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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Valve today announced that beginning September 5 it will expand its Steam store for digital distribution of gaming titles to include other types of applications. The expansion of Steam to other software categories could pose signification competition for other digital marketplaces such as Apple's Mac App Store.
The Software titles coming to Steam range from creativity to productivity. 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.

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.
steam_logo.jpg



Beyond simply serving as a comparable alternative for the Mac App Store, the Steam store could become a convenient distribution point for software that is not compatible with Apple's Mac App Store guidelines. Apple's limitations such as sandboxing requirements have resulted in some applications not being accepted for distribution through the Mac App Store or required that certain features be removed, and Valve's Steam store is likely to be more lenient in those regards.

Hints of an expansion for Steam appeared last month within the Steam app for Android, which briefly showed new categories of software for the store.

Article Link: Valve to Expand Steam Store Beyond Games on September 5
 

VPrime

macrumors 68000
Dec 19, 2008
1,722
86
London Ontario
This could be an amazing thing for both users and developers.
I personally trust valve more than apple when it comes to digital purchases... They have been doing it for a long time, and doing it extremely well.
 

east85

macrumors 65816
Jun 24, 2010
1,343
495
Competition is never a bad thing. I wish them luck on this venture, partially because they actually have a Linux team on staff.
 

Mundty

macrumors member
May 7, 2012
97
10
Glad to hear it, I think Apple's App Store is wayyy too pricey on most products. Compare them to other digital retailers and they are almost always more expensive. Competition would be good!
 

rmwebs

macrumors 68040
Apr 6, 2007
3,140
0
This could be an amazing thing for both users and developers.
I personally trust valve more than apple when it comes to digital purchases... They have been doing it for a long time, and doing it extremely well.

My thoughts exactly. Valve have been the operators of arguably the most long running online software store and have always had an excellent reputation for it.

I love how the store hooks into different games to allow you to play them even when they arent at 100% downloaded (by using core files from other games you have installed).

IMO this is an excellent move on their part, especially since they are about to release the Linux version of Steam as well, meaning they are completely cross platform.

Also, some may not be aware, but them porting their games to Linux will benefit Mac users of their software in a BIG way. They already created some huge improvements to OpenGL, making the games work BETTER on Linux than on Windows (which uses crappy Direct3D).
 

Carl Sagan

macrumors 6502a
May 31, 2011
603
17
The Universe
Competition is never a bad thing. I wish them luck on this venture, partially because they actually have a Linux team on staff.

Agreed this is great news, both Apple and Microsoft now have a heavy weight company in this space. Brilliant for consumers!
 

rmwebs

macrumors 68040
Apr 6, 2007
3,140
0
I bet Microsoft is more pissed at this than Apple.

Not to bash MS, but I really cant see a Microsoft Store doing that well. I know they are really pushing it along with that new UI (no longer called Metro due to legal reasons) but I guess I just cant see it working.

I've got zero faith in the management over at Microsoft while Balmer is still there. The guy's still stuck in 1992.

Steam will easily wipe the floor with any MS store (again, IMO) due to the fact thats its a lot more widely known and is already on millions of computers. Plus steam do some awesome promotions that cant be beaten elsewhere.
 

samcolson4

macrumors member
Aug 16, 2011
53
0
This is nice, but, Steam on my 2011 MBP barely runs. Locks my whole laptop up and uses up about 50% of my i7 just idling.

Anyone else getting this issue? I've done multiple fresh installs but it just doesn't seem to click. I only have it installed for Portal 2.
 

Hattig

macrumors 65816
Jan 3, 2003
1,457
92
London, UK
Competition is a great thing. Hopefully this will provide another outlet for developers to distribute their software. In addition hopefully this will mean that software that is cross-platform can be sold once, and downloaded to a user's Windows/Mac/Linux boxes without needing to pay for each version separately.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Glad to hear it, I think Apple's App Store is wayyy too pricey on most products. Compare them to other digital retailers and they are almost always more expensive. Competition would be good!

I can’t think of any examples where a Mac app has moved to the App Store and gone up in price; and I can think of many examples where they’ve gone down (though that might have happened anyway with the passage of time). And I see many desktop apps (games and utilities) now being $1-$5 on the App Store, which would have been $10 to $50 in the past.

What apps have gone up in price due the App Store? I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, I’m just curious because I’ve never noticed.

