It seems Valve is currently working on quite a few interesting projects, lately. The most recent one of which just went into beta today, and is called Steam.TV. Currently, it can only host DOTA 2 streams, and is having connection issues, but it appears to be a service that wants to eventually compete with the streaming titan, Twitch, or, alternatively, follow the trend like YouTube Gaming had. There's chat integration, with both viewers, or limited to Steam friends only. If you check it out, you can see The International, a DOTA 2 tournament, being streamed live.

 

[SirNapkin1334]

Misread title as Valve launches Steam TV, intends to compete with Switch

Steam TV sounds like a gaming console.

 

[Song of storms]

"What do you want?"
"Half-Life 3"
"Ok here's more TF2 hats"
"But..."
"You're unhappy? What do you want?"
"Left 4 Dead 3"
"Ok here's more DOTA2 cosmetics"
"But..."
"Still not happy? What do you want?"
"Get rid of Steam Early Access scams and idiotic meme cashgrabs like Rain Simulator"
"Ok here's paid mods"
"..."
"Fuck you it's good"
"..."
"Ok just kidding what do you want?"
"Can we just have more games from the franchises we love? You clearly are making a lot of money off Steam sales alone and you know that we will support any release no matter w--"
"Ok here is a broken new Steam layout to make it feel more like Discord"
"*crying* why are you doing this to us Valve?"
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US? HERE'S TWITCH REPLACEMENT"
"NO ONE IS ASKING FOR THIS STUFF!"
"MOOOOOOOORE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATS"
"...fine, more hats"

 

[Mnecraft368]

Misread title as Valve launches Steam TV, intends to compete with Switch

Steam TV sounds like a gaming console.

Haha I read the exact same thing

Yeah, I can totally see this working out well for Valve...

 

[dAVID_]

They want to launch a full-blown Streaming service but not Half-Life 3.

 

[graeme122]

If they can deal with that "hot gamer chick" biased bs that twitch does, I'm all for it.

 

[Lodad]

If they can deal with that "hot gamer chick" biased bs that twitch does, I'm all for it.

You mean the all-but-nude cam "modeling"?

 

[MaverickWellington]

Remember when Valve was an industry leader with both tech, and their storefront? Now they're just trying to offer competition to sites that do everything better. Valve doesn't need to focus on trying to integrate competitors' ideas into a platform people are phasing out of, they need to focus on incentives to stay on their platform and service. The question is though, what can they do? Outside of offering free games like PS+ or Games for Gold I can't really imagine anything Steam could add that'd keep me and people like me, who aren't fond of it as a platform anymore, using it.

 

[RattletraPM]

I'm actually a bit scared for Valve right now - not because they're in immediate danger but because their situation could turn ugly in the long run if they don't do something about it.
Sure, they still cash in a lot of money via fees from the Steam store, but think about this:

• They're investing money on devices and services that people aren't interested in. Valve has always had this "experimental" nature in them, sure, but think about the last time you were actually excited for something they made and you kept using it for a while. Some of these have their own niche of users (like the Steam Controller) but none can really be called a hit.
• Even if some of their recent competitive games are almost constantly in Steam's top 10 most played list all of them show signs of declining playerbase, Dota 2 included. Dota could still be considered safe as it's just a very slight trend but CSGO is taking a pretty big hit and Team Fortress 2, well... let's just say that the competitive scene has been dead for a while (plus the official one is a big meme) and it only relies on their die hard casual players now. Considering that Valve has bet pretty big on competitive games in the past, this could be quite worrying.
• Steam has got a lot of bad PR in recent times. Asset flips, nonexistent quality control, censoring games, poor customer service, underground betting circles for esports... You name it. Valve has tried to do something about some of these issues but with mixed results.
• Finally, AAA game devs are starting to ditch Steam in favour of their own game launchers/stores. This might be out of greed to get more profits but a few years ago not releasing a game on Steam was kind of a big deal. Now more and more devs are considering such an option, meaning that Steam might not be that tempting as a platform for big studios anymore. And mind you, those aren't small indie games we're talking about, so this could REALLY hurt Valve if the trend keeps increasing.

I'm not a market analyst but it doesn't take much to understand that all of this spell one thing for Valve: they need to change. They aren't in a critical situation right now but this can very well turn ugly if they just sit idly and do nothing.

 

[shadow theory]

I think this is a fine move, they've already had technology to share your play experience with your friends for awhile--so this isn't a ground up investment--it's incremental iteration on a concept they're already pushing. Also, Twitch's market prominence is something you would definitely consider, but it's not a reason not to dip your toe in. If anything, we've seen examples in the tech field of someone coming along, doing something in a new way, and taking a lot of market share. (See Internet Explorer to Chrome, Teamspeak to Discord, Myspace to Facebook, or more recently, Facebook for Instagram, etc). Steam already has the eyeballs, trying to find other ways to keep them engaged and on the site also helps to drive sales as they try to become a one stop shop. For the possible upside, it'd be nearly insane not to try.

Now whether it will work, is altogether a different story. (And I would mirror concerns that it is not ready for prime time).

 

[WildDog]

I been playing Half Life since it's first realese, good old WON days. I made my Steam account the same day they released steam in 2003.
Half Life 3 is a bad idea and they know it, releasing Half Life 3 means they need a new engine that can make a revolution a history that is better than the on in Half Life 2. The risk is way too big for them.
It's true they need act now before it's too late and they lose a lot of market, but HL3 is not the solution.

Remember when Valve was an industry leader with both tech, and their storefront? Now they're just trying to offer competition to sites that do everything better. Valve doesn't need to focus on trying to integrate competitors' ideas into a platform people are phasing out of, they need to focus on incentives to stay on their platform and service. The question is though, what can they do? Outside of offering free games like PS+ or Games for Gold I can't really imagine anything Steam could add that'd keep me and people like me, who aren't fond of it as a platform anymore, using it.

Valve was never an industry leader with it's tech, their engines were always on step behind others.
But i do agree, they are losing people... I'm the same situation not as fond as Steam as i was a few years. In my case one of the biggest negatives is the price.... I moved to Netherlands and every single game is more expensive, not only in # but in currency... Sorry Valve buy 1 euro is not 1 dollar. Why you charge 60 euros for a game that is 60 dollars everywhere else???

Also they are not letting me use my Paypal, because it was not made in the netherlands... My credit cards neither, not from Europe... So i'm stuck using my dutch debit card.. So screw it, buying from GOG or if the game is only on steam from Cdkeys or g2a.....