Steam (service) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Steam

The Steam client as of June 2023, showing the store
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Initial release	September 12, 2003; 21 years ago (2003-09-12)
Stable release	SteamClient021, Package: 1709846872  (March 7, 2024; 9 months ago (2024-03-07))
Preview release	API v020, Package: 1682723851  (April 29, 2023; 19 months ago (2023-04-29))
Platform	Windows macOS Linux iOS Android
Available in	29 languages
List of languages English, Bulgarian, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (European and Brazilian), Russian, Romanian, Spanish (European and Latin American), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Type	Content delivery Digital rights management Social network service Video streaming service
License	Proprietary software

Steam is a video game digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation. It was launched as a software client in September 2003 to provide game updates automatically for Valve's games, and expanded to distributing third-party titles in late 2005. Steam offers various features, like game server matchmaking with Valve Anti-Cheat measures, social networking, and game streaming services. Steam client's functions include game update automation, cloud storage for game progress, and community features such as direct messaging, in-game overlay functions and a virtual collectable marketplace.

Steamworks, a freely available application programming interface (API) released in 2008, is used by developers to integrate Steam's functions, including digital rights management (DRM), into their game products. Many game publishers began distributing their titles on Steam that year. Initially developed for Microsoft Windows operating systems, Steam was released for macOS in 2010 and Linux in 2012. Mobile apps accessing online Steam features were first released for iOS and Android in 2012. The platform's storefront also offers other digital content and Valve gaming hardware, including productivity software, game soundtracks, videos and the virtual reality headset, Valve Index.

The service is the largest digital distribution platform for PC games, with an estimated 75% of the market share in 2013 according to IHS Screen Digest. By 2017, game purchases through Steam totaled about US$4.3 billion, or at least 18% of global PC game sales according to Steam Spy. By 2021, the service had over 34,000 games with over 132 million monthly active users. Steam's success has led to the development of the Steam Machine gaming PCs in 2015, including the SteamOS Linux distribution and Steam Controller; Steam Link devices for local game streaming; and in 2022, the handheld Steam Deck tailored for running Steam games.

History

In the early 2000's, Valve was looking for a better way to update its published games, as providing downloadable patches for multiplayer games resulted in most of the online user base disconnecting for several days until players had installed the patch. They decided to create a platform that would update games automatically and implement stronger anti-piracy and anti-cheat measures. They approached several companies, including Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks, to build a client with these features, but were declined.

Valve began its own platform development in 2002, using the working names "Grid" and "Gazelle". The Steam platform was publicly announced at the Game Developers Conference event on March 22, 2002, and released for beta testing that day. Prior to the implementation of Steam, Valve had a publishing contract with Sierra Studios; the 2001 version of the contract gave Valve rights to digital distribution of its games. Valve took Sierra and their owners, Vivendi Games, to court in 2002 over a claimed breach of this contract. Sierra counter-sued, asserting that Valve had been working to undermine the contract by offering a digital storefront for their games, directly competing with Sierra.

In November 2004, Half-Life 2 was the first game to be offered digitally on Steam, and to require installation of the Steam client for retail copies. During this time users faced problems attempting to play the game. The Steam requirement was met with concerns about software ownership, software requirements, and problems with overloaded servers demonstrated previously by the Counter-Strike rollout.

In 2005, third-party developers were contracted to release games on Steam, such as Rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia. In May 2007, ATI included Steam in the ATI Catalyst GPU driver as well as offering a free Steam copy of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch to ATI Radeon owners. In January 2008, Nvidia promoted Steam in the GeForce GPU driver, as well as offering a free Steam copy of Portal: The First Slice to Nvidia hardware owners.

In 2011, Electronic Arts removed some of its games from Steam because of its restrictive terms of service, and launched its games—beginning with Mass Effect 3 in 2012—on its Origin service. In 2019, Ubisoft announced that they would stop selling their future games on Steam starting with Tom Clancy's The Division 2 because Valve would not modify its revenue sharing model. In May 2019, Microsoft distributed its games on Steam in addition to the Microsoft Store.

In 2020, Electronic Arts started to publish select games on Steam, and offering its rebranded subscription service EA Play on the platform. In 2022, Ubisoft announced that they would return to selling its recent games on Steam, starting with Assassin's Creed Valhalla, stating that they were "constantly evaluating how to bring our games to different audiences wherever they are".

By 2014, total annual game sales on Steam were estimated at $1.5 billion. By 2018, the service had over 90 million monthly active users. In 2018, its network delivered 15 billion gigabytes of data, compared to less than 4 billion in 2014.

Features and functionality

Software delivery and maintenance

Steam's primary service is to allow its users to purchase games and other software, adding them to a virtual library from which they may be downloaded and installed an unlimited number of times. Initially, Valve was required to be the publisher for these games since they had sole access to Steam's database and engine, but with the introduction of the Steamworks software development kit (SDK) in May 2008, anyone could integrate Steam into their game without Valve's direct involvement.

Valve intended to "make DRM obsolete" as games released on Steam had traditional anti-piracy measures, including the assignment and distribution of product keys and support for digital rights management software tools such as SecuROM or non-malicious rootkits. With an update to the Steamworks SDK in March 2009, Valve added "Custom Executable Generation" (CEG), which creates a unique, encrypted copy of the game's executable files for the given user, which allows them to install it multiple times and on multiple devices, and make backup copies of their software. Once the software is downloaded and installed, the user must then authenticate through Steam to de-encrypt the executable files to play the game. Normally this is done while connected to the Internet following the user's credential validation, but once they have logged into Steam once, a user can instruct Steam to launch in a special offline mode to be able to play their games without a network connection. Developers are not limited to Steam's CEG and may include other forms of DRM (or none at all) and other authentication services than Steam; for example, some games from publisher Ubisoft require the use of their Uplay gaming service.

