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Steam Store will accept anything that's not 'illegal' or 'trolling'
In efforts to police content on Steam, Valve suddenly changed its policy in mid-May and cracked down on on certain visual novels, giving them a week or two to change their content or be removed from the store. The resulting backlash from confused developers and angry fans pushed Valve to walk back that policy. Weeks later, they've formally announced a new one: Allow everything that's not illegal or "straight-up trolling" and give players tools not to see games they don't like.
Valve is 'still working hard' on Steam OS, Linux gaming
A few days ago Valve reworked the main navigation bar in its Steam Store and removed a direct link to buy Steam Machines, the Linux-based boxes it hailed as an open alternative to macOS or Windows PC gaming. Combined with a lack of recent announcements people figured that meant the end of the project, but Valve employee Pierre-Loup A. Griffais says that's not so. It was removed based on user traffic, which isn't surprising considering the lack of post-2016 hardware being offered. In a post to the Steam for Linux page, he explained the current state of things: While it's true Steam Machines aren't exactly flying off the shelves, our reasons for striving towards a competitive and open gaming platform haven't significantly changed. We're still working hard on making Linux operating systems a great place for gaming and applications...We also have other Linux initiatives in the pipe that we're not quite ready to talk about yet; SteamOS will continue to be our medium to deliver these improvements to our customers, and we think they will ultimately benefit the Linux ecosystem at large. The plan moving forward includes more work on the Vulkan graphics API everywhere, including now on macOS and iOS, while also making sure it's well-supported on Linux so that performance is up to par. It's not clear what those other Linux initiatives in the pipe are exactly, but hopefully, we'll hear about them sooner rather than later.
Steam store reveals a handful of new categories, hints at non-gaming app possibilities
Steam's Android app has thrown up a selection of new categories that point to the possibility of productivity apps and other types of non-gaming software being sold in the near-future. Ranging from photo editing to accounting, there's ten categories that aren't available on the desktop version. It would open up yet another branch for Valve, which already offers books and movies through its online store, but until these categories get fleshed-out -- they're currently empty -- we're left guessing as to what it's likely to offer.
