Valve Software has announced that more than 15 million accounts have been created on Steam, its popular digital distribution platform.
The service also saw a 158 percent year-over-year sales growth, driven largely by the popularity of titles such as Call of Duty 4 and the Orange Box as well as the launch of the Steam Community. Valve also recently announced the release of Steamworks, a free suite of tools that will simplify many areas of the development process, including product key authentication, auto-updates and matchmaking.
“PC gaming is thriving, and has evolved into an era of constant connectivity,” said Valve President Gabe Newell. “That connectivity gives us the ability to have a much better relationship with our customers, not just for delivering our games, but across all aspects of our business – including the design, development and support of our games. Features like Guest Passes, Free Weekends, Gifting and the Steam Community have been very well received both by customers and the developers who are using Steam.”
“We are accelerating our release of new functionality in the next year as well as finding new ways to work with our partners such as the release of Steamworks, which allows them to bring the many benefits of Steam to their package products,” he added.
