There will be a new online store for us to buy our software come September. Rumors have been all over the internet recently about Valve offering more than just games with its popular delivery service, Steam.
According to Forbes, Valve is set to jump into the non-gaming app business come September 5, 2012.
Apparently there is a growing demand among Steam users to be able to have more of their software available through the service. On top of the huge array of games, Steam will start off offering apps that range from “creativity to productivity”.
Mark Richardson from Valve told Forbes in an email:
“The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games. 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.”

image courtesy of Joystiq
Features like saving over the cloud and auto updates will now all be rolled into Steam’s software section. With a whole range of different software looking as though it will make its way to Steam, developers have been invited to submit their products to Steam Greenlight. The Steam Greenlight system allows for the community to help choose the games, and now software, the service provides.
It looks as though Valve is positioning it self to compete with Google, Apple and Microsoft. Terms like “productivity” sound like Valve is working their own office software among other things.
After Gabe Newell went public, saying that Windows 8 is a “catastrophe” when it comes to it’s gaming environment, perhaps the Steam and Windows partnership is going south. It looks as though the Windows 8 store will have one more competitor to worry about, one with over 40 million regular and loyal users.
Craig Hunter – who has written 1178 posts on The Jace Hall Show.
Craig Hunter is a main contributor for the Jace Hall Show and has been an avid gamer for over 15 years. He also freelances for a number of websites and magazines covering mobile products and emerging technologies.

Logan Huffman wants to know who is posting comments about him online and asks Jace for help. Meanwhile Joe Flanigan is caught again flirting in the V costume. Jace heads to the set of Law and Order: SVU to catch up with Ice – T and Coco and the Starcraft II team gets “rushed” by World of Warcraft Lead Designer, Jeff Kaplan.
Jace has decided to take advantage of his co-hosting duties at the Sony Online Entertainment Fan Faire celebration, by showing his new music video to the thousands of EverQuest players in attendance, much to the dismay of the crowd. That didn’t stop one enthusiastic guest from doing something radical.