In September 2008, Valve added support for Steam Cloud, a service that can automatically store saved game and related custom files on Valve's servers; users can access this data from any machine running the Steam client.[58] Games must use the appropriate features of Steamworks for Steam Cloud to work. Users can disable this feature on a per-game and per-account basis.[59] Cloud saving was expanded in January 2022 for Dynamic Cloud Sync, allowing games developed with this feature to store saved states to Steam Cloud while a game is running rather than waiting until the user quit out of the game; this was added ahead of the portable Steam Deck unit so that users can save from the Deck and then put the unit into a suspended state.[60] In May 2012, the service added the ability for users to manage their game libraries from remote clients, including computers and mobile devices; users can instruct Steam to download and install games they own through this service if their Steam client is currently active and running.[61] Product keys sold through third-party retailers can also be redeemed on Steam.[62] For games that incorporate Steamworks, users can buy redemption codes from other vendors and redeem these in the Steam client to add the title to their libraries. Steam also offers a framework for selling and distributing downloadable content (DLC) for games.[63][64]
The Steam store also enables users to redeem store product keys to add software from their library. The keys are sold by third-party providers such as Humble Bundle (in which a portion of the sale is given back to the publisher or distributor), distributed as part of a physical release to redeem the game, or given to a user as part of promotions, often used to deliver Kickstarter and other crowd funding rewards. A grey market exists around Steam keys, where less reputable buyers purchase a large number of Steam keys for a game when it is offered for a low cost, and then resell these keys to users or other third-party sites at a higher price, generating profit for themselves.[86][87] This caused some of these third-party sites, such as G2A, to be embroiled in this grey market.[88] It is possible for publishers to have Valve to track down where specific keys have been used and cancel them, removing the product from the user's libraries, leaving the user to seek any recourse with the third-party they purchased from.[89] Other legitimate storefronts, like Humble Bundle, have set a minimum price that must be spent to obtain Steam keys as to discourage mass purchases that would enter the grey market.[90] In June 2021, Valve began limiting how frequently Steam users could change their default region to prevent them from purchasing games from outside their home region for cheaper.[91]
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Since November 2013, Steam has allowed for users to review their purchased games and organize them into categories set by the user and add to favorite lists for quick access.[148]Players can add non-Steam games to their libraries, allowing the game to be easily accessed from the Steam client and providing support where possible for Steam Overlay features. The Steam interface allows for user-defined shortcuts to be added. In this way, third-party modifications and games not purchased through the Steam Store can use Steam features. Valve sponsors and distributes some modifications free of charge;[149] and modifications that use Steamworks can also use VAC, Friends, the server browser, and any Steam features supported by their parent game. For most games launched from Steam, the client provides an in-game overlay that can be accessed by a keystroke. From the overlay, the user can access his or her Steam Community lists and participate in chat, manage selected Steam settings, and access a built-in web browser without having to exit the game.[150] Since the beginning of February 2011 as a beta version, the overlay also allows players to take screenshots of the games in process;[151] it automatically stores these and allows the player to review, delete, or share them during or after his or her game session. As a full version on February 24, 2011, this feature was reimplemented so that users could share screenshots on websites of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit straight from a user's screenshot manager.[152]
Steam's "Big Picture" mode was announced in 2011;[153] public betas started in September 2012 and were integrated into the software in December 2012.[154] Big Picture mode is a 10-foot user interface, which optimizes the Steam display to work on high-definition televisions, allowing the user to control Steam with a gamepad or with a keyboard and mouse. Newell stated that Big Picture mode was a step towards a dedicated Steam entertainment hardware unit.[155] With the introduction of the Steam Deck, Valve began pushing the new Big Picture mode based on the Steam Deck UI in beta testing in October 2022, and full release in February 2023.[156][157][158]
In July 2019, the Steam Labs feature was introduced as a means of Valve to showcase experimental discovery features they have considered for including into Steam, but seek public feedback to see if it is something that users want before fully integrating that into the storefront. For example, an initial experiment released at launch was the Interactive Recommender, which uses artificial intelligence algorithms pulling data from the user's past gameplay history, comparing it to all other users, as to suggest new games that may be of interest to them.[264] As these experiments mature through end-user testing, they have then been brought into the storefront as direct features.[265]
