Valve Launches Steam TV That Will Rival Twitch and YouTube
Valve, has launched Steam tv as a video streaming portal that can be a direct competitor to Twitch and YouTube. Steam.tv currently features Dota 2’s The International, with no option to watch other games or stream to the service. However, it is likely that these two features will be introduced in the near future.
Steam.tv features the new Steam Chat which was introduced recently and allows users to invite friends to join and view shared videos. Although the site is currently a bit unstable, CNET has managed to explore some of the other available functionality. They report that Steam.tv has voice chat built-in in Google Chrome, but this doesn’t seem to work on Firefox or Edge.
At the time of writing, Valve has not publicly acknowledged the release of Steam.tv, opting to quietly create one. Given the size of Steam’s user base and the fact that Steam is currently the leading digital game store, it makes sense that Valve would want to give Steam users a place to stream games or watch other games. Even though Twitch and YouTube are game-streaming service providers, challengers have started to emerge, most notably Microsoft’s Mixer service and now Steam.tv.
Steam is also facing competition when it comes to game sales, with Discord – an already very popular service for chatting while playing games. It recently announced it will start selling games, and even for some with period exclusivity. Big publishers like Bethesda, meanwhile, are also starting to distance themselves from the Valve platform. Fallout 76 will be distributed through Bethesda’s own service, not on Steam.
The recent launch of Steam Chat introduced a new grouping feature, Favorite tags, and also revealed more details on what friends were up to. Friends will now be automatically grouped by game, which makes it easier to play with them. A dedicated friends menu will show specific details about what friends are actually doing in-game as well. Also, group chats can be put together more easily now.
