14 DAY TRIAL // Gabe Newell, the leader of Valve, says that the team working on the Steam digital distribution service will continue to get a range of improvements in the coming months, all of them designed to create a better connection between content makers and players.
The executive states in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit that “We still think we have a long way to go to get to the point where all of the different people that are contributing value to competitive play get everything out of it that they should. Feels like we are making pretty good progress though.”
DOTA 2, the multiplayer online battle arena title, and Team Fortress 2, the multiplayer-focused cooperative shooter, are cited as examples of how developers and gamers can collaborate to improve overall experiences.
Newell adds, “Giving the consumers of content a direct relationship with the creators of content is something we think about a lot. That is what drove our thinking about how the community could be more involved in the tournaments that mattered to them.”
Recently, Valve gave all developers the option to run their own sales via Steam, which basically means they can cut the price of their titles without first seeking approval from the company.
At the same time, the Greenlight service is being improved in order to make it easier for gamers to find titles they are interested in and then support them.
Gabe Newell has previously said that he wants to eliminate it altogether in the coming months while giving developers better and simpler ways to launch their games to consumers as soon as they are ready.
At the same time, a long-term plan for Steam involves giving all users the ability to create their own customized stores and promote content that they feel other players should discover and then explore.
The digital distribution service continues to be the most popular on the PC, way ahead of Origin from Electronic Arts and uPlay from Ubisoft, and as long as it keeps running solid sales and delivering new features, it should maintain that gap.
During 2014, Valve is set to deliver the first version of its SteamOS, which will arrive alongside the Steam machines from a range of partners and the new haptic controller.
The trio of new concepts is designed to create stronger competition in the PC space for the Xbox One from Microsoft and the PlayStation 4 from Sony.