Hasta La Gadget!

Steam is Valve’s portal where they sell games, let users come together and communicate and play games together. The mobile app allows users to chat and stay connected with their friends, read the latest news and participate in Steam sales as well, but is gaming all Valve has in store for Steam? Perhaps not. Thanks to the folks at The Verge, the Steam app for Android has been snapped and shows a more extensive genre list, such as Accounting, Audio Production, Education, Photo Editing and other non-game related categories. Could Valve be looking at offering non-game apps of their own, or allowing the Steam mobile app to double as an app store of their own as well? There’s no guarantee that such a thing could be happening, but it is interesting to see that Valve could be considering that. There has not been official word from the company yet.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Steam Greenlight announced, Steam for Linux Caught on Video [Leak],

This year’s Steam Summer Sale starts with no less than titanic games such as Portal 2, Call of Duty MW3, and pack collections from Bethesda and the masses of creators behind the Star Wars gaming franchise. This Valve-run sale requires that you have a Steam gaming account and that you not hold your wallet closed too tightly – deals are to be had at every turn! Grab the legendary Indie Bundle (version I) for $9.99 instead of $40, get Total War: Shogun 2 for $7.49 instead of $30, and get a collection of games from RockStar for $49.99 instead of a massive $120! Click your mouse as fast as you can and stock up for the year!

This sale is a now-yearly beast of a set of deals in which a massive amount of games are put on sale for digital download for astounding amounts off their original price. There’s a collection of games in the “Pack Deals” section from the development group known as THQ, for example, that is an unbelievable 84% off its original price. Where if you’d have purchased all of the games in this set before today individually you’d have payed $399.85, you’re now paying $49.99. That’s a deal and a half by anyone’s standards.

At the very least, your one must-buy if you do not already own is Portal 2, a game that’s so much fun your head will explode. It normally costs a completely fair $19.99 and will today cost you $4.99, less than a mixed drink at your favorite club you never go to. And you’ll never leave the house again if Steam has anything to say about it!

There’s also a portal through which you’ll be voting on games that will or will not go on sale. Do you want Batman: Arkham City to be on sale for 60% off, or do you want some other game that’s a little bit less well known to go on sale? I think you know the answer to that one!

This is the first day of the giant multi-day sale in which prices change constantly, so get out there to Steam’s online shop and make it happen immediately!

Steam Summer Sale begins with a bang is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Valve has been a significant player in the digital distribution of games via its Steam service on the PC for long time. Steam has turned out to be very good for independent game developers allowing them to publish games digitally, directly to the gamer. Valve is set to unveil a new plan that will help independent developers, to get crowd source assistance to get their games distributed via Steam.

The new service is called Steam Greenlight and is described as a place where “developers post information, screenshots, and videos for their game and seek a critical mass of community support in order to get selected for distribution.” Steam previously had a similar offering called Workshop, but that was for mods to existing games. Greenlight will be for standalone games.

Greenlight is set to launch at the end of August and should make for much happier independent developers. Apparently, all independent developers received from the folks who decided on what games would be distributed via Steam in the past was a yes or no answer. Greenlight will allow developers to submit a lot more content to go along with the game, such as photos and video, and then the gamers can vote on what games will be offered via Steam. An unspecified number of votes will be needed for the game to get approval for distribution on Steam, and the specific number of votes will change depending on traffic to Greenlight.

[via Tech2.in.com]

Valve prepping Steam Greenlight for crowd sourced video game approvals is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.