In November 2007, Steam achievements were added, similar to Xbox 360 Achievements. In September 2008, Valve added support for Steam Cloud, a service that can automatically store saved game and related custom files on Valve's servers; users can access this data from any machine running the Steam client. Users can disable this feature on a per-game and per-account basis. Cloud saving was expanded in January 2022 for Dynamic Cloud Sync, allowing games developed with this feature to store saved states to Steam Cloud while a game is running rather than waiting until the user quit; this was added ahead of the portable Steam Deck unit so that users can save from the Deck and then put the unit into a suspended state. In May 2012, the service added the ability for users to manage their game libraries from remote clients, including computers and mobile devices. Product keys sold through third-party retailers can also be redeemed on Steam. For games that incorporate Steamworks, users can buy redemption codes from other vendors and redeem these in the Steam client to add the title to their libraries. Steam also offers a framework for selling and distributing downloadable content (DLC) for games.

In September 2013, Steam introduced the ability to share most games with family members and close friends by authorizing machines to access one's library. Authorized players can install the game locally and play it separately from the owning account. Users can access their saved games and achievements providing the main owner is not playing. When the main player initiates a game while a shared account is using it, the shared account user is allowed a few minutes to either save their progress and close the game or purchase the game for their own account. Within Family View, introduced in January 2014, parents can adjust settings for their children's tied accounts, limiting the functionality and accessibility to the Steam client and purchased games. A more robust implementation of Family Sharing, titled "Steam Families", was put into beta in 2024, allowing up to five members of a household to share games from a single account, including the ability to play different games on those accounts along with different game saves and profiles, and enhanced parential control tools for those accounts.

In accordance with its acceptable use policy, Valve retains the right to block customers' access to their games and Steam services when Valve's Anti-Cheat (VAC) software determines that the user is cheating in multiplayer games, selling accounts to others, or trading games to exploit regional price differences. Blocking such users initially removed access to their other games, leading to some users with high-value accounts losing access because of minor infractions. Valve later changed its policy to be similar to that of Electronic Arts' Origin platform, in which blocked users can still access their games but are heavily restricted, limited to playing in offline mode and unable to participate in Steam Community features. Customers also lose access to their games and Steam account if they refuse to accept changes to Steam's end user license agreements; this last occurred in August 2012. In April 2015, Valve began allowing developers to set bans on players for their games, but enacted and enforced at the Steam level, which allowed them to police their own gaming communities in a customizable manner.

Storefront features

The Steam client includes a digital storefront called the Steam Store through which users can purchase games. Once the game is bought, a software license is permanently attached to the user's Steam account, allowing them to download the software on any compatible device. Game licenses can be given to other accounts under certain conditions. Content is delivered from an international network of servers using a proprietary file transfer protocol. As of 2015, Steam sells its products in US and Canadian dollars, euros, pounds sterling, Brazilian reais, Russian rubles, Indonesian rupiah and Indian rupees depending on the user's location. In December 2010, the client began supporting the WebMoney payment system. From April 2016 until December 2017, Steam accepted payments in Bitcoin before dropping support for it due to high fluctuation in value and costly service fees. The Steam storefront validates the user's region; the purchase of games may be restricted to specific regions because of release dates, game classification, or agreements with publishers. Since 2010, the Steam Translation Server project allows Steam users to assist with the translation of the Steam client, storefront, and a selected library of Steam games for twenty-eight languages. In October 2018, official support for Vietnamese and Latin American Spanish was added, in addition to Steam's then 26 languages. Steam also allows users to purchase downloadable content for games, and for some specific games such as Team Fortress 2, the ability to purchase in-game inventory items. In February 2015, Steam began to open similar options for in-game item purchases for third-party games.

In conjunction with developers and publishers, Valve frequently provides discounted sales on games on a daily and weekly basis, sometimes oriented around a publisher, genre, or holiday theme, and sometimes allow games to be tried for free during the days of these sales. The site normally offers a large selection of games at discount during its annual Summer and Holiday sales, including gamification of these sales.

Users of Steam's storefront can also purchase games and other software as gifts for another Steam user. Prior to May 2017, users could purchase these gifts to be held in their profile's inventory until they opted to gift them. However, this feature enabled a gray market around some games, where a user in a country where the price of a game was substantially lower than elsewhere could stockpile giftable copies to sell to others in regions with much higher prices. In August 2016, Valve changed its gifting policy to require that games with VAC and Game Ban-enabled games be gifted immediately to another Steam user, which also served to combat players that worked around VAC and Game Bans; in May 2017, Valve expanded this policy to all games. The changes also placed limitations on gifts between users of different countries if there is a large difference in pricing. Due to runaway inflation in Argentina and Turkey, Valve eliminated the use of local currency pricing for users in those storefronts in November 2023, instead moving them to a special regional pricing model based on U.S. dollars as a means to provide fair payments to publisher and developers, though these local users saw effective price hikes as high as 2900%.

The Steam store also enables users to redeem store product keys to add software from their library. The keys are sold by third-party providers such as Humble Bundle, distributed as part of a physical release, or given to a user as part of promotions, often used to deliver Kickstarter and other crowd funding rewards. A grey market exists around Steam keys, where less reputable buyers purchase a large number of Steam keys for a game when it is offered for a low cost, and then resell these keys to users or other third-party sites at a higher price. This caused some of these third-party sites, such as G2A, to be embroiled in this grey market. It is possible for publishers to have Valve track down where specific keys have been used and cancel them, removing the product from the user's libraries. Other legitimate storefronts, like Humble Bundle, have set a minimum price that must be spent to obtain Steam keys as to discourage mass purchases. In June 2021, Valve began limiting how frequently Steam users could change their default region to prevent them from purchasing games from outside their home region for cheaper.

