Fortnite Passes 7 Million Player Mark, Offers Celebratory Bonuses

October 4, 2017, 11:01 am

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The sandbox survival multiplayer game has officially passed a big milestone.

In a post made to Fortnite’s Twitter page, Epic Games revealed the game has reached 7 million active players. As a result, the game will be offering bonuses to the game’s Battle Royale mode players to commemorate the occasion.

“Thanks to over 7 million of you who have played Fortnite,” the post reads. “We want to keep the Battle Bus flying, so Duos and Supply Drops are available now.”

Developed by People Can Fly and Epic Games, the title was released for PS4, Xbox One, Mac, and PC on July 25, with a full free-to-play version set to release in 2018. In September, Epic launched a free standalone Battle Royale mode for those platforms as well that offers 100 player matches and incorporates the game’s crafting and shooting mechanics. Epic didn’t specify how this 7 million players number divides between the people who paid $40 for the base version and those who downloaded the free standalone battle royale mode.

The launch saw over one million players log in, but also drew criticism and controversy from Bluehole Studio Inc. for its similarity to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ gameplay and comparisons made to PUBG during marketing, with the developer even threatening further actions. For Leo Vadar’s breakdown of the similarities and differences between the two games, click here.

[Source: Fortnite Twitter]

Our Take
The new Battle Royale mode continues to prove itself as a boon for Fortnite and Epic. While it’s still unclear whether Bluehole will take any actions for the similarities between it and PUBG, the game continues to reap the benefits of the genre’s popularity.

the author Keenan McCall

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Valve President Gabe Newell Ranked In The Top 100 Richest People In America

October 20, 2017, 2:17 pm

≫ Next: Valve Details Upcoming Steam Curator Update

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It is no secret that Valve makes bank, but now the man at the top of that cash tower can now say there are only 96 people in the country richer than him.

Forbes released a list of the one hundred richest people in the country rounded to the nearest hundred million, which is a marginal round off that is more money than most people will ever get the chance to even imagine. In the revised list, Valve’s head of state has been crowned the 97th richest person in America, due to Valve’s immense popularity with its storefront and hat retailer.

Forbes estimates Newell’s worth at $55 billion.

Gabe Newell, or Gaben as he likes to be called, can retire any day he wants at this point. When he does, he might finally spill the beans on what happened to Half-Life 3. Or Left 4 Dead 3. Or really anything, we just want to know.

the author Imran Khan

Valve Details Upcoming Steam Curator Update

October 27, 2017, 5:51 am

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Valve announced today it will be updating Steam’s Curator system with some major improvements later this fall.

The Curator system works by allowing people to select specific Curator accounts that they want to follow. These Curators’ recommendations and reviews will then show up on on the follower’s home page and activity log, narrowing down the sea of titles that they may be interested in. Part of the update later this fall will have your Curators’ recommendations show up on other parts of the Steam Store as well.

Curators will also soon be able to embed videos in their reviews, create lists of reviews they’ve written (i.e. “Good Halloween Games” or “Top 10 RPGs”), have greater customization of their home page, and have access to more graphs showing how their reviews have impacted their followers’ shopping decisions.

Valve is also hoping to make it easier for developers and publishers to get in contact with the right Curators with the new Curator Connect program. This lets developers select certain parameters to narrow down Curators, then select who to send a copy of their game to based on a snapshot of each Curator. If a Curator accepts, the game will be automatically added to their library.

Valve is starting a closed beta of this update today, which it’s hoping to run for a few weeks before opening it up to the public. The company also says it’s working on changes to Steam’s algorithmic recommendations, so people who don’t use the Curator system will also receive better suggestions.

[Source: Steamcommunity.com]

Our Take
The Curator system is a helpful way to get recommendations from people you know. Expanding the ways Curators can review content is good for them and the shoppers. Making it easier for developers to find the right Curators for their games will hopefully make their lives easier as well.

the author George Ash

Steam Abandons Bitcoin

December 6, 2017, 1:56 pm

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The phenomenon of Bitcoin as a form of currency has been fascinating to track, as the online cryptocurrency has seen tremendous fluctuations in value over recent months, as well as concerns about the potential for an economic bubble and its potential use in illicit activity. Today, the Steam Team announced that it will no longer support Bitcoin as a method of payment on Steam, as the team claims that the volatile nature of Bitcoin’s value prevents it from being a reliable value over a period of days, and that the high transaction fees cause problems when those changing values kick in.