In June 2015, Valve created a formal process to allow purchasers to request full refunds on games they had purchased on Steam for any reason, with refunds guaranteed within the first two weeks as long as the player had not spent more than two hours in the game.[269] Prior to June 2015, Valve had a no-refunds policy, but allowed them in certain circumstances, such as if third-party content had failed to work or improperly reports on certain features. For example, the Steam version of From Dust was originally stated to have a single, post-installation online DRM check with its publisher Ubisoft, but the released version of the game required a DRM check with Ubisoft's servers each time it was used. At the request of Ubisoft, Valve offered refunds to customers who bought the game while Ubisoft worked to release a patch that would remove the DRM check altogether.[270] On The War Z's release, players found that the game was still in an alpha-build state and lacked many of the features advertised on its Steam store page. Though the developers Hammerpoint Interactive altered the description after launch to reflect the current state of the game software, Valve removed the title from Steam and offered refunds to those who had bought it.[271] Valve also removed Earth: Year 2066 from the Early Access program and offered refunds after discovering that the game's developers had reused assets from other games and used developer tools to erase negative complaints about the title.[272] Valve stated it would continue to work on improving the discovery process for users, taking principles they learned in providing transparency for matchmaking in Dota 2 to make the process better, and using that towards Steam storefront procedures to help refine their algorithms with user feedback.[273]
Valve has full authority to remove games from the service for various reasons; however games that are removed can still be downloaded and played by those that have already purchased these games.[274] Another reason would be games that have had their licenses expired may no longer be sold, such as when a number of Transformers games published by Activision under license from Hasbro were removed from the store in January 2018.[275] Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was removed from Steam in 2012 because of a claim from the Recording Industry Association of America over an expired license for one of the songs on the soundtrack.[274] Around the launch of Electronic Arts' (EA) own digital storefront Origin during the same year, Valve removed Crysis 2, Dragon Age II, and Alice: Madness Returns from Steam because the terms of service prevented games from having their own in-game storefront for downloadable content.[276] In the case of Crysis 2, a "Maximum Edition" that contained all the available downloadable content for the game and removed the in-game storefront was re-added to Steam.[277] Valve also remove games that are formally stated to be violating copyright or other intellectual property when given such complaints. In 2016, Valve removed Orion by Trek Industries when Activision filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint about the game after it was discovered that one of the game's artists had taken, among other assets, gun models directly from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.[278][279]
In addition to removing bad actors from the service, Valve has also taken steps to reduce the impact of "fake games" and their misuse on the service. In May 2017, Valve identified that there were several games on the service with trading card support, where the developer distributed game codes to thousands of bot-operated accounts that would run the game to earn trading cards that they could then sell for profit; these games would also create false positives that make these games appear more popular than they really were and would impact games suggested to legitimate players through their store algorithms, affecting Steam's Discovery algorithms. Subsequent to this patch, games must reach some type of confidence factor based on actual playtime before they can generate trading cards, with players credited for their time played towards receiving trading cards before this metric is met.[285][286] Valve identified a similar situation in June 2018 with "fake games" that offered large numbers of game achievements with little gameplay aspects, which some users would use to artificially raise their global achievement statistics displayed on their profile. Valve plans to use the same approach and algorithms to identify these types of games, limiting these games to only one thousand total achievements and discounting these achievements towards a user's statistics.[287] These algorithms have resulted in select false positives for legitimate games with unusual end-user usage patterns, such as Wandersong which was flagged in January 2019 for what the developer believed was related to a near unanimous positive users reviews from the game.[288] 2ff7e9595c
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