Steam Now Offering Software

Today, Valve has began to offer Software via the popular digital distribution platform, Steam. There has been much speculation in regards to when this would launch since missing it’s initial launch window in September. With the launch of this new Software service, Valve is currently offering 10% off all new software titles, until Tuesday October 9th at 10am PST.

There is currently only seven software titles available via Steam Software. There are currently five available for purchase which are: ArtRage Studio Pro, CameraBag 2, 3D-Coat, 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 11. The Source Filmmaker and the basic version of GameMaker: Studio are available free of charge.

The official Press Release from Valve is as follows:

Many of the launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you.

GameMaker Studio, for example, features integration with Steam Workshop that allows GameMaker users to share their work via Steam.

The only direct parallel I can draw to this new service would be with Impulse. This was initially ran by Stardock, but was later sold to GameStop. I personally did not care for the service, mainly because there wasn’t any software titles beyond what Stardock offered; this felt too closed off and limited. The current attempt by Valve feels more open and intertwined with many of the other services Steam offers, (insofar as even including achievements). Time will tell how developers will incorporate these features, but for now I am hopeful they will be open to giving us more choice when they make these titles available on Steam.