A History of Steam

Steam has existed ever since human beings noticed the white mist above boiling water (it most definitely existed before that, but we didn’t, so it doesn’t count). Yet it was not until the first century AD that man decided to begin to harness the power of steam; when the people of Roman Egypt managed to make a ball rotate. It wasn’t, however, until the 17th century that steam was used for anything useful; a water pump was made and the steam engine was born. Towards the end of the 18th century, we decided we need higher pressures and the steam boat was made.

Steam remained one of the main sources of power into the start of the 20th century, but we then decided that electricity and combustion engines were much more practical. So, there you have it; that’s the history of Steam. Near the start of the 21st century, however, Steam took on a different meaning altogether (note the big S). The Steam revolution happened all over again and this time, it wasn’t just about some white mist above boiling water; it was about games and more specifically, the digital distribution of PC games.

So, what’s so good about Steam? Well, it is to a PC gamer what PSN or XBL is to a PS3 or Xbox 360 owner; it’s the ultimate platform for playing your games, sharing and discussing, playing online with the community and keeping up to date with the latest releases. Now, we’ve all seen just how bad PSN and XBL can be with the prices of full retail games, but Steam is different. The prices are always reasonable and sometimes even better than anywhere else.

It’s not just that you usually get good prices on release, it’s that Steam has many sales that are extremely decent; in the recent Christmas sale I managed to get a ton of bargains including Super Meat Boy for £3, a bundle with two S.T.A.L.K.E.R games for £3 and many others. Before that, I managed to get The Orange Box for £4.25, and Psychonauts for 99p was my first purchase just over a year ago. Now, I’m not going to spend all day talking about the simply awesome deals that I’ve had in the past, there’s many other reasons why Steam is the best thing that’s happened to PC gaming since PCs could play games.

Everyone loves gifts and everyone loves gifting stuff, but no-one likes driving across the country just to give a game to someone that you know through the internet (and no-one likes the Royal Mail); so the Steam gifting service is a brilliant idea. You can just literally click on an item as if you were going to buy it and gift it to anyone in the world – Valve really encourage you to do this, there are even special packs sometimes with four copies of a game, discounted. That’s one for you and three to give to me.

There are a lot of things about Steam that make it great; you can have your account on multiple PCs and it’ll transfer your library over; you can back up all of your games with the press of a button to save having to download them again; the downloads are always nice and speedy, and that grid view for your games looks simply stunning. It’s nice to have all your PC games in one accessible place rather than searching through folders. Arguably, both the best and worst thing about Steam is that you’ll buy games in the sale that you’ll never play, just because they’re that cheap; best because they’re cheap and worst because you’re basically throwing money away.

Now, how about the community features? We love our community features here at TSA. There’s a friends list with instant messaging and voice chat, you have a profile (here’s mine, add me!) and all your gameplay stats are recorded, so that you and all of your friends can see just how many hours you’ve played of a game and then realise that you have no life! There’s also a wall, of sorts, that shows what you’re friends have been up to (which games they have bought, which achievements they’ve unlocked). The wishlist system also lets you choose the games you really want and if you’re lucky, someone might gift them to you.

The group system is great; we’ve not really done anything with TheSixthAxis’ group other than gather members as of yet, but if there’s enough interest, then we could set up some online games or tournaments. The online is usually stable through Steam due to the dedicated Steam servers. Sadly, there’s one bad thing about Steam: it doesn’t track your hours played or achievements unlocked if you’re offline and it doesn’t work with my University’s internet system.

I’ve gifted you something in this article: the knowledge of Steam and why it’s so good. So, go on, sign up, download those deals and play those games. Oh, and it’s on Mac too if you’re into that. If you’ve not got a good PC or a Mac, then go buy one; it’s definitely as essential as owning any of the consoles.