Before we begin, note that this only available for the Steam Client on Windows 7 and 8.x for now, but Valve intends to bring it to Linux and OSX (and Vista for some reason). You must also opt-in to receiving Beta releases of the Steam Client. Beyond the currently limited support in hosting a stream, watching a stream is only possible with one of three web browsers: Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and the one in Valve's Steam Client.
Obviously, the pre-launch browser support is quite disappointing. Clearly Valve limited support of their web app to their rendering engine of choice, WebKit and its fork, Blink, and that is a step up from doing it in Flash. It is probably most disappointing for Opera, who switched to WebKit (and later Blink) from their proprietary “Presto” engine. Of course, relying on a collaboration with Google for standards support can only help so much, and it apparently did not help enough.
As for the service itself, Valve is focusing on user choice with their offering. While public streams will be allowed, you are allowed other privacy options – public is not even the default. Your stream can also be set to: only allow invited friends, allow all friends, or allow friends to request viewing permissions. By default, it is set to the last (fourth) option.
Now on to the speculation…
Why would Valve being doing this? Of course, Amazon believes it is a billion dollar business, so it is not insane for Valve to throw their hat in the ring, and hats is something they have plenty of, but I believe it might be bigger than this. This announcement follows the beta release of In-Home Streaming, back in May. Especially with the privacy options, I could see this following Sony, and its PS4 Share Play feature. Share Play allows people on your friends list to override your controller, or an extra controller if you want to play local multiplayer over the internet. These are all products using the same building blocks.
Steam Broadcasting (Beta) is available now through the Beta Steam Client release channel.
I think the intention
I think the intention initially is to do something similar to what xbox live does where you can go from store page of a game to watching a stream of the said game. By rolling their own service as apposed to depending on twitch they can also expand to streamplay demos with a lot of the same tech.
I believe the inclusion of
I believe the inclusion of this feature is to kind of follow in the steps of SONY and allow for privately broadcasting gameplay to friends so that there is some feature parity with the PS4. I feel that they’ve done this because they have the technology already (Steam in-home streaming). They also offered the sharing of Steam libraries a la what the Xbox was stating that it was going to do as well with ‘Family Sharing’. I’ve just tried this feature with some steam friends of mine and I have to say that it looks very decent although I wished they had more options in their broadcasting menu. I’d also love to see a higher bitrate supported. 25-30 FPS always looks terrible.
It’s a very half-assed
It’s a very half-assed attempt, like much of what Valve does with Steam minus being a kickass digital game store. At least it’s just another “convenience” item to add on their checklist. Really limited options and not sure how the streaming is taking place with no way to turn it off. Could see that using up a lot of bandwidth without more details.
Right now with how shaky Steam has been in the last year alone the only thing they’ll be competing with Twitch on is downtime.
Its a beta u imbecile.
Its a beta u imbecile.
Things don’t get much better
Things don’t get much better after Beta. A lot of Steams recent gimmicky features in the past couple of years are still in a very raw state.
The recent music player is an absolute joke.
Beta is beta.
Beta is beta.
Downtime? I’ve got Steam
Downtime? I’ve got Steam running regularly on 7 computers and Steam hasn’t been down once for me. Maybe you just have a terrible connection? IP blocker?
The service disconnects a
The service disconnects a lot. You’re not always going to notice it though. Comparing it to Twitch might be an overstatement, but it’s quite frustrating as many Twitch streamers will attest to.
The quip about hats made my
The quip about hats made my morning.
Hah thanks.
Hah thanks.
Judging by how cool it was to
Judging by how cool it was to watch the Dota 2 Championships via Steam, I think Valve will do well with this.
Will be awesome integrated to
Will be awesome integrated to android as well.
I dig it.
Will be awesome integrated to
Will be awesome integrated to android as well.
I dig it.