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Joystiq

Valve puts saves and player identity online with Steamcloud

by Alexander Sliwinski on May 30th 2008 10:24AM

Valve announced its new Steamcloud service last night which will store Steam player data online, allowing gamers to access their save games, keyboard configurations, and any games they've purchased through Steam from anywhere in the universe. RPS attended the mini-press conference at Valve where Gabe Newell and company introduced Steamcloud and wanted to talk a little about all the negative press the PC games market has been getting.

Valve strongly believes that PC at retail is not doomed and explains that when the company holds free weekends for games on Steam, it results in stronger sales at retail; Newell jokes that retail must have some kind of magic. The company says that future innovations for Steam (beyond Steamcloud) include driver auto-updating and the continued expansion of the game catalog.

[Via Big Download]

Source

Tags: BreakingNews, gabe-newell, PC, steam, steamcloud, steamworks, valve

Reader Comments (42)

Valve is really a great gaming company. They do the right things...

=p

By the way, great picture!

Oh you're just saying that because you know they hate Sony.

They still kick ass though.

Indeed, VALVe and Blizzard represent the cream of the crop in the gaming industry. Every one of their games is worth checking out at one point or another.

They pretty much own PC gaming now. Steam vs Wii vs 360 vs ps3.

But yea Valve are great. Best games and best service! Can't fault that!

I wish xbox live had this... I pay for XBL too, come on microsoft, find the ball and get on it.

Yeah valve is one of the best devs out there, and the best publisher ^^

As an old PC hand, I really hope this works. Not only would it make the PC a viable platform again, the service is really handy anyway.

Auto updating games and drivers as well as a requirements check would take most of the hassle out of PC gaming finally. I'm skilled enough to handle it but it will help me win over some of my console gamer friends if they add these features to Steam.

That would be true except that some companies make some damn stupid updates. Making a game that works right out of the box WITHOUT UPDATES would be even better than relying on an internet connection that can handle a 1gb patch.

This is great for those of us who have more than one PC they play on. I have a lappy that I play on most of the time, but I have my killer pc on my big screeen TV. I hate that I had to split up my gave on the two computers because of the saves and setting.

The keyboard configuration access alone sold me. Hopefully it also keeps other prefs like your auto buys and such

Yes his sword is big, and yes he uses it to its fullest potential.

This is reallly exciting, I've always wished that Steam saved your save games as well as the games themselves. This will be super handy for windows re-installs or when you're on a friend's computer... Having all your saved data available anywhere. Valve is great.

I just wonder if this kind of service will be optional with a subscription fee though, or if it will be for all steam users.

i doubt its subscription, their already running unlimited demo and HD video downloads (1 movie, zombie movie is 30+ minutes) at 600kbps for free.

This is excellent! The convenience of being able to switch back and forth between my lappy and desktop without really noticing a different. That is priceless.

Valve continues to do the right things when it comes to the PC market. I am glad they are still strongly supporting it and in strong belief that it is not dieing.

He had me at hello.

Auto driver updating? Count me in!

I hope it auto-rollback's just incase, too.

I'm worried about that one.

Steam constantly keeps telling me that I need to update my drivers... failing to realise that, because Nvidia are lazy bastards who don't support their mobile graphics cards, the only way for me to do that is through hacked drivers. :-(

i really wish Microsoft would do this for Xbox Live

Now say it 1 more time and click your heels. Ooops I posted too soon :(

This is exactly what Steam needs. Fuck they're so on the ball.

BTW, Beyond Good and Evil plays great on Steam, even with Windows Vista 64. It's a good way to get familiar with the story before part 2 comes out, and it's only 10 bones.

Not out in the UK Steam. Fookin whoever made Beyond Good and Evil.

B-sides I've still got so many games to play through on Steam. Skipping UT3 of course. Epic fail.

Yeah, so many good games only available on steam from the US. Next time I'm in the US on holiday I'm bringing a laptop and buying all the steam games I've missed out on :P (like Far Cry, Beyond Good and Evil, Assassin's Creed, ArmA etc)

Joystiq had me fooled there for a second... I thought this would be something about Final Fantasy VII to Steam, I would have gotten it :P

But seriously Valve and Blizzard are IMO the ONLY gaming companies that have a library of self-developped games that are ALL worth while. Blizzard is self-suffisiant (self-develop, self--publish) our days and Valve is just making PC gaming the most accessible thing in history. Both companies are bringing the REAL platform to the level it deserves.

For a split second, I thought Final Fantasy VII was coming to Steam. :(

Dude, I know! Blew my mind for a second and then I realized that it was a pun.

LOL I came back to post that too. Frizzin snizzin Joystiq getting my hopes up, frazzle razzle.

Lol, me too guys. :)

I was hoping that too for a second, but actually this Steamcloud seems pretty awesome!

Finally, people have only been requesting this (at least the save part) since the beginning of Steam.

I just wish EA would get on board already since their download program sucks. That'd be pretty much all the major publishers, since they already have Ubi, Eidos, id, Epic, 2k, Activision, etc.

Nice pic... The headline alone wouldn't have grabbed my attention, but i saw the pic and had to stop and read (All things FFVII seem to do that to me).

I'm not a PC gamer, so this doesn't do much for me. I can, however, recognize that this is a big thing for PC gamers. Valve has my respect, regardless of their view on my console (I own a PS3).

That sounds really cool.

You guys should have used those happy face clouds from Mario instead of FF7 Cloud. I was confused for a second, thinking FF7 was released on Steam or something.

woo. Personally id rather have more publishers on board, but this is pretty awesome.
im more exited about how dedicated they are to the PC.

Valve was also planning to have a Steamaeris service, but they killed off support of it halfway into development.

Too soon.

Seriously that's the best comment on this site ever. I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

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Breaking News

Valve puts saves and player identity online with Steamcloud

Reader Comments (42)

Posted: May 30th 2008 10:30AM FernandoRocker said

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