SteamVR was first introduced for the Oculus Rift headset in 2014, and later expanded to support other virtual reality headsets. SteamVR is a virtual reality hardware and software platform developed by Valve, with a focus on allowing "room-scale" experiences using positional tracking base stations, as opposed to those requiring the player to stay in a singular location. By January 2015, Valve themselves had provided some user-developed Workshop content as paid-for features in Valve-developed games, including Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2; with over $57 million being paid to content creators using the Workshop. Valve enabled the ability for multiple developers to create bundles of games from their offerings in June 2021. Developers can request Steam keys of their products to use as they see fit, such as to give away in promotions, to provide to selected users for review, or to give to key resellers for different prioritization.
The initial process offered by Greenlight was panned by developers because while they favored the concept, the rate of games that were eventually approved were small. Since then, Valve have sought ways to enable more games to be offered through Steam, while pulling away from manually approving games, short of validating that a game runs on the platforms the publisher had indicated. SteamVR 2.0 was released in October 2023, introducing a new overlay interface that is unified with the updated SteamOS and Big Picture mode interfaces.
- Valve's business development director Jason Holtman replied Steamworks' features were chosen by developers and based on consumer wants and that Modern Warfare 2 was one of Steam's "greatest sellers".
- Steam is a digital distribution platform for computer games (Windows, macOS, Linux), where you can choose from a vast catalog of free and paid titles, check reviews, engage with the community, and manage your saves.
- Valve enabled the ability for multiple developers to create bundles of games from their offerings in June 2021.
Following a second vulnerability found by the same user, Valve apologized and patched them both, and expanded the program's rules to accept any other similar problems. The vulnerability was then reported to Valve via the program, but it was initially rejected for being "out-of-scope". Valve added new privacy settings to Steam in April 2018, allowing users to hide their activity status, game lists, inventory, and other profile elements. In December 2015, Steam's content delivery network was misconfigured in response to a DDoS attack, causing cached store pages containing personal information to be temporarily exposed for 34,000 users. In 2015, Valve stated that the potential monetary value of virtual goods attached to user accounts had drawn hackers to try to access accounts for financial benefit. Steam Guard was advertised to take advantage of the identity protection provided by Intel's second-generation Core processors and compatible motherboard hardware, which allows users to lock their account to a specific computer.
Games and account policies
Through the Steam Play μονεμβασια αλιμος functionality, the macOS client allows players who have purchased compatible products in the Windows version to download the Mac versions at no cost. In addition to the Steam client, several features were made available to developers, allowing them to take advantage of the cross-platform Source engine and Steamworks' platform and network capabilities. Valve developed a full video homage to Apple's 1984 Macintosh commercial to announce the availability of Half-Life 2 on the service; some concept images for the video had previously been used to tease the Mac Steam client.
Privacy, security and abuse
To take advantage of some of its features for newer interface elements, Steam uses 64-bit versions of Chromium, which makes it unsupported on older operating systems such as Windows XP and Windows Vista. Since then, Valve continues to use the Steam Hardware Survey to collect hardware distribution information, sharing the net results with other developers to understand the current market, as well as to make choices on when to discontinue support for older hardware and software. Valve also committed to developing anti-harassment tools to support developers who may find their game amid controversy. In addition to removing bad actors, Valve has also taken steps to reduce the impact of "fake games" which could be used to manipulate the trading card marketplace or artificially boost a user's Steam level, in addition to changes in Steam to prevent such abuse. Prior to June 2015, Valve had a no-refunds policy, but allowed them in certain circumstances, such as digital rights management issues or false advertising.
Although Steam provides direct sales data to developers and publishers, it does not provide public sales data. Steam has grown from seven games in 2004 to over 30,000 by 2019, with additional non-gaming products, such as creation software, DLC, and videos, numbering over 20,000. In August 2017, Valve reported a peak of 14 million concurrent players, up from 8.4 million in 2015, with 33 million active daily and 67 million active monthly. Valve also considers concurrent users — how many accounts are logged in at the same time — a key indicator of the success of the platform. In September 2014, 1.4 million accounts belonged to Australian users; this grew to 2.2 million by October 2015. Most accounts were from North America and Western Europe, with there being a significant growth in accounts from Asia around 2017, spurred by its work to help localize the client and make additional currency options available to purchasers.
Epic Games' Tim Sweeney postulated that Valve could reduce its cut to 8%, given that content delivery network costs has dropped significantly. In February 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50–70% of the US$4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of the purchase price, compared with 30% at retail. Some further criticized the decision based on the financial gain from avoiding blocking any game content, as Valve collects a cut from sales through Steam. Data that Valve does provide cannot be released without permission because of a non-disclosure agreement.
Steam is a digital distribution platform for computer games (Windows, macOS, Linux), where you can choose from a vast catalog of free and paid titles, check reviews, engage with the community, and manage your saves. Another similar lawsuit was filed against Valve in June 2026 by the Netherlands' Consumer Competition Claims Foundation, a non-profit consumer rights organization, based on the high revenue share that Valve takes in addition to the favored pricing model. Valve's business development director Jason Holtman replied Steamworks' features were chosen by developers and based on consumer wants and that Modern Warfare 2 was one of Steam's "greatest sellers".
Several features—including cross-platform play and instant messaging, Steam Cloud for saved games, and the ability for PS3 owners to download Portal 2 from Steam (Windows and Mac)—were offered. With Apple discontinuing support for Intel-based Macs after the release of macOS Tahoe in late 2025 in favor of Apple silicon, Valve updated the beta version of the Steam client to include native support for Apple silicon without the need for emulation via Rosetta 2. Other actions taken by developers against the terms of service or other policies have prompted Valve to remove games, which has included asset flips, review manipulation, misuse of Steamworks tools, and hostile activities towards Steam users. Without more direct interaction in the curation process, Valve had looked to find methods to allow players to find games they would be more likely to buy based on previous purchase patterns. In November 2015, the Steam client was updated with the ability for game developers to offer in-game items for direct sale via the store interface, with Rust being the first game to use the feature. Valve provides developers the ability to create storefront pages to help generate interest in their game ahead of release.