Steam announces social networking features
[Image: Steam Logo Smaller]I’m going to excuse my constant regurgitation of Steam news by saying that I’m “following Steam’s development with interest, because it represents the future of game distribution and online play.” It’s true, but it’s still kind of an excuse.
Valve just announced a beta set of features in their next update for Steam that allows players to do the following:
The new Steam community features are designed to connect gamers with friends and other gamers, create and join groups, and organize matches and tournaments. The initial batch of features rolled out in the beta version include:
Steam ID. Create a personal profile-complete with a photo or avatar, biographical details, favorites, and more-viewable on the Web and within the Steam client.
Friends. Add peers to a personal Friends List that shows in real-time who’s online and available to chat or play a game. Accessible from within the Steam client or while playing a game, the Friends List makes it easy to invite friends to chat, play a game, or join a group.
Groups. Create and join public and private groups comprised of gamers who share a common interest, such as fans of a particular game, map or mod, or competitive teams. The Group Profile page displays information about the group, recent activities, news and announcements, and a schedule of upcoming events. Groups can quickly initiate a text or voice chat; plan a game, tournament, LAN party, or any other event; and track group gameplay statistics.
Statistics. From both a personal Steam ID or Group profile, users can view a range of gameplay statistics, such as most played games or maps and average playing time.
Chat. Initiate a chat with friends and groups using integrated instant messaging, text chat, and voice features.
Events. Schedule matches, tournaments, and in-person gatherings, such as LAN parties. Upcoming events are displayed in both a list and calendar view, and members can receive reminders that help keep everyone on schedule.
One of these days I’m going to dig up the two-page document I wrote up years ago when I applied at Valve hoping to be a marketing intern. They weren’t advertising that they needed the position, but I figured that I was a bright guy and that might be enough.
So as an application I wrote out a two page piece on all the awesome things they could do with Steam. As far as I can tell, they’ve used all of them. Which is awesome, because, my idea or theirs, it means I was right on with my market analysis ;)
Regardless, I’ve been thinking about sending a letter to Valve about stats, since they’re ideally positioned to track games stats (a la xbox live) and to provide a gamer profile (a la xbox live), and they’re much less likely to charge for it. It looks like they’re finally doing it.
I’m hoping they plan to track FPS stats like The CLQ used to. I still have saved pages of my rank way back when I jumped up into the 2,000s from playing way too much Counter-Strike. I also hope they give us a widget we can post on our blog (a la xbox live).
Also, as someone who signed up for Steam way back when they didn’t ask for a username, they only asked for your e-mail address, it will be nice to set up a profile that gives me something other than nekro13 (at) yahoo.com.
OK so basically I want them to co-opt the Xbox Live features and give them to me for free, since Steam is already my gaming hub anyways.
Oh, and the friends list and chat aren’t new. I don’t know why they’re in the list.