live" my stomach sinks because I know it's going to be an extra layer of hassle, such as Arkham City.
If somebody gives me a choice between MS and Steam, I'll pick Steam 10 times out of 10. If Microsoft decides I can't have that choice, I'll go to whichever platform supports Steam. Hell, the only reason I use Windows at all is to play PC games. If those games move to a different platform, so will I.
You are welcome on my lawn.