Because every damn game on Steam is up there.

Valve are tracking the statistics from the Steam client instead of their master servers now, enabling absolutely everyone to be counted: from the one person playing RIP 3 to the 61 enjoying Bioshock. All that’s missing are mods.

There is an additional discovery waiting beyond the realisation that the stats no longer include those playing pirated games. Could that change be behind the precipitous drop of Counter-Strike 1.6, which now trails CS Source by some ten thousand players? It’s been suggested that the massive piracy of the former in Asia was inflating the actual figures of legitimate players — although it’s arguable that they should be included to create a full picture. There’s something for Zeh to ponder over.

We might not have any sales figures, but at least we now have the most accurate and broad set of playing figures in the world!

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!

I am currently in the process of researching and writing my university dissertation on the subject of Valve Software’s Steam digital game content distribution system and the impact it has had on the games industry, and the way in which it may potentially shape the future of the industry. As part of my research, I am trying to find out some information about the current usage of various features of Steam and how they are rated (or not) by Steam’s user base — that means you!

I would greatly appreciate it if you could take 10-15 minutes to fill out this questionnaire to aid me with my research. It’s nice and easy — 95% of it is multiple choice — so all you have to do is read each question carefully and choose the answer or answers that you feel is/are most appropriate.

Take the survey here. The survey has been closed.

Official trailers are a given and looking at the client’s hidden P2P controls community content is almost certain, but it’s Gametap-style programming that would really mark Steam Movies out — and play a part in Gabe Newell’s “comprehensive entertainment experience” strategy.

There is also a potential for direct commercialisation, that is to say purchasable media, though as was discussed when Steam first began delivering movies such a scheme would involve either a new DRM system from Valve or an improbable integration with Microsoft’s WMDRM tech.

We should definitely expect user-created content, judging by the wealth of content that sprang from the free release of Portal’s progenitor, Narbacular Drop. “We have any easy-to-use way of getting maps into Portal and loading them up,” says Swift. “We’re definitely looking forward to seeing what people create. We’re going to be releasing our FGD and an SDK update so people can use what we’re using.” That should happen soon after Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal launch together [in October].

This doesn’t confirm that there will be a built-in library of third-party downloads, but given The Steam Community’s recent announcement and Valve’s ever-lurking peer-to-peer network, the odds are reasonable.

To read more about the distribution of community content, see Building communities through residency.