Steam to distribute software starting September 5th 2012

[Omnomnick]

A little while back, we noticed a small update to the Steam mobile app added a variety of new categories to the Steam store, all of which were relevant to types of software different from the current game categories. Now, Valve has officially announced that they will begin to distribute software on Steam beginning September 5th 2012.

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first set of Software titles are heading to Steam, marking a major expansion to the platform most commonly known as a leading destination for PC and Mac games.

Valve are also keen to mention that Steam Greenlight will be one way for developers to get their software added to Steam.

More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight.

What do you think Valve will include in the opening set of software titles? In a recent interview, Gabe mentioned how he had been talking to Adobe about the concept of offering their software as "Free to Play", could the Adobe suite be a part of the first round of software titles to be released on Steam? Only time will tell. Stay tuned for more updates soon. Check out the official press release here.

 

[Dr.IndianaJones]

I support this 110% It would be awesome to have all my graphic design programs on steam. Then I only have to launch one thing and that is Steam.

 

[John1986]

what kind of software anyway just drivers or windows 8?

 

[Vegeta897]

Let's get Renoise on there!

But really I wonder if there will be any music/daw software.

 

[The RaDaMaNt]

Photoshop with 90% discount :bounce:

 

[BakonGuy]

I don't know if I'll like this or not =/

Guess I'll see in September...

 

[Vegeta897]

Funnily enough, somebody actually made a thread on the Renoise forums asking if they were interested in this: http://forum.renoise.com/index.php?/topic/35829-steam-to-start-selling-non-gaming-software/

One of the responses:

Has potential. Non-retail software market is so all over the place (except games) that this might actually lead to something.

Not something I'd probably use much, since resale value is important to me and pricing of games is very different to other software. Games are released, price goes down month by month and eventually it gets sequel or not. Many other forms of software are developed for years and years after the release, get updated and evolve, which leads to price not dropping by time.

Also my understanding is that you don't have total control over sale discounts, but they are negotiated with Valve and eventually their decision based on quality of product, past sale history/money income or how nice some guy at Valve considers your company, position of moon, etc. (And cannot be "bought"). Might be only case if you want to be one of the front page featured discount sales tho.

 

[Krynn72]

This is where I start getting iffy. Steam's policy of basically never unbanning accounts can lead to some ****ed up situations, and I'm not sure I'd want to risk losing software due to my account getting hacked. Its one thing if I lose my leisure items, but any work-related (or I guess, any "productive") software is a whole different game. I'll only buy software if I can also use the license without Steam and download it separately in the event my Steam account ever has issues.

 

[sixteenth]

On one hand, I really have to commend Valve for bringing so much to gaming community and their attempt to expand their collection of downloadable content even further. Yet, on the other hand, I can't totally agree with the decision because this is going to make Steam much bigger and there are not really any other comparable, competitive services out there at the moment.

 

[Paulaner]

Nice move. There's a lot of good software out there. It could really benefit from a wider audience. We could have lower prices, better deals and less silly DRM

 

[ríomhaire]

This is where I start getting iffy. Steam's policy of basically never unbanning accounts can lead to some ****ed up situations, and I'm not sure I'd want to risk losing software due to my account getting hacked. Its one thing if I lose my leisure items, but any work-related (or I guess, any "productive") software is a whole different game. I'll only buy software if I can also use the license without Steam and download it separately in the event my Steam account ever has issues.

One bad transaction no longer shuts down your whole Steam account. It just prevents you from launching that particular game or buying anything new on the account until it's sorted out. So it's not as bad as it used to be. Plus developers do not have to use Steam DRM, so even if your account is banned anything without DRM you can continue to use.

 

[Stigmata]

I'm going to keep posting the word "Steambox" in any news thread about Valve and Linux/software, and nothing but the eventual and inescapably real release of the Steambox is going to stop me.

 

[adz]

Looking forward to this.

 

[Hawk56]

Can we just have a Steam OS already?

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Sweet, hope they get EnCase 7!