Full Steam ahead

Other Steamy Stuff

Each game on Steam comes with its own meta-review score. Since these scores are compiled by Valve, they shouldn’t be taken for granted, but clicking the score in Steam’s game list will take you to a list of reviews for that particular game.

If you do decide to buy a game on Steam there’s only one way to pay – credit card. This excludes debit cards, like Switch, making it difficult for many people (especially in the UK) to buy games on Steam. This model still hasn’t changed even though other electronic payment methods, such as PayPal, are widely available and easy to use.

The Credit Card problem leaves a lot of people with no reason to even download Steam, as they can’t buy anything to play on it anyway. This is not nesissarily true. You can download a version of Steam that comes with CS 1.6, which is enough reason alone for many people to download and install games. More interestingly, for many, there are often demos of single player games or trial periods for pure multiplayer games.

The latest trial is for Red Orchestra, and it lasted for five days, more than enough time to decide if you actually like the game or not. This is important for people who buy games too. If a game becomes unpopular online, Valve can easily boost the number of players by releasing a free demo. However the resulting increase in numbers may not last long after the trial ends.

Steam Media

Another way Valve has of advertising titles is through Steam’s Media section. Since it uses Bink, the video quality is superb for game replays, and its main use has been for trailers.

Some of the developers have started using it to distribute tutorials. Two games have made superb use of this so far: Dangerous Waters and Red Orchestra. Dangerous Waters' tutorials are neverending and difficult to follow, but they diligently explain every feature of each station and save you reading an unfathomable manual. On the other hand the Red Orchestra tutorials are quick and easy, giving you only the basics you need to survive. Hopefully this will be something that Valve will build on - I’m sure there are many people who’d like a similar introduction to DoD, CS or X3.

It’s not all game demos and tutorials - you can also watch Valve approved movies. So far the only movie on there is Zombie Story, the simple take of a trio of numbnuts trapped in a car while a zombie apocalypse plays out outside. Hopefully Valve will start adding to this catalogue of one, more enthusiastically, in the future.