In 2013, Steam began to accept player reviews of games. Other users can subsequently rate these reviews as helpful, humorous, or otherwise unhelpful, which are then used to highlight the most useful reviews on the game's Steam store page. Steam also aggregates these reviews and enables users to sort products based on this feedback while browsing the store. In May 2016, Steam further broke out these aggregations between all reviews overall and those made more recently in the last 30 days, a change Valve acknowledges to how game updates, particularly those in Early Access, can alter the impression of a game to users. To prevent observed abuse of the review system by developers or other third-party agents, Valve modified the review system in September 2016 to discount review scores for a game from users that activated the product through a product key rather than directly purchased by the Steam Store, though their reviews remain visible. Alongside this, Valve announced that it would end business relations with any developer or publisher that they found to be abusing the review system. Separately, Valve has taken actions to minimize the effects of review bombs on Steam. In particular, Valve announced in March 2019 that they mark reviews they believe are "off-topic" as a result of a review bomb, and eliminate their contribution to summary review scores; the first such games they took action on with this were the Borderlands games after it was announced Borderlands 3 would be a timed-exclusive to the Epic Games Store.

During mid-2011, Valve began to offer free-to-play games, such as Global Agenda, Spiral Knights and Champions Online; this offer was linked to the company's move to make Team Fortress 2 a free-to-play title. Valve included support via Steamworks for microtransactions for in-game items through Steam's purchasing channels, in a similar manner to the in-game store for Team Fortress 2. Later that year, Valve added the ability to trade in-game items and "unopened" game gifts between users. Steam Coupons, which was introduced in December 2011, provides single-use coupons that provide a discount to the cost of items. Steam Coupons can be provided to users by developers and publishers; users can trade these coupons between friends in a similar fashion to gifts and in-game items. In May 2015, GameStop began selling Steam Wallet cards. Steam Market, a feature introduced in beta in December 2012 that would allow users to sell virtual items to others via Steam Wallet funds, further extended the idea. Valve levies a transaction fee of 15% on such sales and game publishers that use Steam Market pay a transaction fee. For example, Team Fortress 2—the first game supported at the beta phase—incurred both fees. Full support for other games was expected to be available in early 2013. In April 2013, Valve added subscription-based game support to Steam; the first game to use this service was Darkfall Unholy Wars.

In October 2012, Steam introduced non-gaming applications, which are sold through the service in the same manner as games. Creativity and productivity applications can access the core functions of the Steamworks API, allowing them to use Steam's simplified installation and updating process, and incorporate features including cloud saving and Steam Workshop. Steam also allows game soundtracks to be purchased to be played via Steam Music or integrated with the user's other media players. Valve adjusted its approach to soundtracks in 2020, no longer requiring them to be offered as DLC, meaning that users can buy soundtracks to games they do not own, and publishers can offer soundtracks to games not on Steam.

Valve has also added the ability for publishers to rent and sell digital movies via the service, with initially most being video game documentaries. Following Warner Bros. Entertainment offering the Mad Max films alongside the September 2015 release of the game based on the series, Lionsgate entered into agreement with Valve to rent over one hundred feature films from its catalog through Steam starting in April 2016, with more films following later. In March 2017, Crunchyroll started offering various anime for purchase or rent through Steam. However, by February 2019, Valve shuttered video from its storefront save for videos directly related to gaming content. While available, users could also purchase Steam Machine related hardware.

Valve received revenue share of a flat 30% from all direct Steam sales and transactions. In October 2018, Valve updated their policies that cut theirs to 25% once revenue for a game surpasses US$10 million, and further to 20% at US$50 million. The policy change was seen by journalists as trying to entice larger developers to stay with Steam, while the decision was also met with backlash from indie and other small game developers, as their revenue split remained unchanged.

While Steam allows developers to offer demo versions of their games at any time, Valve worked with Geoff Keighley in 2019 in conjunction with The Game Awards to hold a week-long Steam Game Festival to feature a large selection of game demos of current and upcoming games, alongside sales for games already released. This event has since been repeated two or three times a year, typically in conjunction with game expositions or award events, and since has been renamed as the Steam Next Fest.

A Steam Points system and storefront was added in June 2020, which mirrored similar temporary points systems that had been used in prior sales on the storefront. Users earn points through purchases on Steam or by receiving community recognition for helpful reviews or discussion comments. These points can be redeemed in the separate storefront for cosmetics that apply to the user's profile and chat interface.

User interface and functions

Since November 2013, Steam has allowed for users to review their purchased games and organize them into categories set by the user and add to favorite lists for quick access. Players can add non-Steam games to their libraries, allowing the game to be easily accessed from the Steam client and providing support where possible for Steam Overlay features. The Steam interface allows for user-defined shortcuts to be added. In this way, third-party modifications and games not purchased through the Steam Store can use Steam features. Valve sponsors and distributes some modifications free of charge; and modifications that use Steamworks can also any Steam features supported by their parent game. For most games launched from Steam, the client provides an in-game overlay from which the user can access Steam Community lists and participate in chat, manage selected Steam settings, and access a built-in web browser without having to exit the game. Since the beginning of February 2011 as a beta version, the overlay also allows players to take screenshots of the games in process. As a full version on February 24, 2011, this feature was reimplemented so that users could share screenshots on websites of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit directly from a user's screenshot manager.

Steam's "Big Picture" mode is more optimized for a larger screen with a larger, simpler interface that mimics the Steam Deck interface and is easily navigable with either a controller or mouse.

Steam's "Big Picture" mode was announced in 2011; public betas started in September 2012 and were integrated into the software in December 2012. Big Picture mode is a 10-foot user interface, which optimizes the Steam display to work on high-definition televisions, allowing the user to control Steam with a gamepad or with a keyboard and mouse. Newell stated that Big Picture mode was a step towards a dedicated Steam entertainment hardware unit. With the introduction of the Steam Deck, Valve began pushing the new Big Picture mode based on the Steam Deck UI in beta testing in October 2022, and full release in February 2023.

