Valve shares SteamWorks toolset with PC development world

by Christopher Grant { Jan 29th 2008 at 9:45PM }

In a bold move to further establish Steam as the de facto PC gaming service, Valve has unveiled SteamWorks, a "complete suite of publishing tools" they're releasing to the PC development community at large for free ... as in no money. What exactly comprises said suite? Real-time stats on everything from sales (seeya NPD!) to gameplay (charts are fun); encryption tied to product activation (piracy-b-gone); territory control "to help curb gray market"; auto updating to keep your games up-to-date; voice chat for the eloquent discussion of gameplay elements while playing online; matchmaking support, ala Counter-Strike and TF2; "social networking services" like achievements, avatars, etc.; and fancy development tools for things like QA and play testing.

Sure sounds like a lot, right? Devs can pick and choose at will, without giving the fine folks at Valve dollar one so, instead of reinventing the wheel, they can get down to the busy work of making fun games. Those games can be released on Steam (obviously) or even through competing digital distribution and retail channels. Jason Holtman, Valve business director – and winner of the most altruistic businessman of '08 award – told Next-Gen, "By not charging for this, it's just another way to get more people onto Steam and to enjoy all the games. Our motivations here are pretty clear." And with that, Valve has made their second big push to become the de facto PC gaming service, the Xbox Live for PC games if you will. It's your move now, Games for Windows.

Read – Valve Unveils SteamWorks
Read – Interview: Valve Unveils Steamworks [Next-Gen]

Tags: BreakingNews, Steam, SteamWorks, Valve

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Cian @ Jan 29th 2008 9:55PM

Sweet may utilize this in the future.

paragraph @ Jan 29th 2008 9:57PM

Interesting, any word on release? and if it requires you submit your game on steam? or even if it HAS to be a game...

i could definitely make good use of the product-key tools.

Shawn @ Jan 29th 2008 10:28PM

Valve rocks, no other company like them, not to mention how awesome STEAM is.

SReg @ Jan 29th 2008 10:34PM

This is bad news for me because I can't stand Steam.

I hope there aren't too many developers that will use this...

Einhanderkiller @ Jan 29th 2008 10:36PM

This is great news for me because I love Steam.

I hope there are many developers who will use this.

jynxycat @ Jan 29th 2008 10:54PM

owned.

Honestly, hating on Steam was cool like 2 years ago. It's a meticulously crafted application at this point.

Poisoned Al @ Jan 30th 2008 7:38AM

I'm guessing people still remember the Steam of old when it was little more then DRM for Half Life 2 (or just trolling dicks who have PCs so old they have to wind them up). Now it's the best online games distribution service on the net. Spyware and forced ad free with loads of cool features that put the likes of gamespy and Live for windows to shame. AND you pay nothing for it.

Shikatsu @ Jan 30th 2008 2:51PM

I was ravenously anti-steam when they first required it for HL2 Activation, but since, I've moved thrice, losing most of my older CDs, and built a new box from scratch.
I gotta tell you, being able to download HL2 and the associated expansions, discovering Steam's ever-expansive store, and the introduction of the steam community has COMPLETELY changed my mind about the system.
Now, I'm MUCH more likely to purchase a game if it's a steam release than I would otherwise.

jynxycat @ Jan 29th 2008 10:55PM

This is a godsend for PC gamers as well as developers.

It gives them a MUCH better solution than going with the "Games for Windows - LIVE" approach.

Demaar @ Jan 29th 2008 10:57PM

Territory control?! It's the God damned INTERNET! If they're selling it via steam, then it doesn't matter if a European or whoever imports a game, since they could just as easily get it off the Internet, right?

Can someone explain this to me? It sounds fricken stupid without an explanation.

BananaBoat @ Jan 29th 2008 11:30PM

It may be the internet, but copyright law still applies. For instance, if a company from the USA owns game A, and then they sell the publishing rights to a company in a foreign country (to be sold in that country) they would be taking away from those sales, if they allowed people from that country to purchase the game.

It's dumb, it's draconian, but it's the way things are. Luckily most PC games from foreign markets (Japan in particular) don't have any sort of region encoding, and better still, consoles such as the PS3 are starting the no-region coding revolution.

Demaar @ Jan 29th 2008 11:36PM

True... I guess I just never expected anyone using Steam as a platform to sell games to even bother selling international rights when the Internet is the best delivery method.

I'll wish Valve good luck regardless.

Virduk @ Jan 29th 2008 11:44PM

Yeah. Territory controls keep me from buying anything from Steam. In fact that what has me against buying any media online.

t_m @ Jan 30th 2008 8:15AM

Territory control is the bane of the digital age.. i'm fed up with how many cool services, websites and media I can't access because I happen to be out of the USA.

That said, steam works great from here in Japan.. its by far the easiest way for me to get english language games. Only annoying thing is that Dark Messiah doesn't seem to be available for me.

(ps/ gametap USED to be the best way.. but then they added territory control... grrr!!)

Jeff @ Jan 29th 2008 11:11PM

This is really amazing-- this is Xbox Live for PC. And it's piracy protection. And it's never having to put a damn disk in my drive again!

I have been praying for something like this forever.

Games for Windows needs to go free as quickly as possible if they don't want to die a speedy death made of epic phail. Even if they did today, it's probably too late. Steam is a brand people like and respect; GFW is the opposite, if anything.

BananaBoat @ Jan 29th 2008 11:36PM

If you hadn't noticed, people hate steam, they hate DRM, and they are completely susceptible to trolling.

Carry on sir.

jynxycat @ Jan 30th 2008 12:42AM

People hate GFW-Live more.

It's what PC gaming is already, but it costs money.

octoberasian @ Jan 29th 2008 11:37PM

Honestly, I'd rather use Steam over anything else, including the Windows Live for Games for Windows. I'm glad Valve released this. And, better yet, the tools are free so that will be a great boon to any game developer.