According to the blog post, when sudden changes in value on Bitcoin occurs, users are either being refunded the original payment, or the user is asked to transfer additional funds to cover the cost, but in both cases, users must pay the Bitcoin transaction fee again (which is currently close to $20). Steam states that there have been an increasing number of users affected by this issue in recent months, which led to the decision to halt Bitcoin as an available payment option.

In its post, the Steam team also makes clear that it will continue to monitor Bitcoin in the future, and it may re-evaluate as a future date whether the cryptocurrency could be reauthorized.

[Source: Steam Blog]

Our Take
There’s no denying the important new place that Bitcoin has carved out for itself in the worldwide economy, but Steam’s explanations of the problems with using Bitcoin for purchases on the service make sense. My suspicion is that this change will only affect a small percentage of Steam users, but perhaps more users use Bitcoin than I’m aware. 

the author Matt Miller

Over 7600 Games Were Released On Steam In 2017

January 11, 2018, 7:05 am

≫ Next: I, Hope Is A Game About Battling Childhood Cancer With Sales Proceeds Going To Charity

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If it seems to you like Steam has more games than you can keep up with every week, that isn’t just your imagination. According to unofficial Steam statistic aggregator Steam Spy, 2017 saw the release of 7,672 games on the digital games service.

The number is notable for a few reasons. The new record is 2,472 more games than released last year, and means that about 40% of the entire Steam library came out last year. And, as the Steam Spy twitter account points out, that works out to about 21 games a day.

Valve has long been troubled with the idea of how and even whether to curate Steam games, choosing instead to rely on Discovery algorithms to help users sort through the massive number of games rather than cull them. What do you think of the game availability on Steam? Is it better to have the variety above all else? Let us know in the comments!

[Source: Steam Spy]

Our Take
While a huge number, I personally get uneasy at the idea of Valve turning games away because they don’t think they belong. Games have gotten banned for spurious reasoning before and I am not sure a more heavy-handed form of that is what’s needed. On the other hand…the problem with an overwhelming game library is getting exponentially worse.

the author Imran Khan

I, Hope Is A Game About Battling Childhood Cancer With Sales Proceeds Going To Charity

April 21, 2018, 6:22 am

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I, Hope, a game about battling childhood cancer, has been released for Steam with its proceeds going toward GameChanger Charity.

The game stars a young girl named Hope whose land has been besieged by a monster named Cancer that falls from the sky and lands on her island. The gameplay hews closely to other adventure games and involves Hope journeying to new areas to gain new skills to help her eventually defeat Cancer.

The game was funded originally on Indiegogo and then picked up by ID@Xbox for development support. The game’s developer, Kenny Roy, partnered with GameChanger Charity for donating proceeds from the game. GameChanger’s mission statement is to “leverage technology & innovation to ease the pain and suffering of children facing life-threatening illnesses” through partnerships with Child’s Play, scholarships for cancer survivors, gifts to cancer patients, and more.

I, Hope won the ID@Xbox award in the Gaming for Everyone category at GDC last year. You can catch a trailer of the game below.

The game is available now on Steam and will be arriving on Xbox One soon.

the author Imran Khan

Steam Adds Switch Pro Controller Support In Official Update

May 6, 2018, 12:42 pm

≫ Next: Valve’s New Steam Link App Will Let You Stream Games To Your Phone

≪ Previous: I, Hope Is A Game About Battling Childhood Cancer With Sales Proceeds Going To Charity

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Valve’s Steam Controller team has announced that the Switch’s Pro Controller, a dual-analog controller with similar shape and arrangement to the Xbox One controller, is now officially supported on Steam.

Users who are a part of the Steam client beta can now set the controller up via Steam Input and start using it in games now. You can customize the controller on a per game basis and even set a toggle to make the games recognize the Nintendo layout which swaps A/B and X/Y.

