Valve Unveils Steamworks

[Hectic Glenn]

Steamworks is a complete suite of publishing and development tools - ranging from copy protection to social networking services to server browsing - it is now available free of charge to developers and publishers worldwide. The services included in Steamworks may be used a la carte or in any combination. So what will we be expecting to see?

• Real-time stats on sales, gameplay, and product activation: Know exactly how well your title is selling before the charts are released. Find out how much of your game is being played. Login into your Steamworks account pages and view up to the hour information regarding worldwide product activations and player data.
• State of the art encryption system: Stop paying to have your game pirated before it's released. Steamworks takes anti-piracy to a new level with strong encryption that keeps your game locked until the moment it is released
• Territory/version control: The key-based authentication provided in Steamworks also provides territory/version controls to help curb gray market importing and deliver territory-specific content to any given country or region.
• Auto updating: Insures all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games.
• Voice chat: Available for use both in and out of game.
• Multiplayer matchmaking: Steamworks offers you all the multiplayer backend and matchmaking services that have been created to support Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, the most played action games in the world.
• Social networking services: With support for achievements, leaderboards, and avatars, Steamworks allows you to give your gamers as many rewards as you would like, plus support for tracking the world's best professional and amateur players of your game.
• Development tools: Steamworks allows you to administer private betas which can be updated multiple times each day. Also includes data collection tools for QA, play testing, and usability studies.

Lord Gabe said on the matter...

Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today's market, Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing.

For more information see this interview with Jason Holtman Valve's Director of Business Development - Interview

 

[mchammer75040]

Thats great! This is why I love valve, always trying to push the industry in the right direction. :thumbs:

 

[Asknoone]

That is so awesome.

 

[Javert]

Can't Valve just go public now so I can buy their stock?

 

[PvtRyan]

Valve is awesome. The only hope for the PC game industry to be honest.

Can't Valve just go public now so I can buy their stock?

Only to see Valve get pushed into making finance instead of quality driven decisions by men in suits who haven't seen a videogame in their lives? Rather not see Valve owned by stockholders.

 

[Robinhood_01]

Territory/version control? to stop *grey market* importing! WHAT THE HELL? I import games BECAUSE AUSTRALIAN MARKUP IS SO FRICKIN OVERPRICED!

If what Activision did with Call of Duty 4 (basically charged Australians almost double the US) becomes the norm. Valve can kiss my ass goodbye, I'm not supporting anything which locks us out of fair pricing and competition.

 

[UseAbuse]

That's our Gabe

 

[DigiQ8]

<3 Valve

 

[Barnz]

I'm speechless.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

Awesome.

Although I do partly have to agree with Robinhood_01 I always liked how PC was largely region free and the prices of some games on steam due to region differences are ridiculous. (i.e. COD4 in europe is $70?!)

 

[Javert]

Only to see Valve get pushed into making finance instead of quality driven decisions by men in suits who haven't seen a videogame in their lives? Rather not see Valve owned by stockholders.

You know, Valve can still be their own majority insider-held shareholder. But I don't see finance being a problem for them besides debt.

 

[Epsi]

I SO CALLED IT!

http://steamreview.org/posts/steamplatform/

I really should be feeling unbearably smug right now, if I wasn't so happy!

 

[xrikazen]

Can't Valve just go public now so I can buy their stock?

My thoughts exactly when I saw this.

This is an incredibly intelligent move, IMO.

What I hope this brings is the ability to activate CDkeys from box games (non-valve) on Steam.

 

[Deleted member 56031]

What I hope this brings is the ability to activate CDkeys from box games (non-valve) on Steam.

Yeah I also really want this

 

[ríomhaire]

Hurray for free services!

 

[Betelgeuze]

nice of them!

 

[-Psy-]

Next stop - World Domination.

 

[Omnomnick]

Muhahahaha!!


I still don't fully understand why this is a good move for any of us. Can we now buy Valve stock or something?

 

[CyberPitz]

So, I'm confused. What does this mean, in stupid terms? I read it, and think, "So now everybody else can use Steam with their newly developed games? Or a Steam-like program?

 

[hool10]

So, I'm confused. What does this mean, in stupid terms? I read it, and think, "So now everybody else can use Steam with their newly developed games? Or a Steam-like program?

Probably a developer logs into Steam and Steam will give the developers the tools they need to patch the game, etc. I like this Valve guy that idles in the L4D411 chat room all the time. Alias is "BurtonJ" and he said Valve had a 4 hour meeting yesterday. That's the biggest meeting I heard and I can only assume this was the topic discussed.

 

[McGooTheWise]

Territory/version control? to stop *grey market* importing! WHAT THE HELL? I import games BECAUSE AUSTRALIAN MARKUP IS SO FRICKIN OVERPRICED!

If what Activision did with Call of Duty 4 (basically charged Australians almost double the US) becomes the norm. Valve can kiss my ass goodbye, I'm not supporting anything which locks us out of fair pricing and competition.

Goodbye then. I'm sure valve will care about your opinion in the future... sometime...

Anyways, this is great.

 

[Narvi]

Territory/version control? to stop *grey market* importing! WHAT THE HELL? I import games BECAUSE AUSTRALIAN MARKUP IS SO FRICKIN OVERPRICED!

If what Activision did with Call of Duty 4 (basically charged Australians almost double the US) becomes the norm. Valve can kiss my ass goodbye, I'm not supporting anything which locks us out of fair pricing and competition.

Territory/version control is actually quite an incentive for publishers. They like being able to screw you over.

 

[Blackout62]

I can see two downsides to this:
1. Alot of bad PC games that were made with valveworks and no effort
2. Bad source engine AI eevveerryywwhheerree!

