The Steam platform is fondly associated with democratising much of gaming, selling blockbuster and indie games in equal measure, promoting indie developers via its Greenlight service, and generally being seen as a standard-bearer of much that is good in gaming.
Now, possibly in the spirit of encouraging everyday folk to try their hands at games development, Valve have launched a ‘Software’ section on Steam, where people can get their hands on some powerful – largely games-related – programs. Here is the first batch of programs:
ArtRage Studio Pro
CameraBag 2
GameMaker: Studio
3D-Coat
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
As you can see, they’re all powerful tools, and may tempt some gamers to get in touch with their creative sides and have a pricey play-around with the various tools. Particularly interesting is GameMaker Studio, which lets people create social and casual games for various platforms. It caters for professionals, as well as those just looking to dabble in the intricate world of games development.
Valve have released the following statement along with the launch:
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.
GameMaker Studio, for example, features integration with Steam Workshop that allows GameMaker users to share their work via Steam.
As you’d expect from the good folk at Valve, the software is designed to encourage people to take their gaming habits, get creative with them, and feed them back into the community. Good on you Valve, as usual.