You can create and edit setups as you see fit and share those profiles with other users, or borrow theirs if they have a better setup. Steam even supports the Pro Controller’s motion control for games that take advantage of that.

[Source: Steam]

Our Take
It’s cool that this was clearly something they decided to work on and make work as well as possible. I wonder if Nintendo was made aware of it, but I’m happy I now have the option of an extra controller to use on PC.

the author Imran Khan

Valve’s New Steam Link App Will Let You Stream Games To Your Phone

May 9, 2018, 2:43 pm

≫ Next: The Steam Link Mobile App Has Been Blocked By Apple

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Today Valve announced a new app that allows Steam users to stream their game library to Android and iOS devices.

Steam Link is set to launch sometime during the week of May 21 on the App Store and Google Play, and will work with compatible phones, tablets, and TVs. Steam Link will require either a 5Ghz Wi-Fi network or wired ethernet connection to a Mac or PC running Steam. Steam Link also offers support for Steam controllers and Apple’s MFI controllers, as well as other unnamed controllers.

Valve is also launching a Steam Video app later in the summer that will let Steam users watch their purchased movies and shows on Android and iOS devices, and includes streaming and offline viewing options.

[Source: Valve]

Our Take
Unless Valve is sitting on some revolutionary new streaming technology, input lag will probably make Steam Link impractical for most action-based games. I could see myself using it for turn-based strategy and sim games, however, if Valve figures out a good solution for touchscreen support. We’ll have to wait until later in the month to see how Steam Link fares.

the author Jeff Marchiafava,

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The Steam Link Mobile App Has Been Blocked By Apple

May 25, 2018, 10:55 am

≫ Next: PUBG Developer Vows To Bring Big Performance Changes

≪ Previous: Valve’s New Steam Link App Will Let You Stream Games To Your Phone

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Valve has reported that the Steam Link app, which was announced only two weeks ago, has been rejected by Apple and has effectively ended the chances of getting the app on iOS devices

The app was designed to make a mobile device function in the same way as a Steam link, allowing users to stream games over the same WiFi network from their PC running Steam. Valve has stated that the app had already been approved by Apple, but has been retroactively blocked and the appeal denied.

“On Monday, May 7, Apple approved the Steam Link app for release. On Wednesday, May 9, Valve released news of the app,” Valve has said in a press release. “The following morning, Apple revoked its approval citing business conflicts with app guidelines that had allegedly not been realized by the original review team.”

Valve appealed to Apple on the basis that many similar streaming programs exists on the App store, but were denied.

“Ultimately, that appeal was denied leaving the Steam Link app for iOS blocked from release,” Valve continued. “The team here spent many hours on this project and the approval process, so we’re clearly disappointed. But we hope Apple will reconsider in the future.”

Apple has reversed decisions about apps before, generally under public pressure, such as reversing decisions on apps denied due to controversial political subject matter. We have reached out to Apple for comment, but did not receive a reply by the time of writing. The Steam Link app is currently available on Android in beta form.

Our Take
I’m really curious what the reasoning is for blocking the app, unless Apple just sees it as competition for buying games on their own store, which would explain the “business conflicts” response. If that’s the case, that feels like Apple exerting way more oversight than is necessary or wanted by the user base.

the author Imran Khan

PUBG Developer Vows To Bring Big Performance Changes

May 28, 2018, 12:07 pm

≫ Next: Hacknet Is Free On Steam For The Next Two Days

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Ever since the launch of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, it has been plagued with performance issues that have irked players. In a recent Steam post, PUBG Corp outlines upcoming performance fixes and how it has “fallen short” in the past.

The development team’s three biggest priorities are “performance, server-side optimization, and cheating.” Altering lighting effects so they can be better processed and changing how vehicles maneuver on different surfaces are two of the ways the team believes the game can reach better performance.

Player movement, animations, and character models will also receive adjustments in order to boost framerate. Sever-side optimization, reducing network latency, and tweaking item spawns are other fixes the team has planned. You can read the massive list of changes by heading here.

To read our review of PUBG, head here.

