The Steam Review

Prey has been marked down 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.

A World of My Own was billed as the “iTunes of games” during its announcement. It was a ridiculously big claim, an act of hubris perhaps – but I’ve been talking with Rob Donald of Game Domain International about the technology behind the company’s new distribution system, and it’s more accurate a soundbite than we once thought.

You may by now have heard that “Steam” was broken into a week and a half ago and “consumer” credit card details stolen. As the quote marks suggest the breach has been played up by those behind it, whose exaggerations have been somewhat naively passed on by a number of big sites today.

Computerandvideogames.com have posted a well-rounded Steam interview with Valve’s PR chief, Doug Lombardi, which looks ahead to 2007.

PayPal is now available through Steam, as part of a not-beta ‘preview’ phase.

New purchase methods are being added to Steam over the next few weeks, demolishing its reliance on credit cards.