Steam. The name exudes almost all positive connotations. Champion of digital distribution, console-esque community services for PC gamers, Valve Software, and crazy cheap videogames. It’s so praised that its quirks get overlooked, like a dated patching system or the fact that it can just plain hog your bandwidth like crazy… which will soon be (finally) old news.

Without getting too technical (go here for that), everything’s just going to get more efficient. Instead of redownloading a new version of that entire sound file with audio glitches, for example, it will only download the bits of the file that have been fixed, meaning a whole lot less to download. Also expect fast downloads more consistently.

The revisions they’re implementing also give them the chance to eventually add much-requested features like scheduling, bandwidth throttling, and prioritizing what games are downloaded first. All this promises tools to developers that will also get content produced and to us players faster, and keeps us more focused on the happy things Steam offers us.

The new system will be rolled out “over time,” with Valve’s own DOTA 2 to “soon” be their first game to utilize it. Don’t know how much to read into their use of “soon,” but it’s great either way to about good things getting better.

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/2011/07/16/steam-download-system-to-get-major-upgrade/

Posted: Jul 17, 2011 4:55 pm