STEAM

Steam is a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Corporation for purchasing and playing video games. Steam offers digital rights management (DRM), matchmaking servers, video streaming, and social networking services. Steam provides the user with installation and automatic updating of games, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud saving, and in-game voice and chat functionality.

Steam started out as an annoying program that came with Half-Life 2, but it’s grown into the PC game store of choice for most PC gamers. Although some people aren’t fans and prefer alternative stores, it’s a powerful platform that offers a lot of features. Even if you’re a Steam fan, there’s likely a lot you don’t know about Steam.

From a market where you can sell in-game items for credit towards new Steam games to integrated walkthroughs and easy mod installation, Steam is constantly gaining new features. We’ll be seeing a Linux-based “Steam Box” challenging the consoles in the living room this year, too.

Steam Has Different Prices In Different Regions

Steam allows publishers to set different prices for different reason. For example, the URL http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=au will take you to the Australian Steam store, while http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=us will take you to the US Steam store. You’ll see different prices for many games on each.

For example, Dishonored costs $60 USD in the US and $80 USD in Australia. (You can also use other country codes, such as eu for Europe and uk for the UK.)