In 2012, Valve announced Steam for Schools, a free function-limited version of the Steam client for schools. It was part of Valve's initiative to support gamification of learning. It was released alongside free versions of Portal 2 and a standalone program called "Puzzle Maker" that allowed teachers and students to create and manipulate levels. It featured additional authentication security that allowed teachers to share and distribute content via a Steam Workshop-type interface, but blocks access from students.

In-Home Streaming was introduced in May 2014; it allows users to stream games installed on one computer to another on the same home network with low latency. By June 2019, Valve renamed this feature to Remote Play, allowing users to stream games across devices that may be outside of their home network. Steam's "Remote Play Together", added in November 2019 after a month of beta testing, gives the ability for local multiplayer games to be played by people in disparate locations, though will not necessary resolve latency problems typical of these types of games. Remote Play Together was expanded in February 2021 to give the ability to invite non-Steam players to play through a Steam Link app approach.

The Steam client, as part of a social network service, allows users to identify friends and join groups using the Steam Community feature. Through the Steam Chat feature, users can use text chat and peer-to-peer VoIP with other users, identify which games their friends and other group members are playing, and join and invite friends to Steamworks-based multiplayer games that support this feature. Users can participate in forums hosted by Valve to discuss Steam games. Each user has a unique page that shows his or her groups and friends, game library including earned achievements, game wishlists, and other social features; users can choose to keep this information private. In January 2010, Valve reported that 10 million of the 25 million active Steam accounts had signed up to Steam Community. In conjunction with the 2012 Steam Summer Sale, user profiles were updated with Badges reflecting the user's participation in the Steam community and past events. Steam Trading Cards, a system where players earn virtual trading cards based on games they own, were introduced in May 2013. Using them, players can trade with other Steam users on the Steam Community Marketplace and use them to craft "Badges", which grant rewards such as discount coupons, user profile page customization options. In 2010, the Steam client became an OpenID provider, allowing third-party websites to use a Steam user's identity without requiring the user to expose his or her Steam credentials. In order to prevent abuse, access to most community features is restricted until a one-time payment of at least US$5 is made to Valve. This requirement can be fulfilled by making any purchase of five dollars or more on Steam, or by adding at the same amount to their wallet.

Through Steamworks, Steam provides a means of server browsing for multiplayer games that use the Steam Community features, allowing users to create lobbies with friends or members of common groups. Steamworks also provides Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC), Valve's anti-cheat system; game servers automatically detect and report users who are using cheats in online, multiplayer games. In August 2012, Valve added new features—including dedicated hub pages for games that highlight the best user-created content, top forum posts, and screenshots—to the Community area. In December 2012, a feature where users can upload walkthroughs and guides detailing game strategy was added. Starting in January 2015, the Steam client allowed players to livestream to Steam friends or the public while playing games on the platform. For the main event of The International 2018 Dota 2 tournament, Valve launched Steam.tv as a major update to Steam Broadcasting, adding Steam chat and Steamworks integration for spectating matches played at the event. It has also been used for other events, such as a pre-release tournament for the digital card game Artifact and for The Game Awards 2018 and Steam Awards award shows.

In September 2014, Steam Music was added to the Steam client, allowing users to play through music stored on their computer or to stream from a locally networked computer directly in Steam. An update to the friends and chat system was released in July 2018, allowing for non-peer-to-peer chats integrated with voice chat and other features that were compared to Discord. A standalone mobile app based on this for Android and iOS was released in May 2019.

A major visual overhaul of the Library and game profile pages were released in October 2019. These redesigns are aimed to aid users to organize their games, help showcase what shared games a user's friends are playing, games that are being live-streamed, and new content that may be available, along with more customization options for sorting games. Associated with that, Valve gave developers means of communicating when special in-game events are approaching through Steam Events, which appear to players on the revamped Library and game profile pages.

Another major overhaul of the UI was released in June 2023. Besides unifying backend functions for the main Steam client, Steam Deck client, and Big Picture mode, the new UI featured an improved screen overlay that users could pin various dialogs such as friend chat and game guides that would remain visible while playing a game. A new notes feature allowed users to create personal notes that are stored in the cloud that they could use for various tracking of progress or reminders while in game.

Developer features

Valve provides developers the ability to create storefront pages to help generate interest in their game ahead of release. This is also necessary to fix a release date that functions into Valve's "build review", a free service performed by Valve about a week before this release date to make sure the game's launch is trouble-free. Updates in 2020 to Discovery queues have given developers more options for customizing their storefront page and how these pages integrate with users' experiences with the Steam client.

Valve offers Steamworks, an application programming interface (API) that provides development and publishing tools free-of-charge to game and software developers. Steamworks provides networking and player authentication tools for both server and peer-to-peer multiplayer games, matchmaking services, support for Steam community friends and groups, Steam statistics and achievements, integrated voice communications, and Steam Cloud support, allowing games to integrate with the Steam client. The API also provides anti-cheating devices and digital copy management. In 2016, after introducing the Steam Controller and improvements to the Steam interface to support numerous customization options, the Steamworks API was also updated to provide a generic controller library for developers and these customization features for other third-party controllers, starting with the DualShock 4. Steam's Input API has since been updated to include official support for other console controllers such as the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller in 2018, the Xbox Wireless Controller for the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, and the PlayStation 5's DualSense, as well as compatible controllers from third-party manufacturers in 2020. In November 2020, Valve said the controller usage had more than doubled over the past 2 years. In March 2019, Steam's game server network was opened to third-party developers.

Developers of software available on Steam are able to track sales of their games through the Steam store. In February 2014, Valve announced that it would begin to allow developers to set up their own sales for their games independent of any sales that Valve may set. Valve may also work with developers to suggest their participation in sales on themed days.