DangerMouse @ Jan 29th 2008 11:39PM

Very cool stuff. I'd love to see a company like Capcom jump on-board with their street fighter series, with online compatibility utilizing Steam's matchmaking service. That'd be a dream come true. The options are limitless. Well done Valive.

Deck @ Jan 29th 2008 11:48PM

Maybe its my fear of Viruses... but I would rather have a physical disk.

Chrizzle @ Jan 30th 2008 12:05AM

You know what happens if you get a virus with Steam right? You fix up your computer, log on to your Steam account and download the game again. The games you buy on Steam are tied to your account and can redownload at your leisure.

Much better than having a physical copy IMO, especially since one time I had my drive eat my copy of StarCraft BW and spit it out in 3 shards. Had to buy another copy.

Sean @ Jan 30th 2008 2:24AM

Y'know, I used to feel the same way about digital distribution... that I liked disks better. But, the truth of the matter is, there is no good reason to use physical media -if- the system is reliable. I have good faith in Valve, and Steam in particular. If you take a look at their terms, they include a very generous contingency if they every (Heaven forbid!) discontinue Steam. Also, you can re-download anything you've paid for at any point. Finally, if the black day arrived when Steam was no more, and Valve defunct, then surely the Internet will outlive them, and you can find all the games there, with a thriving community to support them.

Also, they are games. Buy them for enjoyment, not for worrying.

--Branewalker

jynxycat @ Jan 30th 2008 12:43AM

Maybe it's that you're clueless when it comes to computers ?

Getting a virus from downloading a game off Steam is as likely as your computer getting infected from downloading MSN messenger.

Moofree @ Jan 30th 2008 1:23AM

He didn't mean that steam would give you a virus, he meant that if you get your games from steam, you can re-download the game in the event of a hard drive crash/reformat/virus/etc...

Steam has improved much since the original release. I'm still not a fan of it, but it does work, and it is pretty nifty.

At least Steam has always been better than WON.

Moofree @ Jan 30th 2008 1:27AM

Oops, mistook the wrong one for the parent post.

Deck @ Jan 30th 2008 12:07PM

Hrmm well that clears some things up. Honestly I didn't know their lenient re-download policy. That really helps and is a reassurance.

@Moofree: Thanks for clearing up the point of my post to the guy who mistook my wording :)

And yes, I meant by a hard drive crash, virus or something from other means, not by steam. I've had to reformat numerous times in the past so that is just something I think about before going digital. But anyway... thanks for the information!

James @ Feb 8th 2008 11:02PM

I already moved away from physical discs on almost everything else. I have an R4, so I buy DS games, rip 'em, and throw 'em in a crate. I rip DVDs to H.264 so I can stream them to my PS3 and 360, then I throw 'em in a crate. I have several copy-paper boxes full of DVDs and games I'll never open again unless I have a catastrophic multiple hard disk failure, and I'm thrilled.

B1gC72 - PSN: KillaKornbread @ Jan 30th 2008 12:45AM

cool. i think a streamlined unified approach to online gaming and community features is certainly the way the go (ala Live and PSN). i havent used Steam since my PC isnt really equipped to play many games but it does sound cool none the less. and you cant beat free either.

Blazur @ Jan 30th 2008 8:27AM

Steam really is a well built system. My only gripe with it is that once you register a CD key, it's permanently locked down meaning you can never sell that game. It really irks me that I got another copy of HL2 when I bought Orange Box, and I can't even ebay the previous version because not other user will be able to register it unless I give up my account credentials. That's pretty bullshit to me...

Tyler @ Jan 30th 2008 10:07AM

how badly do you need that 15 bucks, man?

Blazur @ Jan 30th 2008 11:13AM

The $15 isn't the issue at hand, it's the distribution strategy they're employing that is flawed. If this company can get away with it than others will try the same. I hand planned on keeping HL2 for its quality, but if I purchased a crappy game for $60, beat it in a week, and then was unable to resell the product I'd be very disappointed.

It can get very expensive buying new games. And usually once you beat a single player game there's little reason to go back and play it. With eBay you can resell the game and generally make back 90% of the cost if sold relatively early, and then you can buy another game.

Realistically, much of the gaming target audience are young kids who don't have full-time jobs or are making tons of money. They can't afford to be buying $60 shelf pieces all the time.

Draco @ Jan 30th 2008 11:12AM

I like the fact that I can go anywhere in the world, log into my account and download games onto the system...

Used to have Lan parties in the university computer lab playin CS 1.5, back in the day because the computers somehow let steam install. and we all had a steam_id.

stik_man @ Jan 30th 2008 12:49PM

I think it's great. I'm not a big fan of DRM but I am a big fan of auto updates and patches. I think that alone will be a big push for indie and DIY'ers to pick this up. No longer do they have to publish a new pack on some obscure website. just auto update. I think it will go a long way in helping a lot of people get their names and games out there and thats just good for all of us.

Joe H @ Jan 30th 2008 5:47PM

As someone who has in the past downloaded many games using unscrupulous measures, I have to say that before Steam I never bought a single PC game. On Steam I currently have bought nearly 30. Obviously, the fact that I now have a steady income has quite a bit to do with it, but the main reason is the convenience and usability of the system. It's come to the point where I won't buy Crysis simply because its not on Steam (EA's direct downloading is horrible, the ToS really screw the customer over... 6 months of downloading unless you pay an extra charge, what's with that?).

However, the one thing that is ridiculous about Steam at times is pricing. I realize that it costs money to host the files, but honestly, no box, no manual, no disc.... why should I pay the same price for the online version that I do for a box version? I feel like the Steam versions should be $5 cheaper than the retail ones.