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Productivity and Creativity Software Coming To Steam

Posted by Soulskill on from the infinite-app-stores dept.

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.'"

17 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by Githaron · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just do it after you create and release Half-Life 3.

    1. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Half-Life 3 has been re-imagined as a suite of image editing software rather than a first-person single player action game, and will ship with this release.

    2. Re:Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I see that they're following the example of Master of Orion III, which instead of creating a sequel, they released some tax software with an alien interface.

    3. Re:Great! by toejam13 · · Score: 3, Funny

      So then, the new method to kill your foes in HL3 will be:

      Select the wand highlight tool
      Click on your opponent
      Select the Gaussian Obliterate tool, with pixel radius set to 50px
      If foe is not obliterated enough, select the Obliterate More tool

  2. Interesting ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Their focus on Linux suddenly starts looking differently ...

  3. Single Point of Failure by The+Raven · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Single Point of Failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Wow so let's see now. If I pay for software and do it legitimately then I am beholden to some single vendor who could take everything away from me that I paid for, tell me how it's all allowed in the ToS, and I'd go bankrupt trying to sue them in court before I ever got close to a verdict that would probably not be in my favor anyway. ... or ... I can go to the Pirate Bay and make a couple of quick downloads and have the assurance that I can do anything I want with it and use it any way I want and never have any such problems. Hmm... Gee that's a toughie.

      Just another example of the pirates having a better, more functional, more flexible, less restricted, more secure experience than the paying customers.

      You want to put a serious dent in piracy, first change that. Treat paying customers like you actually value their business. Until then...

    2. Re:Single Point of Failure by The+Raven · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This may be in the ToS, but it is not a practical requirement. Most parents would not want to buy 3 copies of a game for ONE COMPUTER just so their kids could play too.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
  4. Install locations by Xian97 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  5. I am not sure steam is ready for non-games... by MarcoAtWork · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... 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
    1. Re:I am not sure steam is ready for non-games... by jo_ham · · Score: 4, Funny

      Don't forget the achievements!

      It will be awesome when Photoshop gets achievements.

  6. Steam Cloud by Lynchenstein · · Score: 5, Funny

    You gotta love that name.

  7. Starting 05/09/2012 by lga · · Score: 4, Informative

    I should have said in the summary that this all starts on the 5th of September.

    --
    A latent existence
  8. Re:MS In-OS Store by Sir_Sri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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).

  9. Danger will! by Splab · · Score: 4, Informative

    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".

    1. Re:Danger will! by maxdread · · Score: 3, Funny

      Because it is! At least it is when you're looking for reasons to justify pirating everything.

  10. Don't underestimate Microsoft by DrYak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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 ]