Steam conducts and partially publishes a monthly opt-in hardware and software survey since 2007 and 2010.

Valve added the ability for developers to sell games under an early access model with a special section of the Steam store, starting in March 2013. This program allows for developers to release functional, but not finished, products such as beta versions to the service to allow users to buy the games and help provide testing and feedback towards the final production. Early access also helps to provide funding to the developers to help complete their games. The early access approach allowed more developers to publish games onto the Steam service without the need for Valve's direct curation of games, significantly increasing the number of available games on the service.

Developers are able to request Steam keys of their products to use as they see fit, such as to give away in promotions, to provide to selected users for review, or to give to key resellers for different profitization. Valve generally honors all such requests, but clarified that they would evaluate some requests to avoid giving keys to games or other offerings that are designed to manipulate the Steam storefront and other features.

Valve enabled the ability for multiple developers to create bundles of games from their offerings in June 2021.

Steam Workshop

The Steam Workshop is a service that allows users to share user-made content and modifications for video games available on Steam. New levels, art assets, gameplay modifications, or other content may be published to or installed from the Workshop depending on the title. The Workshop was originally used for distribution of new items for Team Fortress 2; it was redesigned to extend support for any game in early 2012, including modifications for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. A May 2012 patch for Portal 2, enabled by a new map-making tool through the Workshop, introduced the ability to share user-created levels. Independently developed games, including Dungeons of Dredmor, are able to provide Workshop support for user-made content. Dota 2 became Valve's third published title available for the Workshop in June 2012; its features include customizable accessories, character skins, and announcer packs. Workshop content may be monetized; Newell said that the Workshop was inspired by gold farming from World of Warcraft to find a way to incentive both players and content creators in video games, and which had informed them of their approach to Team Fortress 2 and their later multiplayer games.

By January 2015, Valve themselves had provided some user-developed Workshop content as paid-for features in Valve-developed games, including Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2; with over $57 million being paid to content creators using the Workshop. Valve began allowing developers to use these advanced features in January 2015; both the developer and content generator share the profits of the sale of these items; the feature went live in April 2015, starting with various mods for Skyrim. This feature was pulled a few days afterward following negative user feedback and reports of pricing and copyright misuse. Six months later, Valve stated they were still interested in offering this type of functionality in the future. In November 2015, the Steam client was updated with the ability for game developers to offer in-game items for direct sale via the store interface, with Rust being the first game to use the feature.

SteamVR

SteamVR is a virtual reality hardware and software platform developed by Valve, with a focus on allowing "room-scale" experiences using positional tracking base stations, as opposed to those requiring the player to stay in a singular location. SteamVR was first introduced for the Oculus Rift headset in 2014, and later expanded to support other virtual reality headsets. Initially released for support on Windows, macOS, and Linux, Valve dropped macOS support for SteamVR in May 2020. SteamVR 2.0 was released in October 2023, adding in UI features common to the main Steam app and the Steam Deck app as well as further improvements for virtual reality users.

Storefront curation

Until 2012, Valve would handpick games to be included onto the Steam service, limiting these to games that either had a major developer supporting them, or smaller studios with proven track records. Since then, Valve have sought ways to enable more games to be offered through Steam, while pulling away from manually approving games, short of validating that a game runs on the platforms the publisher had indicated. In 2017, Steam development team member Alden Kroll said that Valve knows Steam is in a near-monopoly for game sales on personal computers, and the company does not want to be in a position to determine what gets sold, and thus had tried to find ways to make the process of adding games to Steam outside of their control. At the same time, Valve recognized that unfettered control of games onto the service can lead to discovery problems as well as low-quality games.

Steam Greenlight

Valve announced Steam Greenlight to streamline game addition to the service in July 2012 and released the following month. Through Greenlight, Steam users would choose which games were added to the service. Developers were able to submit information about their games, as well as early builds or beta versions, for consideration by users. Users would pledge support for these games, and Valve would make top-pledged games available on Steam. In response to complaints during its first week that finding games to support was made difficult by a flood of inappropriate or false submissions, Valve required developers to pay US$100 to list a game on the service. Those fees were donated to the charity Child's Play. This fee was met with some concern from smaller developers, who often are already working in a deficit and may not have the money to cover such fees. A later modification allowed developers to put conceptual ideas on the Greenlight service to garner interest in potential projects free-of-charge; votes from such projects are visible only to the developer. Valve also allowed non-gaming software to be voted onto the service through Greenlight.

The initial process offered by Greenlight was panned by developers because while they favored the concept, the rate of games that were eventually approved were small. In January 2013, Newell stated that Valve recognized that its role in Greenlight was perceived as a bottleneck, something the company was planning to eliminate in the future through an open marketplace infrastructure. On the eve of Greenlight's first anniversary, Valve simultaneously approved 100 games to demonstrate this change of direction.

Steam Direct

Steam Greenlight was phased out and replaced with Steam Direct on June 13, 2017, following Greenlight's suspension the previous week. With Steam Direct, a developer or publisher wishing to distribute their game on Steam needs only to complete appropriate identification and tax forms for Valve and then pay a recoupable application fee for each game they intend to publish. Once they apply, a developer must wait thirty days before publishing the game as to give Valve the ability to review the game to make sure it is "configured correctly, matches the description provided on the store page, and doesn't contain malicious content".

On announcing its plans for Steam Direct, Valve suggested the fee would be in the range of $100–5,000, meant to encourage earnest software submissions to the service and weed out poor quality games that are treated as shovelware, improving the discovery pipeline to Steam's customers. Smaller developers raised concerns about the Direct fee harming them, and excluding potentially good indie games from reaching the Steam store. Valve opted to set the Direct fee at $100 after reviewing concerns from the community and outlined plans to improve their discovery algorithms and inject more human involvement to help these. Valve refunds the fee should the game exceed $1,000 in sales. In the process of transitioning from Greenlight to Direct, Valve mass-approved most of the 3,400 remaining games that were still in Greenlight, though the company noted that not all of these were at a state to be published. Valve anticipated that the volume of new games added to the service would further increase with Direct in place. Some groups, such as publisher Raw Fury and crowd funding/investment site Fig, have offered to pay the Direct fee for indie developers who cannot afford it.

