Tag Archives: valve

Last week, we learned that Valve had gone through a round of layoffs, with around 13 employees losing their employment. At the time, it was believed that this mainly impacted Valve's virtual reality hardware team, but there were other areas affected, including the Artifact team. Valve uses a lot of …

Valve has laid off 13 full-time members of staff redundant alongside a number of contractors, seemingly downsizing its hardware department.

Valve has been criticised over its lack of content curation on Steam several times over the last few years. Poor asset flips and fake games have landed on Steam in abundance, with some developers using these games to exploit the Steam marketplace. The Steam curation argument has recently popped up …

Soon-to-be-released games are being snubbed on Steam’s ‘Popular Upcoming’ list due to an exploit.

While Artifact's initial launch numbers seemed promising, within a few weeks, tens of thousands of players had left the game behind. Despite an emergency update in late December to address the game's economy issues, things haven't really picked up since then. Since February, Artifact's player numbers have dwindled to several …

Ahead of its release, Metro Exodus was review bombed on Metacritic as many protested its sudden shift from Steam to the divisive Epic Games Store. In a bizarre change of pace, it seems as though thousands of positive reviews have been flooding Steam itself despite the post-apocalyptic shooter not coming …

With the established dominance of Steam, Valve has attempted to expand into multiple markets across the past few years to varying success. Moving forward, it looks as though the company wants to focus on its gaming efforts as it withdraws its movies on-demand section indefinitely. Originally hosting documentaries such as …

Deep Silver’s choice to pull Metro Exodus from Steam in favour of the Epic Games Store has caused quite the backlash from fans, particularly considering the lack of features in the latter. Those that managed to grab the game on Valve’s platform will be able to start pre-loading ahead of …

Valve has been in a tricky place with Artifact following its launch. While many are still pushing for the game to go free to play, Valve is sticking to its $20/£15 price point and is focussed on adding more value for that money. This started with an in-game way to …

Yesterday we learned that Metro Exodus would no longer be available on Steam at launch, despite being one of the highest pre-ordered games on the platform. Those who already paid will still get their copy of the game on Steam, but those who were waiting until launch have been left …

Artifact has been out for a few months now and despite Valve's reputation, the game has faltered. The $20 price tag and lack of progression system at launch caused a drop in player numbers fairly early on. Now, progression is in the game and earning card packs through regular play …

We have known for quite some time that Valve has been planning various improvements to Steam, including a UI overhaul. We saw the first UI update last year with an update to Steam Chat but this year, it looks like bigger changes will be falling into place, with a library …

After a decade with no refund policy in place, a barrage of criticism and legal complaints led to Valve finally implementing a returns system in 2015. As Epic Games teethes its new digital marketplace, it looks to be implementing a similar refund scheme. Like its competitor, the Epic Games Store …

After a largely monopolistic run in the PC video games market, Steam is facing what looks to be tough competition from emerging stores. The Epic Games Store in particular has managed to snag itself a monumental win, as a new partnership with Ubisoft will see The Division 2 snub Steam …

Valve’s effort to make Counter-Strike: Global Offensive free-to-play gave the game a much-needed boost after months of decline, helping to attain the biggest number ever recorded in the series. Not-so-coincidentally, the number of Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) bans has seen a noticeable surge, with over 600,000 accounts hit with the developer’s …

Over the course of 2016/2017, Valve began to lose some of its most notable writers, with the folks behind the stories for Portal, Half-Life and Left 4 Dead all departing. Since then, Valve has turned things around, with full games in the works once again. With that in mind, it …

The divisive, yet perhaps long-awaited move in making Counter-Strike: Global Offensive free-to-play has done wonders for the game, with reports stating that its unique player count has double since November. CS:GO’s concurrent player base has also seen a boost, almost reaching 1.3 times the amount prior to the update. Early …

Back in June 2018, we learned that Valve would no longer be supporting Steam on Windows XP and Vista starting in January 2019. We have now reached that fateful day, as of now, Steam will no longer support Microsoft's legacy operating systems. Despite being long outdated, a surprising number of …

We are closing in on the end of 2018, which means we’ll be seeing plenty of ‘top 10’, GOTY and best seller lists over the next week or two. Valve has been revealing the top selling games on Steam each year for a few years now. This year, the ‘top …

After Artifact launched, it became clear that Valve's original vision for the game didn't necessarily line up with what many players wanted. Since then, the Artifact team has been working on updating the game, adding in a free (but rewardless) draft mode, ways to generate extra event tickets by recycling …

As expected, Steam’s 12th Annual Winter Sale will land tomorrow, December 20, bringing with it some of the best price reductions of 2018’s brightest and best games. Valve will also be opening up the ballot for its Steam Awards 2018, which now has a list comprised of the final nominees. …

Cross-play between consoles and PC has been a huge topic of discussion over the last year. Microsoft in particular has been pushing for it, although many games rely on the Windows Store for native cross-platform. That could change soon if a recent update to Steam's beta branch is anything to …

Discord has slowly but surely been expanding its storefront over the past couple of months, most recently introducing Early Access titles. Starting next year, the platform will be opening up its store for self-publication, ushering in a new leading revenue split that edges out competition. Although Discord beat Epic Games …

Valve’s Steam Link box came to an end last month, as the company shifted its focus from the streaming hardware to its underlying software. In an attempt to offer up an alternative to its first-party solution, Valve has given users the ability to make their own Steam Link box with …

For years, Valve has enjoyed its position as the top distributor of PC games thanks to the Steam platform. Go back five years or so and every major publisher was looking to put their games on Steam, even with Valve's 30% sales cut in place. Nowadays though, we are seeing …

China has had to wave goodbye to websites like Google, Facebook and Twitch, yet Steam has miraculously remained accessible over the years – albeit without all of its features. It seems as though local players have grown accustomed to the level of freedom the platform provides, going as far as …

The seemingly impossible happened earlier this week, as Valve finally shipped a brand new game in the form of Artifact. It might not be the project that many Valve fans had hoped to see, but the game appears to be doing incredibly well regardless, with a peak active player count …

Late last night, Valve officially launched Artifact and while the servers initially struggled to keep up with the influx in players, connectivity smoothed out fairly quickly. Still, it seems that plenty of players have their share of complaints, as evidenced by the mixed reception on Steam. Currently, Artifact has close …

Valve has been consistently working on improving its foothold in the virtual reality space over the last few years. High-end PC users are already covered, but over the last 12 months, much of Valve's focus has been placed on lowering the barrier of entry to use VR. That effort continues …

Like the falling of golden leaves, Steam prices are dropping left, right and centre for the platform’s Autumn Sale. Discounts range across 14,272 different titles, with plenty of this year’s releases available cheaper until November 27th. Those looking to grab 2018’s biggest and best are in luck, with Far Cry …