Steam Client Beta Access

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Category: Giskard's Blog

Last Updated on Tuesday, 21 August 2012 13:40

Written by Giskard

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Today I got a nice surprise, Steam sent me an invite to the Steam Client beta Access.

Apparently I got the beta access because I earned the pillar of the community badge. That means I used steams various features enough to earn that badge. That is how the beta testers are chosen.

Which just so happens to be Steams vision of a future gaming community and its not bad at all. It encompasses everything from discussion, forum style directly in the steam client, no separate login for the forums. To community screenshots, mods and videos and even game development feature listed under Greenlight in the community tab.

If you like Skyrim, the Skyrim Game Hub (which is what Steam is calling it) has all Skyrim chat, screenshots, videos and mods all in one place. Its a one stop shop for gamers.

You can right click on a game in your Library and select that games Hub and just view everything the steam community has done with that game. Its like Facebook page just for that one game and covers everything every steam user did on steam for that game.

Pretty cool stuff.

Sites like mine should be worried but I am not, people generate content not companies, and players go where the content is.  Besides if it works, it means I will not have to pay for expensive websites in the future. I will be able to focus on what I really enjoy 100% of the time. Perhaps even have my own mod hub on steam. 

This is the start of something I have waited decades to see and I am very happy with the direction Steam have taken this in. I could be better, they could do more, but for a first steam, this is great :)

The new friends menu lists what your friends have been doing recently, what games they own, screenshots.  Its basically like a report of friends activities on steam, allowing you to see what is hot with your mates and what is not. It even shows you which of your friends recently got accepted to the beta.

This week 2 of my friends have gotten access by the looks of it.

The Friends page allows you to comment directly on your other friends submissions, it is a like a Google+ of gaming. Instead of Google+ flooding you with every random bit of news, what you see on your friends page is 100% game related from 100% people you know.

This is the start of a wonderful future for gamers, the days when we all got thrown in to a melting pot on a forum full of friends and trolls, or had to download from sites that only actually offer downloads and nothing else, are coming to end.

Today it is about sharing content with your friends, and if a persons not your friend, he is not on your friends page, and so will not bother you or your other friends.

We create our own communities now and get to choose who allow to join us... This is the era of Gaming Web 2.0 and it looks like fun :)

The interesting side effect of this is, if you think a player is a trollish twat, rude or just do not like him. Simply do not add him as a friend and he will never appear on your own personal friends page. He will never get a chance to involve him self with your chats with your friends.

You can lurk in the community tab but be fully involved in the friends tab, being an asset to your friends but keeping clear of the public communities that many people lurk on to avoid trouble.

This friends feature brings lurkers in from the cold, so if your a lurker, choose players you want as friends and make your own community.

This is your time to shine.

Big Thumbs Up for Steam, Well done guys...

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