Also, it’s the developers who set their product pricing, not Apple. So if there’s a problem of software costing too much, the solution is not about price competition between Apple and Valve, but about price competition between individual software developers. But we've always had that.


This is nice, but, Steam on my 2011 MBP barely runs. Locks my whole laptop up and uses up about 50% of my i7 just idling.

Anyone else getting this issue? I've done multiple fresh installs but it just doesn't seem to click. I only have it installed for Portal 2.

That’s a shame. My 2011 11” Air runs the Steam client, Portal 2, TF2, and other Steam titles just fine. (Native OS X, not Bootcamp.)
 

theBB

macrumors 68020
Jan 3, 2006
2,453
3
The expansion of Steam to other software categories could pose signification competition for other digital marketplaces such as Apple's Mac App Store.
Significant??? I very much doubt that. I don't see any third party being anywhere close to a significant competitor for any app store provided by an OS or device vendor itself.
 

faroZ06

macrumors 68040
Apr 3, 2009
3,387
1
I don't like Steam. The concept of it is good, but it's far too buggy, and you're forced to use plastic to pay for games.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
Much as I love the App Store, I’d love to see a widely-successful general-purpose cross-platform store too! Steam (with more than games) seems like a good candidate. I’ve been a happy Steam customer so far.

I don’t like the Steam weird UI and the weird install location, though. And how launching an app directly is an optional extra, with the normal expected method being to launch through Steam. But those things can evolve—and beyond gaming, I think they’ll have to.

It’s possible to move both App Store titles and Steam titles to an external drive... but it’s a LOT harder with Steam!
 

mazz0

macrumors 68040
Mar 23, 2011
3,117
3,564
Leeds, UK
Wish they'd bring out Half Life 2 Episode 3 before expanding their store...

That's Valve Time for you...

Agreed! Although I suppose it's probably different teams at Valve. I'm more interested in Big Picture Mode myself.

Significant??? I very much doubt that. I don't see any third party being anywhere close to a significant competitor for any app store provided by an OS or device vendor itself.

That's a good point, but the ability to buy an app once and own it for Mac and Windows is a big plus (they do that with games, hoping they'll do it for other programmes too).
 

Eso

macrumors 68020
Aug 14, 2008
2,027
927
The fact that it won't be able to function on iOS is going to greatly hinder its ability to compete with Apple's App stores on iOS and OS X.

I hope it brings greater light to the anti-competitive practices on Apple in not allowing competing application stores on the iOS platform. What if steam believes that they can run a better store for apps on the iPhone than the App Store? Lower prices, better return policy, better organization, fewer crappy apps, more favorable cut for developers, and so on?

Well, they can't - but they should be able to.
 

q64ceo

macrumors 6502a
Aug 13, 2010
517
782
Significant??? I very much doubt that. I don't see any third party being anywhere close to a significant competitor for any app store provided by an OS or device vendor itself.

Steam has been around for a very long time. It has a very good reputation. In their case, they might be the exception because people will go out of their way to use it.

Kinda like Internet Explorer v FireFox. Took a while before FF took off. IE being built in hampered their ability, but they overcame it, and now IE is at its lowest userbase since 1996.
 

Mackilroy

macrumors 68040
Jun 29, 2006
3,906
539
Significant??? I very much doubt that. I don't see any third party being anywhere close to a significant competitor for any app store provided by an OS or device vendor itself.
Have you ever tried Steam? Valve has a fair chunk of the digital distribution market for games tied up, with tens of millions of accounts.
 

ChazUK

macrumors 603
Feb 3, 2008
5,393
25
Essex (UK)
I wonder if we'll see app sales similar to the game ones Steam do?

Good news, especially with their upcoming move into Linux.
 

vampyren

macrumors regular
Sep 16, 2008
143
4
But how will users be able to download and install these applications?
Only way i see it is if the phone is jailbreaked but then you have Cydia which is very well established.
Without jailbreak i doubt Apple will Allow such a move, even with JB i bet Apple will try to sue or something.
I Like AppStore but its true they are to restrictive specially towards some silly things like themes and such , i would love to be able to use winterboard without JB for instance.
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
Everyone panic it is the Microsoft Store! Next up Ubuntu Software Center is competing against Steam!

No ire from Gatekeeper and the App Store but the end of the world is here otherwise. Talk about getting laughed out of the room for being one of the 5 Steam users on OS X...
 
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