Topic: Steam expanding beyond games, adding "software" on Sept. 5

STEAM EXPANDS BEYOND GAMES

Launch Set of "Software" Titles Coming Sept 5

Aug 8, 2012 — Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the first set of Software titles are heading to Steam, marking a major expansion to the platform most commonly known as a leading destination for PC and Mac games.

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.

"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."

For more information, please visit www.steampowered.com.

Dat preemptive strike against the Windows Store.

Can't blame them. I have no intention of upgrading to Windows 8, so maybe I'll just use Steam for new productivity stuff from now on. Or just stick to Google...

I doubt this will greatly affect the Windows Store, Valve seems to be targeting current Steam users, while the Windows Store will target the casual non-gamers. Even with huge discounts, Steam isn't very well known outside of PC gamers. I'd imagine they would sell to their audience, though.

Hell yeah