IGN interviewed Doug Lombardi at a recent EA press event, and are now reporting Valve’s interest in providing a gamepad peripheral:
Though there are certainly gamepads out there for PC players to use (the Xbox 360 controller, for example), Lombardi states that Valve is very much interested in producing its own. “It’s actually something that, I mean there’s nothing to announce yet, but it’s something we’re definitely looking at. … There’s a lot of games coming out right now on Steam that might be better [with a controller].”
Doug goes on to explain how Valve are “going to start talking to people who specialize in [the area]“, so this news doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be seeing a hardware division at the company any time soon.
I can’t help but wonder why they want their own gamepad in the first place though, given that the Xbox 360 Controller mentioned by IGN (and long owned by myself, I’m happy to say) has already become the de facto standard. What do they hope to achieve that it hasn’t? A trackball, perhaps?
England continues to be the epicentre of writing on Steam with the new Steam Report blog, launched last month by John Griffin and Andy Griffiths. There’s a double-act joke in there somewhere.
The site is much more active than TSR (an acronym I can’t use any more), both because the pair elect to post the contents of the official Steam news feed as well as their own content, and because, well, they have content. The majority is coverage of the games that happen to be on Steam, but there’s a growing Editorials category too.
Best of luck, lads!
Valve have just launched their Steamworks partner website, and wonderfully, it’s partially open the public.
Are you a PC developer or publisher who isn’t using Steam or Steamworks yet?
If so, read about why Steamworks is the PC gaming platform of the future. When you’re ready, get in touch.
This site covers many of the technical details under Steamworks’ hood. The links below cover some of the basics; once you’ve signed up you’ll get access to much more in depth information about how to make use of all Steamworks has to offer.
Scanning the API documentation it seems that using the tech really is as easy as Valve have made it out to be. Authenticating a multiplayer client takes a single line of C++, and the ever-tricky problem of sending data directly from one client to another is much the same. Valve don’t recommend that developers use the Steam server browser however, which is an odd thing to say considering it’s been one of Steamworks’ selling points in the past.
The other publicly-available page, Running your game on Steam, details the practical aspects of getting your content to Valve. This amounts to:
- Create the image
- Apply any special settings
- FTP it
- Wait until it appears later in the day
Again — incredibly, liberatingly simple.
So simple in fact that there isn’t much more to say about it! So here’s GamesIndustry.biz’s recent Steam interview with Doug Lombardi to keep you occupied instead. 
Do you use Steamworks? I’d love to hear from you!
Get your wallet out. Take2/3D Realms/Human Head have marked down their 2006 game Prey by 80% for one weekend only, sending it soaring past the other Top Sellers entries but, perhaps due to the weekend timing, not earning it much media attention. Which is a shame, because it’s a novel and otherwise effective marketing strategy. What better way to promote the recently (if mistakenly) announced Prey 2 than with the original game?
Before digital distribution this could only realistically have happened at a promotional event. Somewhere 2K could feel confident that copies weren’t being snapped up in bulk for later resale, but also where its impact would be limited to a promotional gimmick. Steam, on the other hand, has blown the doors wide open: it prevents bulk purchases with its already-established credit card fraud prevention, prevents resale at any large scale with its personal user accounts, and invites every gamer from the territories it has distribution rights for to join in.
It’s not just free advertising, but free advertising that people like myself will happily pay to experience — which makes the apparent lack of any attempt by Take2’s marketing team to capitalise further on the situation a mystery to me. There may still be a media onslaught awaiting us all on Monday, but (and call me jaded if you will) the consistent lack of serious effort in exploiting Steam’s potential by third party developers over the years tells me to expect otherwise.
I’m in no mood to end on a negative however. Even if 2K don’t take any further advantage of their sale, it is clearly a more effective use of back catalogue than simply bundling it with newer, full-price releases. Thanks to digital distribution it is a promising and commendable strategy; one that in my opinion should by all rights become a standard practice when releasing sequels.
I don’t normally post straight news, but this deserves reporting. Via Rock, Paper, Shotgun:
- Jim Rossignol [RPS]: What do you think about Steamworks?
- Steve Gaffney [Splash Damage]: It’s great. We need someone to look after the PC platform, and only Valve are really in a position to do that. There’s no downside to it.
- Paul Wedgwood [SD]: And there’s a big upside for Valve – to control the PC platform via more Steam subs. But that is a positive thing for other developers.
- Jon Hicks [Official Xbox Magazine]: You’re not worried that Valve could turn around and start holding the platform to ransom?
- Gaffney: Perhaps, but Steam is like a third platform now. It’s that big. There’s the 360, the PS3 and Steam…do you not think?
- Tim Edwards [PC Gamer UK]: I completely agree, I’ve just never heard anyone say it out loud. Every gamer I know has a Steam account, and uses it regularly.
That makes Splash Damage’s next game a Steamworks title in my book! There are some vague details about what we can expect from it in the full interview.
Needless to say, I also agree with Gaffney and the other Edwards that Steam is the PC platform now — it would be madness for a developer to forgo Steamworks, even if they were to employ only its simple distribution and update functions.
(The updated Quake Wars demo Wedgwood talks about was released on Steam unannounced. Oops…)
Steamworks is a very large and profound change for the PC industry. Unfortunately Valve don’t appear interested in talking to me any more, so there is little I can do for the conversation surrounding it but add unanswered questions. Which I would rather not.
I will instead leave you with Andy Simpson’s guest opinion piece from last year, for reasons which should become clear as you read it, and Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s interview, which does an excellent job of demystifying a press release that left a lot of its readers in the dark.
I’m sorry about this.