Games discovery changes

Without more direct interaction on the curation process, Valve had looked to find methods to allow players to find games they would be more likely to buy based on previous purchase patterns. Valve has rejected the use of paid advertising or placement on the storefront, which would have created "pay to win" scenario. Instead, the company had relied on algorithms and other automatic features for game discovery, which has allowed for unexpected hits to gain more visibility.

The September 2014 "Discovery Update" added tools that would allow existing Steam users to be curators for game recommendations, and sorting functions that presented more popular games and recommended games specific to the user. This Discovery update was considered successful by Valve, as they reported in March 2015 in seeing increased use of the Steam Storefront and an increase in 18% of sales by revenue from just prior to the update. A second Discovery update was released November 2016, giving users more control over what games they want to see or ignore within the Steam Store, alongside tools for developers and publishers to better customize and present their game.

By February 2017, Valve reported that with the second Discovery update, the number of games shown to users via the store's front page increased by 42%, with more conversions into sales from that viewership. In 2016, more games are meeting a rough metric of success defined by Valve as selling more than $200,000 in revenues in its first 90 days of release. Valve added a "Curator Connect" program in December 2017. Curators can set up descriptors for the type of games they are interested in, preferred languages, and other tags along with social media profiles, while developers can find and reach out to specific curators from this information, and, after review, provide them directly with access to their game. This step, which eliminates the use of a Steam redemption key, is aimed to reduce the reselling of keys, as well as dissuade users that may be trying to game the curator system to obtain free game keys.

Valve has attempted to deal with "fake games", those that are built around reused assets and little other innovation, by added Steam Explorers atop its existing Steam Curator program. Any Steam user is able to sign up to be an Explorer, and are asked to look at under-performing games on the service as to either vouch that the game is truly original or if it is an example of a "fake game", at which point Valve can take action to remove the game.

In July 2019, the Steam Labs feature was introduced as a means to showcase experimental discovery features Valve considered for including into Steam, to seek public feedback. For example, an initial experiment released at launch was the Interactive Recommender, which uses artificial intelligence algorithms pulling data from the user's past gameplay history to suggest new games that may be of interest to them. As these experiments mature through end-user testing, they have then been brought into the storefront as direct features.

The September 2019 Discovery update, which Valve claimed would improve the visibility of niche and lesser-known games, was met with criticism from some indie game developers, who recorded a significant drop in exposure of their games, including new wishlist additions and appearances in the "More Like This" and "Discovery queue" sections of the store.

Steam Charts were introduced in September 2022 and publicly track the storefront's best-selling and most-played games, including historically by week and month. Charts replaced a previous statistics page to be more comprehensive, and features content that had previously been part of third-party websites including SteamSpy, SteamDB, and SteamCharts.

Games and account policies

In June 2015, Valve created a formal process to allow purchasers to request refunds, with refunds guaranteed within the first two weeks as long as the player had not spent more than two hours in a game. Prior to June 2015, Valve had a no-refunds policy, but allowed them in certain circumstances, such as digital rights management issues or false advertising.

Valve has full authority to remove games from the service for various reasons; however games that are removed can still be downloaded and played by those that have already purchased these games. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was removed from Steam in 2012 because of a claim from the Recording Industry Association of America over an expired license for a song on the soundtrack. Around the launch of Electronic Arts' (EA) own digital storefront Origin during the same year, Valve removed Crysis 2, Dragon Age II, and Alice: Madness Returns from Steam because the terms of service prevented games from having their own in-game storefront for downloadable content. Valve also remove games that are formally stated to be violating copyright or other intellectual property when given such complaints. In 2016, Valve removed Orion by Trek Industries when Activision filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint about the game after it was discovered that one of the game's artists had taken, among other assets, gun models directly from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.

Quality control

With the launch of Steam Direct, effectively removing any curation of games by Valve prior to being published on Steam, there have been several incidents of published games that have attempted to mislead Steam users. Starting in June 2018, Valve has taken actions against games and developers that are "trolling" the system; in September 2018, Valve explicitly defined that trolls on Steam "aren't actually interested in good faith efforts to make and sell games to you or anyone". Within a month of clarifying its definition of trolling, Valve removed approximately 170 games from Steam.

In addition to removing bad actors, Valve has also taken steps to reduce the impact of "fake games". In May 2017, Valve identified several games on the service with trading card support, where the developer distributed game codes to thousands of bot-operated accounts that would run the game to earn trading cards that they could then sell for profit; these games would also create false positives that make these games appear more popular than they really were, affecting Steam's Discovery algorithms. Subsequent to this patch, games must reach some type of confidence factor based on actual playtime before they can generate trading cards, with players credited for their time played towards receiving trading cards before this metric is met. Valve identified a similar situation in June 2018 with "fake games" that offered large numbers of game achievements with little gameplay aspects, which some users would use to artificially raise their global achievement statistics. Valve plans to use the same approach and algorithms to identify these types of games, limiting these games to only one thousand total achievements and discounting these achievements towards a user's statistics. These algorithms have resulted in select false positives for legitimate games with unusual end-user usage patterns, such as Wandersong which was flagged in January 2019 for what the developer believed was related to near-unanimous positive user reviews from the game.