 

[Buveed]

Amazing. And to top it off, the steam's server list is probably the best i've ever used for any online game. Acessing online servers from windows without having to get a third-party program is something i've always liked. The options are limitless for game developers.

 

[mchammer75040]

Heres an article on RPS about the implications of this:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=1011#more-1011
Intresting stuff.

 

[Qhartb]

I can see two downsides to this:
1. Alot of bad PC games that were made with valveworks and no effort
2. Bad source engine AI eevveerryywwhheerree!

1. This isn't Microsoft's XNA. It's not for making games. It's for making games better. Valve release the tools they use to make their games long ago (the SDK). This is them releasing the tools they use to drive their development, release, and maintainence cycles, bundled with a few packages that solve common problems that come up in many types of games (matchmaking, social networking, voice chat).

2. First off, this isn't Source-engine specific. Secondly, potential Source AI != HL2 AI. Thirdly, HL2 AI gets a bum rap because it's still a pretty easy game. Advanced AI != Challenging AI, and HL2 didn't have a challenging enough "hard" for many players.

 

[Pesmerga]

Wow Hectic, way to shut down someone else's thread and make your own. This is what I like to call thunder hogging.

 

[Kyorisu]

[*]Territory/version control: The key-based authentication provided in Steamworks also provides territory/version controls to help curb gray market importing and deliver territory-specific content to any given country or region.

:flame:

Basically the part where I pay twice as much as the Americans do (In USD). Yay.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

And still no update for dod:s...? lol valve

/facepalm

 

[soulslicer]

Good Move by Valve

Although yes, various price changes in games around the world in different countries pisses me off. For example, a while back Bioshock on Steam was 60 US Dollars. In my country, it was being sold at 50 Singapore Dollars. That's like a 30 dollar price difference! This has to be solved..

 

[Jintor]

Awesome shit.

 

[Kadayi]

Wow Hectic, way to shut down someone else's thread and make your own. This is what I like to call thunder hogging.

Pes

I posted it up in the Steam sub-forum when it dropped, but I got on the case to the mods through Steam chat to post it up as main News (because more people look there). It's no biggie that the original thread got closed tbh.

 

[Druckles]

Makes me want to mod.

 

[Absinthe]

As much as a pain in the ass territory control is, I hope you all realize that it's going to be more and more necessary if the PC is going to remain a viable game development platform for a lot of publishers and developers.

The rest of this is just fantastic. Brilliantly aggressive move on Valve's part, and all to the benefit of PC game makers and players alike.

 

[mchammer75040]

And still no update for dod:s...? lol valve

/facepalm

Oh God, no kidding. Arent we all still waiting around for an update we were supposed to get like...a year ago? I really hope they make a dod 2.

 

[Kyorisu]

As much as a pain in the ass territory control is, I hope you all realize that it's going to be more and more necessary if the PC is going to remain a viable game development platform for a lot of publishers and developers.

How do you figure? Mainly it hurts the industry because I simple refuse to pay twice in USD what Americans do. It's the box publishers killing the industry if you ask me. Much like with music the game of selling a boxed product is simply dying off. The legit downloaded copy then contains DRM and all manner of other bull crap that forces you to stay online. The cheaper alternative is piracy where there are no DRM issues at all. I will support any company who doesn't use DRM such as the case with GalCiv.

 

[Kadayi]

The cheaper alternative is piracy where there are no DRM issues at all.

Cheaper for whom exactly? It's not 'cheaper' it's called theft, plain and simple and if you think game developers are going to continue developing games for the PC given the enormous loses they are incurring as a result of rampant piracy, you're much mistaken.:dozey:

Certainly I think some developers need to wise up global pricing, but this will come inevitably.

 

[Absinthe]

How do you figure? Mainly it hurts the industry because I simple refuse to pay twice in USD what Americans do. It's the box publishers killing the industry if you ask me. Much like with music the game of selling a boxed product is simply dying off. The legit downloaded copy then contains DRM and all manner of other bull crap that forces you to stay online. The cheaper alternative is piracy where there are no DRM issues at all. I will support any company who doesn't use DRM such as the case with GalCiv.

I think you'll find that most people will continue to buy games despite price hikes, even if you don't.

If you want development for most games to continue on the PC, they need to have incentives. Saying that territory control sucks because it doesn't allow you to work around international price variances is not one of them. If the PC can't offer the same security and financial control console platforms do, then there's not a whole lot of other reasons for them to stay. Not in the face of paling PC game sales and heavy piracy.

The PC platform needs to start looking a lot more profitable, and that's going to require some give and take with the community. And if digital distribution really takes off, you'll probably be looking at cheaper prices across the board.

 

[Crispy]

Nice move, Valve. Power to the Indies!

 

[Kyorisu]

Saying that territory control sucks because it doesn't allow you to work around international price variances is not one of them.

I wonder what the hell happened to free trade. Oh well I can always keep using my VPN

Cheaper for whom exactly? It's not 'cheaper' it's called theft, plain and simple

I'm going to be a bitch just because I can and argue that no Piracy is not theft.

and if you think game developers are going to continue developing games for the PC given the enormous loses they are incurring as a result of rampant piracy, you're much mistaken.:dozey:

What losses? Again I'm being a bitch but I have a very good point here. You cannot prove in any way shape or form that a company has lost sales due to piracy.

The PC platform needs to start looking a lot more profitable, and that's going to require some give and take with the community. And if digital distribution really takes off, you'll probably be looking at cheaper prices across the board.

No that's BS. Publishers have routinely gotten away with the price hikes in Europe and Oceania. The only reason we pay the prices we do is because we're used to it. You cannot explain why a digital copy of game y should cost more in Oceania. Or in such the case of COD4 the digital copy cost more than the physical copy.