Despite the challenge that Epic Games raised against it, Valve's Steam remains the digital game distribution platform of choice for the majority of developers and publishers. That, however, doesn't mean it offers the best experience when browsing and looking for games. After 16 years, Valve is finally changing the face of Steam and those who want to try it out can now do so. At their own risk, of course.
Discovery on Steam is something that has always been difficult to perfect, due in part to the sheer number of games on the service. Steam has attempted to improve the discovery system over the years, and while some aspects have gotten better, sometimes people still encounter recommendations that don't make much sense. Today, Valve issued an update to Steam Discovery, and the changes it's making could be pretty big.
Several new experimental features were released today in Steam in the system called Steam Labs. This ecosystem is a place where Valve tests its newest ways in which users can find, view, follow along with, and likely BUY new games. Users can have a peek at the system through Steam Labs right this minute - assuming you're all about testing things that aren't yet fully realized, of course.
In a week or two, Google will be giving more details about its Stadia game streaming platform. Together with the likes of Microsoft xCloud and even older platforms like NVIDIA GeForce Now, it almost sounds like the industry is heading towards a cloud gaming streaming future. That definitely has its perks as well as its drawbacks but there is a sort of middle ground that's being pushed by Valve and now Samsung in theory, offers the benefits of playing PC games on any device, though with some of its caveats.
The folks at Valve released new Valve Index VR headset kits today for immediate shipping in the USA. The Valve Index VR system was actually first released in late June, but "initial quantities were outpaced by demand." As Valve tells us today, "users were asked to reserve their hardware as new kits were in production." Today's the day when new kits begin to ship.
Valve has announced the free availability of 'Proto Pass' for its Dota Underlords strategy battle game. The title was released for everyone across multiple platforms last month, offering a standalone version of the Dota 2 Auto Chess mod for desktop and mobile. In the most recent update on the game, Valve has released the 'Proto Pass' for current beta testers, giving them a chance to try -- and critique -- the game's own battle pass.
Most PC gamers probably see steam only has a digital games store but developers will tell you that the platform is a lot more than that. While it offers developers some features like controller support, statistics, and others, platform maker Valve is also thinking about other features to add to the platform itself. Now it is gathering those experiments under a single Steam Labs roof for the public to see and, for the daring, to try out.
After spending just a few minutes with Valve's new Interactive Recommender for Steam, I can already see the massive improvement. I've been using app stores and game stores since before they were digital, and I've never experienced such a smooth process. This is a positive, well-planned, thoughtful, non-intrusive way to use machine learning, and I'm glad it was a gaming company that had to be the first to make it happen.
The Steam Link app for iOS has gone through quite an odyssey over the past year or so, but back in May, it reappeared on the App Store and now it seems like it's here to stay. Valve pushed the first major update for the Steam Link iOS app today and it's adding some pretty big features. Chief among them is the ability to remap your controllers, which is a pretty big deal for PC players.
Epic Games kicked up a storm when it announced its own Epic Games Store with a not so subtle challenge at Valve’s Steam and, more importantly, industry business practices. But while it presented itself as a champion of developers and gamers, both camps chided Epic Games for pushing developers and publishers to put their games exclusively on that store. Nowhere has that clamor been more audible than with the Shenmue 3 Kickstarter who will now be refunding backers who don’t feel like supporting Epic Games in any way whatsoever.
Those who have been following the leaks over the past few days probably won't be surprised by this news, but the Steam Summer Sale has officially kicked off. As always, this means deep discounts on much of Steam's catalog, giving price-conscious gamers the chance to pad out their libraries on the cheap. That's all well and good, but at the moment at least, there's one small problem.
Due in part to the feedback given to the group over the weekend and because of their connections with Valve, Canonical did an about-face today. They've suggested that feedback from gamers, Ubuntu Studio, and the WINE community led them to change their plan and will "build selected 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS. Whether this will change Valve's future with Ubuntu Steam, we'll see.