- Opened: 2003
- Owner: Valve Corporation
- Active users per month: about 120 million.
- Platform Games: 10 263
- Owned games: Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Dota 2, Artifact, The Lab.
Stem game distribution service is an industry pioneer, 6 years ahead of other platforms. The largest gaming community uniting developers and players. Record number of users on the platform at the same time was fixed in 2020 – more than 21 million people at the same time. On average, more than 47 million players connect to Steam every day and 90 million monthly.
It’s a very convenient platform with a huge number of services and features. Steam Discussions is a gamer’s chat room, Steam Library is a game library, Steam Support is constant technical support, Steamworks is a developer partners platform, Steam Workshop is advice from experienced players, Steam Community is a gaming community, Steam Direct is a sandbox for indie developers.
Buying games in Steam is not an easy task, because the choice is just huge. Besides, Steam offers online games for free or at a very low price. And of course, all long-awaited news of the game world Steam offers first. After more than 16 years of work, through ups and downs, Steam is still the best game distribution service.
Features, pros and cons of the platform
In recent years, the functionality of Steam has grown to such an extent that even the developer probably can’t say which of its functions is the main one. Its users are provided with the following features:
- play on any supported device;
- Buy content at 50-75% discounts and play paid games for free, and such promotions take place almost constantly;
- install game updates on a priority basis – the platform does it automatically;
- not to think about the safety of game data – Stim takes care of that too;
- create and save backups of game distributions;
- activate supported games which were purchased in boxed versions;
- buy games as a gift for other users;
- get a refund if you do not like the game (the game can be used up to 14 days after purchase provided the game has been run for no longer than 2 hours);
- create personal pages and groups, join communities;
- find like-minded people and friends;
- exchange messages and chat in the built-in voice chat;
- share your achievements;
- exchange, buy, and sell in-game items such as inventory, cards, and more;
- take screenshots and shoot video, post videos on YouTune;
- Record and broadcast streamers without third-party programs;
- get the latest news about game world events;
- listen to music stored on the device instead of game soundtracks;
- give other users access to their game library (family access);
- customize your personal page design;
- use the developer’s technical support services.
And since Steam is an official game content store, the products that are distributed through it are 100% legal and safe.
Among the disadvantages of the service, users have attributed:
- Lack of opportunity to use means of obtaining illegal privileges over other players (cheats).
- Lack of opportunity to run pirated content.
- High risk of losing the account, and with it, the funds that are stored on the balance. Steam user accounts are very attractive for intruders and are often attacked. To prevent attacks, the platform has a built-in Steam Guard protector, but it does not guarantee complete security either.
Some people believe that it is too expensive to buy content via Steam and therefore do not use the platform. However, it provides an opportunity not only to spend, but also to earn real money. One of the ways to earn mentioned above is by selling game inventory. Also, some users manage to unofficially sell previously purchased games, and experienced gamers earn by promoting and selling the pumped accounts.