Posted in: Movies, Video Games | Tagged: entertainment, Steam, Steam Broadcasting, valve, video games

Steam Gets Into Live Streaming With Steam Broadcasting

Published Wed, 03 Dec 2014 17:30:24 -0600

By Patrick Dane

Live-streaming games has become a big business. Twitch has revolutionised the way some games are consumed over the last year or two. The idea of sharing footage of yourself playing games is such a prevalent one nowadays that Sony went ahead and replaced their 'Select' button with a 'Share' one.

That is why it should surprise now one that Valve have announced Steam Broadcasting. In fact, it's almost a surprise it took the company, usually at the forefront of trends, so long to bring a service. Integrating streaming directly into Steam will be an appealing package and the whole system appears to be really simple. Just right click a user, and if they are playing something, you can select 'Watch Contact'. Having something so simple attached to the biggest games hub on PC is going to be a potent combination.

Best of all, this is in beta now. So have at it.

A few things to note. The first is that, as of right now, there is no way to save your streams. This is a true live broadcasting service, so if you are hoping to play a game and find video of your stream later, you're out of luck.

Also, no idle threats! To accompany the service, Valve have released a list of things you can't do on your stream. They are:

Porn, inappropriate or offensive content, warez or leaked content or anything else not safe for work
Discussions of piracy, cheating, hacking, game exploits
Threats of violence or harassment, even as a joke
Copyrighted material
Soliciting, begging, auctioning, raffling, selling, advertising, referrals
Racism or discrimination and abusive language

With that said, this could grow into quite a strong service, especially when linked with the popular Steam curator system. Both of these recent additions point to Valve trying to garner their own ecosystem like Twitch has. They will just have to hope that people are willing to jump services. Time will see on that front.

Patrick Dane, once a would be filmmaker, has somewhat accidentally found himself as an entertainment journalist over the past two years. You may recognize him from around these parts, or you may not. Who's counting? From E3 to SDCC to the Top Gear track, Patrick has explored the world of entertainment wherever it has taken him. He is always happy to talk words at you. Hopefully the ones above will suffice your needs.

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