Other actions taken by developers against the terms of service or other policies have prompted Valve to remove games. Some noted examples include:

• In September 2016, Valve removed Digital Homicide Studios games from the storefront for being "hostile to Steam customers" following a lawsuit that the developer had issued against 100 unnamed Steam users for leaving negative reviews of their games.
• In September 2017, Valve removed 170 games developed by Silicon Echo, citing that these were cheap "fake games" that relied on "asset flipping" with pre-existing Unity game engine assets so that they could be published quickly, and were designed to take advantage of the trading card market to allow players and the developers to profit from the trading card sales.
• In February 2018, after discovering that the CEO of Insel Games had requested the company's employees write positive Steam reviews for its games, Valve removed all of Insel's games from the service and banned the company from it.
• In July 2018, the games Abstractism and Climber offered Steam inventory items that used assets from other Valve games, which were used to mislead users looking for these for trading. Valve removed the games, and built in additional trade protections, warning users of trades involving recently released games or games they do not own to prevent such scamming.
• In November 2019, nearly 1000 games were removed from Steam, most tied to a Russian publisher that had operated under several different names. A Valve representative stated that they "recently discovered a handful of partners that were abusing some Steamworks tools" as rationale for the removals.
• Developers stated that Valve began warning them about removal of games that used cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens in October 2021, as such items could have real-world value outside of the game or Steam, which would be against Valve's acceptable use policy.

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence in 2023, Valve originally established that games with content generated in this manner could be distributed through Steam, though cautioned developers about assuring that they had the rights for this type of content. As greater concerns about the copyright and ethical nature of generational AI in the latter half of 2023, Valve clarified its stance in January 2024, requiring games that did use content from generational AI to disclose this on the game's store page, including methods that the developers used to assure the AI engines did not generate illegal content.

Platforms and devices

Windows

Steam originally released exclusively for Microsoft Windows in 2003, but has since been ported to other platforms. More recent Steam client versions use the Chromium Embedded Framework. To take advantage of some of its features for newer interface elements, Steam uses 64-bit versions of Chromium, which makes it unsupported on older operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Vista. Steam on Windows also relies on some security features built into later versions of Windows. Support for XP and Vista were dropped in 2019. While users still on those operating systems are able to use the client, they do not have access to newer features. Around 0.2% of Steam users were affected by this when it began. In March 2023, Valve announced that Steam would drop support for Windows 7 and 8 on January 1, 2024.

macOS

Valve announced a client for Mac OS X in March 2010. The announcement was preceded by a change in the Steam beta client to support the cross-platform WebKit web browser rendering engine instead of the Trident engine of Internet Explorer. Valve teased the release by e-mailing several images to Mac community and gaming websites; the images featured characters from Valve games with Apple logos and parodies of vintage Macintosh advertisements. Valve developed a full video homage to Apple's 1984 Macintosh commercial to announce the availability of Half-Life 2 on the service; some concept images for the video had previously been used to tease the Mac Steam client.

Steam for Mac OS X was originally planned for release in April 2010 before being pushed back to May 12, 2010. In addition to the Steam client, several features were made available to developers, allowing them to take advantage of the cross-platform Source engine, and platform and network capabilities using Steamworks. Through the Steam Play functionality, the macOS client allows players who have purchased compatible products in the Windows version to download the Mac versions at no cost. The Steam Cloud, along with many multiplayer PC games, also supports cross-platform play.

Linux

In July 2012, Valve announced that it was developing a client for Linux based on the Ubuntu distribution. This announcement followed months of speculation, primarily from the website Phoronix that had discovered evidence of Linux developing in recent builds of Steam and other Valve games. Newell stated that getting Steam and games to work on Linux is a key strategy for Valve; Newell called the closed nature of Microsoft Windows 8 "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space", and that Linux would maintain "the openness of the platform". Valve is extending support to any developers that want to bring their games to Linux, by "making it as easy as possible for anybody who's engaged with us—putting their games on Steam and getting those running on Linux", according to Newell.

The team developing the Linux client had been working for a year before the announcement to validate that such a port would be possible. As of the official announcement, a near-feature-complete Steam client for Linux had been developed and successfully run on Ubuntu. Internal beta testing of the Linux client started in October 2012; external beta testing occurred in early November the same year. Open beta clients for Linux were made available in late December 2012, and the client was officially released in mid-February 2013. At the time of announcement, Valve's Linux division assured that its first game on the OS, Left 4 Dead 2, would run at an acceptable frame rate and with a degree of connectivity with the Windows and Mac OS X versions. From there, it began working on porting other games to Ubuntu and expanding to other Linux distributions. Versions of Steam working under Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux were released by October 2013. There were over 500 Linux-compatible games on Steam in June 2014, and in February 2019, Steam for Linux had 5,800 native games and was described as having "the power to keep Linux [gaming] alive" by Engadget.

In August 2018, Valve released a beta version of Proton (named Steam Play), an open-source Windows compatibility layer for Linux, so that Linux users could run Windows games directly through Steam for Linux. Proton comprises a set of open-source tools including Wine and DXVK. The software allows the use of Steam-supported controllers, even those not compatible with Windows. Released in February 2022, Valve's handheld computer, the Steam Deck, runs SteamOS 3.0 which is based on the Arch Linux distribution, and uses Proton to support Windows-based games without native Linux ports. Valve worked with various middleware developers to make sure their tools were compatible with Proton on Linux and maximize the number of games that the Steam Deck would support. This included working with various anti-cheat developers such as Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye to make sure their solutions worked with Proton. To help with compatibility, Valve developed a classification system that they will populate to rank any game as to how well it works as a Linux native solution or through Proton.

Support for Nvidia's proprietary deep learning super sampling (DLSS) on supported video cards and games was added to Proton in June 2021, though this is not available on the Steam Deck which is based on AMD hardware.

In March 2022, Google offered a prerelease version of Steam on Chromebooks, and entered public beta in November 2022.