[Source: Steam]

the author Elise Favis

Hacknet Is Free On Steam For The Next Two Days

July 12, 2018, 11:24 am

≫ Next: HTC hints at multi-room VR using Steam

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Summer is a good time to be a thrifty gamer. Sales abound, Twitch Prime is giving away 21 different titles, and now you can enter the seedy techno-underbelly of the internet with Hacknet for free.

Released in 2015, Hacknet lets players sift through a mess of code and firewalls to figure out the story of what really happened to a recently-deceased hacker. In the trailer, you change an ad that says “Everyone loves chicken!” to “Everyone loves weak security!” Suffice to say, I’m in.

Hacknet is free until Saturday morning on Steam.

HTC hints at multi-room VR using Steam

July 15, 2018, 7:02 am

≫ Next: After Its Big Next Update, No Man’s Sky Is One Of The Most Played Games On Steam

≪ Previous: Hacknet Is Free On Steam For The Next Two Days

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You may know that VR in large rooms is becoming a reality, but what about venturing between rooms? It might happen sooner than you think, albeit with a few caveats. HTC has shown off an experience that used a SteamVR beta, a Vive Pro and 16 base stations to allow VR between multiple rooms. A tester successfully wandered between rooms finding tracked objects as he wandered through a complex but connected space. Don’t expect to play VR games that span your entire home, though, as there are some limitations.

Observer Alan Yates noted that SteamVR is still limited to tracking from four base stations in a given session. This is really about support for “radio-based channel configuration tools” rather than a dramatic change in SteamVR’s capabilities. As it stands, you can’t buy this exact setup. You currently need to buy a Vive Pro to get Steam VR 2.0 tracking stations, and there’s no certainty HTC, Valve or other companies will release stand-alone station packs in the near future. Think of this more as a glimpse of the future of room-scale VR than a sales pitch.

After Its Big Next Update, No Man’s Sky Is One Of The Most Played Games On Steam

July 29, 2018, 10:20 am

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When it first released in 2016, No Man’s Sky was met with middling-to-good reviews (ours was positive but pointed out several missteps), but met with much anger from players who felt betrayed. Since then developer Hello Games has been adding content and features over the course of the last two years, the latest of which, the Next update, was the biggest. The work has paid off for the team, as players are now flocking back to the game.

Yesterday, Hello Games’ Sean Murray tweeted the game had become “one of the most played games on PC, PS4, and Xbox,” in the wake of the Next update, and said the playerbase is growing each day. He also included a screenshot of the top games page on Steam, which included No Man’s Sky, which at the game had a 24-hour peak of over 60,000 players, making it the sixth overall game on the service.

Sean Murray

@NoMansSky

Never thought we’d be here, two years later. NMS is one of the most played games in the world this week on PC, PS4 and XBox, each day has been bigger than the last

Presumably Joe Danger is just out of shot?

Although it’s hard to find exact data for PSN and Xbox Live (on the latter’s official “most played” page, No Man’s Sky is currently absent), Steam does publish exact numbers for the concurrent playerbases of its games, however, and Murray’s statement on the growing playerbase holds true. As of this writing, the game is sitting at a 24-hour peak of over 84,000 players on Steam.

To see what all the fuss about, check out our episode of New Gameplay Today on the game, as well as Javy Gwaltney’s travelogue on the update.

Platformer Removed From Steam For Secretly Mining For Cryptocurrency

July 31, 2018, 9:21 am

≫ Next: Bethesda Confirms Fallout 76 Won’t Be Launching On Steam

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Around 20 to 30 games release a day on Steam, which means that a lot of games go without much notice from either Steam or the mass audience. Abstractism was one of those games, but enough people did manage to pay attention to notice something was amiss.

Abstractism, a fairly standard indie-platformer from developer Okalo Union, doesn’t command much attention at first glance. The minimal platformer puts the player in the role of a black or white square jumping around black or white platforms. It wasn’t until YouTuber SidAlpha decided to investigate a report of the developers ripping a user off by disguising a game item as a rarer drop on Steam that things really started to blow up.

You can find SidAlpha’s video here (warning for dumb homopohobic jokes from the developer), but the short version is this: developer Okalo Union essentially set up a circuitous plan that involved dropping items at a frequent rate of seven per week. These items would scale up for rarity depending on how long the game has been running, encouraging people to keep the game running in the background consistently so that they could get rare drops and sell them on the Steam marketplace. That, combined with a number of extra services the game was running, made a convincing argument that the game was mining for cryptocurrency in the background.

