It's Official: Steam Expanding Beyond Gaming
Valve Software has announced that it will start offering non-gaming Software titles starting September.
Last month, users of the Steam app for Android discovered a new batch of categories when using the Search function to find games on Valve's digital distribution platform. Under the "Genre" section, the new listings included Accounting, Animation & Modeling, Audio Production, Design & Illustration, Education, Photo Editing, Software Training, Utilities, Video Production, and Web Publishing. Valve unsurprisingly made no comment about the new discovery.
Until now, that is. The company announced that its Steam platform will offer its first set of non-gaming "Software" titles starting September 5, 2012. Ranging from productivity to creativity, many of these launch titles will take advantage of popular Steamworks features, such as easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save files to the user's personal Steam Cloud space for on-the-go productivity.
"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Mark Richardson at Valve. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests."
More Software titles will be added in an ongoing fashion following the September 5th launch, and developers will be welcome to submit Software titles via Steam Greenlight, the company said.
As we indicated last month, this could be Valve's assault on Amazon. The two companies are seemingly going head-to-head on the PC gaming front, fighting for the consumer dollar with rock-bottom prices in various promotions. It only makes sense that Valve wants to tackle Amazon on the non-gaming front while also bundling software with its Steamworks features.
Valve may also be gearing up to compete directly with Microsoft. Bossman Gabe Newell has clearly made his feelings public about Windows 8, joining other big-name developers who feel that Microsoft is creating a walled garden with the new Windows platform. Currently Valve has not indicated what software products will be included in the initial launch, or if they will be compatible with the new Windows 8 UI.
Expect to see Valve release details of its initial software lineup soon.
i think TotalHalibut covered it... http://youtu.be/REC4xwpX26g?t=12m29s
skip to 12:30
Unfortunately, I think that in situations where you move from one OS to another it is up to the developer of the cross platform title to okay/approve this. I don't see Adobe green lighting something that like in the near future sadly (I know quite a few graphic design guys that are in the same boat)
Though I still don't understand the "Even more reason to stick with [legacy os]" You make it sound like because Microsoft is offering an app store directly in it's operating system that won't compete with Steam regarding its game capacity but will (at least initially) trump it's productivity suite is "even more reason"? I get that you aren't switching, I don't get how this is any part of the decision maker...
Photoshop CS6 Steam Summer Sale $99!? One could dream I guess.. heh.
My only fear is that i'll have to format once I purchase a copy of Windows 8.
As for the lack of moving programs from drive to drive.
Try this. Works very well, but it is a manual(but not mklink /j c:/game d:/game manual) way to do this trick(this means it works with any program you want to move). Steam Mover also works(and is automatic).
http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm/
as long as software stays off the main page, and only appears there if they have deals going on.
This is especially handy if my sister helped PAY for the game, as we do occasionally do that.
But because games are tied to the account and the account can't be signed in elsewhere, that's not possible.
So what happens if my sister is trying to use (for the sake of argument not availability) Photoshop on another computer and I want to play Crysis on mine. Will that be possible? There's no reason not to except an extremely greedy enforcement of our lack of ownership.
I love Steam, it gets me games for cheap. I take great advantage of sales and promotions and enjoy playing the games I paid money for.
After all this, now I want to email Gabe.
Install steam on second pc, start game, disconnect from internet. problem solved