Steamworks on consoles

At E3 2010, Newell announced that Steamworks would arrive on the PlayStation 3 with Portal 2. Steamworks made its debut on consoles with Portal 2's PlayStation 3 release. Several features—including cross-platform play and instant messaging, Steam Cloud for saved games, and the ability for PS3 owners to download Portal 2 from Steam (Windows and Mac)—were offered. Valve's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive also supports Steamworks and cross-platform features on the PlayStation 3, including using keyboard and mouse controls as an alternative to the gamepad. Valve said it "hope[s] to expand upon this foundation with more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases".

The Xbox 360 does not have support for Steamworks. Newell said that they would have liked to bring the service to the console through the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, but later said that cross-platform play would not be present in the final version of the game. Valve attributes the inability to use Steamworks on the Xbox 360 to limitations in the Xbox Live regulations of the ability to deliver patches and new content. Valve's Erik Johnson stated that Microsoft required new content on the console to be certified and validated before distribution, which would limit the usefulness of Steamworks' delivery approach.

Mobile apps

Valve released an official Steam client for iOS and Android devices in late January 2012, following a short beta period. The application allows players to log into their accounts to browse the storefront, manage their games, and communicate with friends in the Steam community. The application also incorporates a two-factor authentication system that works with Steam Guard. Newell stated that the application was a strong request from Steam users and sees it as a means "to make [Steam] richer and more accessible for everyone". A mobile Steam client for Windows Phone devices was released in June 2016. In May 2019, a mobile chat-only client for Steam was released under the name Steam Chat.

On May 14, 2018, a "Steam Link" app with remote play features was released in beta to allow users to stream games to Android phones, named after discontinued set-top box Steam Link. It was also submitted to the iOS App Store, but was denied by Apple Inc., who cited "business conflicts with app guidelines". Apple later clarified its rule at the following Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in early June, in that iOS apps may not offer an app-like purchasing store, but does not restrict apps that provide remote desktop support. In response, Valve removed the ability to purchase games or other content through the app and resubmitted it for approval in June 2018, where it was accepted by Apple and allowed on their store in May 2019.

Steam-branded devices

Prior to 2013, industry analysts believed that Valve was developing hardware and tuning features of Steam with apparent use on its own hardware. These computers were pre-emptively dubbed as "Steam Boxes" by the gaming community and expected to be a dedicated machine focused upon Steam functionality and maintaining the core functionality of a traditional video game console. In September 2013, Valve unveiled SteamOS, a custom Linux-based operating system they had developed specifically aimed for running Steam and games, and the final concept of the Steam Machine hardware. Unlike other consoles, the Steam Machine does not have set hardware; its technology is implemented at the discretion of the manufacturer and is fully customizable, much like a personal computer. In 2018 the Steam Machines were removed from the storefront due to low sales and small user traffic.

In November 2015, Valve released the set-top box Steam Link and Steam Controller (which was discontinued in 2019). The Steam Link removed the need for HDMI cables for displaying a PC's screen and allowed for wireless connection when connecting to a TV. That was discontinued in 2018, but now "Steam Link" refers to the Remote Play mobile app that allows users to stream content, such as games, from a PC to a mobile device over a network.

Steam Deck

Valve released the Steam Deck, a handheld gaming computer running an updated version of SteamOS, with initial shipments starting on February 25, 2022. The Deck is designed for the play of Steam games, but can be placed into a separate dock that allows the Deck to output to an external display. The Deck was released on February 25, 2022. Among updates to Steam and SteamOS included better Proton layer support for Windows-based games, improved user interface features in the Steam client for the Steam Deck display, and adding Dynamic Cloud Saves to Steam to allow synchronizing saved games while a game is being played. Valve began marking all games on the service through a Steam Deck Validated program to indicate how compatible they were with the Steam Deck software.

Steam Cloud Play

Valve included beta support for Steam Cloud Play in May 2020 for developers to allow users to play games in their library which developers and publishers have opted to allow in a cloud gaming service. At launch, Steam Cloud Play only worked through Nvidia's GeForce Now service and would link up to other cloud services in the future though whether Valve would run its own cloud gaming service was unclear.

Steam China

The Steam China launch event in August 2019 in Shanghai

Steam China Release Event (featuring Wallpaper Engine)

China has strict regulations on video games and Internet use; however, access to Steam is allowed through China's governmental firewalls. Currently, a large portion of Steam users are from China. By November 2017, more than half of the Steam userbase was fluent in Chinese, an effect created by the large popularity of Dota 2 and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds in the country, and several developers have reported that Chinese players make up close to 30% of the total players for their games.

Following a Chinese government-ordered temporary block of many of Steam's functions in December 2017, Valve and Perfect World announced they would help to provide an officially sanctioned version of Steam that meets Chinese Internet requirements. Perfect World has worked with Valve before to help bring Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to the country through approved government processes. All games to be released on Steam China are expected to pass through the government approval process and meet other governmental requirements, such as requiring a Chinese company to run any game with an online presence.

The platform is known locally as "Steam Platform" (Chinese: 蒸汽平台; pinyin: Zhēngqì píngtái) and runs independently from the rest of Steam. It was made to comply with China's strict regulations on video games. Valve does not plan to prevent Chinese users from accessing the global Steam platform and will try to assure that a player's cloud data remains usable between the two. The client launched as an open beta on February 9, 2021, with about 40 games available at launch. As of December 2021, only around 100 games that have been reviewed and licensed by the government are available through Steam China.

On 25 December 2021, reports emerged that Steam's global service was the target of a domain name system attack that prevented users in China from accessing its site. The Chinese government Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) later confirmed that Chinese gamers would no longer be able to use Steam's global service as its international domain name has been designated as "illegal". The block has effectively locked all Chinese users out of games they had purchased through Steam's international service.

See also

In Spanish: Steam para niños

• List of video game digital distribution systems