Esto es gordo. Valve se ha decidido a ofrecer al resto de desarrolladores todas las herramientas y servicios que hacen a steam grande: Integracion de los juegos en Steam Community, sistema antipirateo que evita la salida de los piratas antes de los originales, autoactualizaciones, voice chat dentro y fuera de los juegos, etc.
Los desarrolladores no estan obligados a usar el paquete completo sino las herramientas y servicios que vean apropiadas.
Los juegos no tienen por que salir necesariamente en la tienda de steam. Pero serian compatibles con toda la red de steam.
En otras palabras, valve quiere extender todo lo bueno de los juegos de steam a todas las thirds que lo quieran!!!.
Si esto cuaja va a ser la bomba. Y GFW ha muerto.
Y encima sale el Puzzle Quest en Steam.
http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/
Steamworks, the same suite of tools used in best-selling PC titles Half-Life 2 and The Orange Box, is available for all PC games distributed via retail and leading online platforms such as Steam. The services included in Steamworks may be used a la carte or in any combination.
Specifically, Steamworks offers:
* Real-time stats on sales, gameplay, and product activation: Know exactly how well your title is selling before the charts are released. Find out how much of your game is being played. Login into your Steamworks account pages and view up to the hour information regarding worldwide product activations and player data.
* State of the art encryption system: Stop paying to have your game pirated before it's released. Steamworks takes anti-piracy to a new level with strong encryption that keeps your game locked until the moment it is released.
* Territory/version control: The key-based authentication provided in Steamworks also provides territory/version controls to help curb gray market importing and deliver territory-specific content to any given country or region.
* Auto updating: Insures all customers are playing the latest and greatest version of your games.
* Voice chat: Available for use both in and out of game.
* Multiplayer matchmaking: Steamworks offers you all the multiplayer backend and matchmaking services that have been created to support Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2, the most played action games in the world.
* Social networking services: With support for achievements, leaderboards, and avatars, Steamworks allows you to give your gamers as many rewards as you would like, plus support for tracking the world's best professional and amateur players of your game.
* Development tools: Steamworks allows you to administer private betas which can be updated multiple times each day. Also includes data collection tools for QA, play testing, and usability studies..