Valve has seemingly agreed and removed the game from the store and banned the developer.

Last month, Valve clarified their Steam content policies to be significantly more hands-off, deciding to allow anything onto Steam unless it was illegal or trolling. While Valve has never clarified what these things mean (Illegal in what country? Trolling by what measure?), it’s fairly important to note that nothing Okalo Union did with Abstractism is technically against those rules. It’s absolutely fraudulent, but that’s a road that can get extremely pedantic and specific if they want to go down it.

Since the rollout of Valve’s new policy, several games have had to be removed after complaints, meaning that no one besides Valve, or possibly even including Valve, understands what their current content policy is. It also means that, as a rule, their ability to protect people from downloading games like Abstractism can only be reactive rather than proactive.

At the end of his video, SidAlpha explains why he thinks this method of recursive drops and crypto-mining will be the new age of asset flips as a moneymaking scheme on Steam. If so, Abstractism is the first of many, certainly not the last.

Bethesda Confirms Fallout 76 Won’t Be Launching On Steam

August 6, 2018, 11:14 pm

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While it has long been suspected that Bethesda would be eschewing Valve’s Steam platform for their upcoming Fallout game, the publisher has confirmed this fact with PC Gamer. Fallout 76 will be exclusive to Bethesda’s own Bethesda.net launcher.

“The PC version of Fallout 76, for both the B.E.T.A. and the launch, will be available only via Bethesda.net, not on Steam,” Bethesda told PC Gamer.

While publishers are increasingly seeing the value in having their own launchers and not giving up 30 percent to Steam, few make the leap without having additional hooks beyond just their own games. Those that do tend to also launch on Steam, as well. Recent games like Quake Champions launched first on Bethesda.net, but eventually went to Steam, but Bethesda has not indicated that would be the case here.

Regardless of the details, Bethesda wants PC players to play Fallout 76 on their service. Should other publishers follow suit, the convenience of Steam as an all-in-one library gets called into question.

[Source: PC Gamer]

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Valve Adjusting Revenue Share For Steam’s Most Popular Games

December 1, 2018, 12:48 pm

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Valve has announced today that they’re implementing a sales-proportional revenue model for Steam that seeks to give developers more revenue from their games and software as they get more popular.

The current model on Steam is a flat percentage, where Valve takes 33 percent of a game’s revenue and the publisher takes the remaining 66 percent. By and large, this is common over the entire industry, with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft having similar revenue splits in place. Valve’s new model differs in that the 33 percent is now a temporary number until the game achieves threshold of revenue.

“Starting from October 1, 2018 (i.e. revenues prior to that date are not included), when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75 percent/25 percent on earnings beyond $10M,” Valve writes in a Steam Devworks announcement today. “At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80 percent/20 percent on earnings beyond $50M. Revenue includes game packages, DLC, in-game sales, and Community Marketplace game fees. Our hope is this change will reward the positive network effects generated by developers of big games, further aligning their interests with Steam and the community.”

Basically, the more money your game makes, the bigger split you get off further sales.

This is one of the first major moves for a storefront the size of Steam toward variable revenue models and confronting the traditional 33 percent model in a modern age of digital distribution and smaller publishers. Epic recently made an announcement to adjust their revenue share on their Unreal Asset Store with a more aggressive and standardized 88/12 split. In that case, Epic cites the success of Fortnite as subsidizing the missing revenue they would get.

PSA: Company Of Heroes 2 Is Free On Steam Until Tomorrow

December 9, 2018, 11:01 am

≫ Next: Rainbow Six Siege, Monster Hunter: World, GTA V Headline Steam’s Best-Selling, Most Played Games Of 2018

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To celebrate Company of Heroes 2’s fifth anniversary, Sega and Relic Entertainment are giving away the PC game for free on Steam.

You only have until tomorrow (December 10 at 12 p.m. CT)  to grab it at no cost. The anniversary celebration is a bit late, as the game came out in June 2013, but Sega seems to be making up for it by letting you download the game for free.

