The curious case of Steam

MK
Jan 25, 2017
3 min read

As kids, whenever me and my brother wanted to buy a new game and try it out on our Nintendo 64 or Gameboy, we had to “drag” our mother to the nearest electronics store, so we could purchase it. However, our little bubble of happiness would be easily burst, since in most cases, the store would have no stock of it…. And even if they had stock, the queues would be huge, turning this wonderful moment for us into a nightmare! Nevertheless, we would endure it, we would eventually buy the game, spend hours in front of the TV screen along with our favorite fictional characters.

Later on, we also had access to the “family’s” PC and expanded our range of games. We added CD cases to our collection of gaming cassettes. Our gaming experience also elevated with the better internet connections that we had. As we grew up, so did the gaming industry.

Currently, in my gaming collection I have 9 - 10 games that I play, depending on my mood. However, I do not own ANY hard-copies. None. But, I store online, on my Steam account.

First of all, Steam is owned by Valve, an entertainment software & technology company that was founded in 1996. It specialized in creating games (eg. Dota, CounterStrike, Half-Life & Left4Dead). It is also responsible for developing the game engine Source, and the online gaming platform Steam. The platform allows you to buy, store, access and play videogames online, by using your very special designated account (which by the way you can access via any PC).

What Valve achieved to do (at least for the majority of PC users), is crush the market of Video-game stores. No more waiting in long queues and no more disappointments when reaching the counter and learning that it is out of stock!

Moreover, many gamers are also given the chance to pre-buy an announced game before its final release and have access to special content and even help in the development of the game itself! Imagine, if you are a passionate gamer and you know that you contributed to the end product (alpha or beta-testers).

However, Steam is not only an online buying store! You can do much more than endless browsing among thousands of titles in their store.

It is an entire online community page.

Each user has their own profile, nickname, achievements (from the games they play), friend list & connections, and even badges and awards depending their involvement to the community, their gaming performance and their participation in improving the community. Therefore, when a user is active, he is visible to their friend list. Some games also allow other users to spectate your game-play.

Finally, another great aspect of Steam is the Greenlight Community (soon to be replaced by Steam Direct). In Greenlight, developers have the ability to pitch their games (by show casing a trailer, screenshots and a story-line), and let the community decide whether they give them the "Greenlight"in continuing to work on the project and whether they are willing to pay to play the game (the end product). If a game is successfully "Greenlit" by the community, Steam will allow the user to place their finished game on their store and sell it.