Additionally, two DLC for the game, The British Forces and Ardennes Assault, are discounted on Steam until tomorrow. They are 75 percent off.

[Source: Steam]

Rainbow Six Siege, Monster Hunter: World, GTA V Headline Steam’s Best-Selling, Most Played Games Of 2018

December 30, 2018, 7:50 am

≫ Next: Metro Exodus Leaves Steam For The Epic Games Store

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Valve has released its charts of the best-selling and most played games on Steam in 2018, and while new releases like Monster Hunter: World and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has breakout years it was games with regular content drops that seem to be doing most well.

Though Valve doesn’t disclose specific sales or revenue numbers in its charts, it does stratify games into distinct tiers, giving us a glimpse into how groups of games did relative to each other.

First up: Best-sellers. While 2018 titles like Monster Hunter: World, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Far Cry 5 made the platinum tier of titles who grossed the most revenue (allowing free-to-play titles with microtransactions to compete), nine of the twelve titles in that tier were games actually released before this year, but received regular or major content updates this year. The twelve best-selling titles are:

• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Dota 2
• Grand Theft Auto V
• PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
• Warframe
• Rocket League
• Rainbow Six Siege
• The Elder Scrolls Online
• Far Cry 5
• Civilization VI
• Monster Hunter: World
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Older titles were also popular as you go down the tiers, as games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Dead By Daylight, and more dominate the gold tier. The silver tier has more new titles, however, as Dragon Ball FighterZ, The Forest, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and a few other new titles make a name for themselves there.

When it comes to the most played games, we get a little more specific information. The titles in the highest tier managed to exceed over 100,000 simultaneous players on Steam. Only 10 titles accomplished the feat. They are:

• Monster Hunter: World
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• Path of Exile
• Team Fortress 2
• Dota 2
• Grand Theft Auto
• Rainbow Six Siege
• Realm Royale
• Playerunknowon’s Battlegrounds
• Warframe

Several titles, like Valve’s own Artifact, Warhammer: Vermintide II, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and early access game The Scroll of Taiwu all exceeding 50,000 players.

You can also see a breakdown of the best-selling games stratified by month, as well as the most popular games that left early access this year, and the best-selling VR games.

Metro Exodus Leaves Steam For The Epic Games Store

January 28, 2019, 9:14 am

≫ Next: SNK Heroines Heads To Steam Next Week

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The Metro Exodus story is all about leaving the familiar behind and seeking fortune elsewhere. This theme extends to the franchise’s approach to the digital marketplace as well. Today Deep Silver and Epic Games announced a partnership that makes the Epic Games Store the sole digital distributor of the PC version of the game moving forward.

“Metro Exodus is amazing and is deservedly one of the most anticipated PC titles of 2019,” said Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. “We are partnering with Deep Silver to launch Metro Exodus, underpinned by Epic’s marketing support and commitment to offering an 88% revenue split, enabling game creators to further reinvest in building great games and improving the economics of game stores for everybody.”

When Epic Games announced the 88/12 revenue split, we expected to see many publishers reconsider their relationship with Steam, where Valve keeps 30 percent of the profit unless a game hits a $50 million threshold, whereafter the split transitions to 80/20. Metro is now the second high-profile title to defect, following Ubisoft’s The Division 2.

Those who already pre-purchased Metro Exodus on Steam or any other digital retailer will still receive the game on that platform when it launches on February 15. But those who pre-order the game on the Epic Games Store will also receive a deal. The pricing starts at $49.99, as opposed to $59.99 on Steam. Later this year, Deep Silver plans to release Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light on the Epic Games Store as well.

SNK Heroines Heads To Steam Next Week

February 17, 2019, 6:46 am

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Tag-team fighter/dress-up game most of its characters look uncomfortable to be a part of SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy will be heading to Steam next week.

The game will head to the PC platform on February 21, SNK announced the news at this year’s Evo Japan. Though no trailer for the game is officially available online as of this writing, a fan attending the event was able to capture off-screen footage of a trailer playing at Evo Japan making the announcement. We expect a full announcement with more details to come at a later date.

SNK Heroines features several women from across the SNK catalog of games, as well as Terry Bogard and Skullolady.