Valve News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Valve has unveiled a new Steam Families system, looking to overhaul how household game sharing works within Steam, with the end goal being to replace the existing Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View systems.

Valve has added many quality-of-life updates to Counter-Strike 2 in its latest patch while buffing the Zeus and nerfing the kill reward from the XM1014. Some prominent changes include the ability to swap between one’s left and right hand while aiming. You can set it before rounds and swap temporarily by pressing H.

Valve has released a brand-new Counter-Strike 2 update, bringing a host of important changes as well as the inclusion of the long-awaited left-hand viewmodel. This feature was previously featured in CS:GO, and it has finally made its way to Counter-Strike 2.

Left-handed Counter-Strike 2 players, time to raise that left hand in what could be interpreted as a celebration. In the game's latest update, Valve have added the ability to swap from the default right-handed viewmodel to a left-handed one. There's also an update to the buy menu, making it easier to track your bank account and grab weapons your mates have dropped. Alongside further UI improvements for grenade line-ups, and a tweak to the Active Duty map pool.

Steam has changed its refund policy, with pre-release playtime now factored in when considering eligibility for a refund.

In a rare case of a wild Nintendo being spotted having somewhat of a point, actually, in regards to being protective over their IP, Facepunch announced yesterday that they’re removing all “Nintendo stuff” from Garry’s Mod’s Steam workshop, following takedown orders sent straight from ninty themselves.

Nintendo is known to be highly protective of its IPs, and its latest takedown request has targeted Garry's Mod, forcing the sandbox game to remove 20 years worth of content that contains Nintendo related workshop assets. Fans of the Super Smash Bros. gaming circuit and various sandbox titles are highly familiar with Nintendo shutting down games with DMCA takedowns. With Nintendo now requesting all of its assets to be removed from the Garry's Mod section of the Steam Workshop, fans are lamenting the impending loss of community content.

Users looking to return a game on Steam may have a slightly more difficult time, as Valve recently updated the service’s refund policy to close a popular loophole involving “advanced access” titles. Steam is one of the biggest digital game retailers, offering customers a massive selection of PC titles that run the gamut from the latest triple-A releases to smaller indie fare. Of course, not everyone is going to be happy with their purchases, and Steam allows users to refund their games within 14 days of buying them, as long as they have only been played for less than two hours.

Players that put more than two hours into pre-purchased or advanced access games will now be exempt from Steam's refund policy, says Steam, the maker of said policy and thus the final word on how it is implemented. As spotted by the Verge, this change is intended to combat a loophole where filthy time criminals could fill their stolen boots with ill-gotten fun pre-release, then get their money back.

Team Fortress 2, the acclaimed multiplayer first-person shooter from software giant Valve, has received a major improvement thanks to a recent update. While the changelog for this latest update may not seem like much at first glance, one notable addition is likely to be considered a big deal by many Team Fortress 2 fans.

Counter-Strike 2 has received an update that implements a handful of bug fixes and UI improvements. While a new update is almost always a welcome addition, Counter-Strike 2 fans continue to wait for a major one that addresses some of the game's more significant issues.

The Steam Deck is considered by many fans to be the king of PC gaming handhelds. While Valve is miles away from seriously challenging Nintendo’s market position, and their own device can’t run all games on Steam, it still endures as one of the most popular devices in the category. It may very well be the best seller out of all of them, thanks to a combination of its early market lead, its now global distribution network, and the ease of use with SteamOS compared to Windows.

Louis Gossett Jr., who made history as the first Black man to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and had a prolific, successful career across film, television and stage - as well as voicing the friendly Vortigaunt aliens in Half-Life 2 and its follow-up Episode One - has died.

Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and known to millions as the voice of Half-Life 2's vortigaunts, has died at the age of 87.

In another interesting revelation, Xbox head Phil Spencer has reportedly backed the arrival of third-party game stores on game consoles. This has led to Xbox fans anticipating the possible launch of game stores, like Steam, on Microsoft's console.

Steam might be on the way to making its Discovery Queue more lucrative for users, as per a recent patent. The Discovery Queue has been quite a popular feature for players to find some hidden gems on Steam, and it seems like the new feature is set to attract more people by incentivizing them.

Valve has unveiled a new Steam Families system, looking to overhaul how household game sharing works within Steam, with the end goal being to replace the existing Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View systems.

Steam has just set another record for the most concurrent players just a week after clearing its previous milestone. Valve’s PC gaming outlet has been the go-to platform for digital purchases over the past few decades, giving players access to a vast catalog of classic gems and modern-day hits. Even with the “console wars” between Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox raging ever on and the Epic Game Store rising as a new competitor in the PC gaming landscape, Steam still benefits from a large community of users that continues to grow to record-setting numbers.

Valve have launched Steam Families on the Steam Beta Client, a suite of new and refreshed family sharing options that replace Steam's existing Family Sharing and Family View features. The idea is that you'll now have a single location where you can manage your family's games from, as well as have more control over what and when other family members can play.

PC gaming giant Valve has announced a new sharing feature for Steam, which should allow players on the platform to share games with their loved ones. It's calling the feature Steam Families, and it's currently in testing on Steam beta clients.

Over the course of the first couple of months of 2024, Steam has seen several boosts in activity, which have seen the platforming hitting record-high peaks of concurrent users multiple times in the space of a few weeks. Recently, it hit another milestone on that front.

Oh, look – Steam's gone and broken its own concurrent record. Again.

Valve has revealed that of the 100 most-played games on Steam Deck over the last 12 months, Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate 3 tops the chart.

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called Valve «assholes» in an old email thread that's been dug up as part of a lawsuit against the Steam owner.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Valve has released a list showcasing the top games played on its handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck. The list, which reveals what the 100 most-played games on the system were, features a timeframe of March 2023 to March 2024. The full list is available on Steam.

Valve just released a list of the top 100 games played on the Steam Deck over the last 12 months and few will likely be surprised that Baldur's Gate 3 tops the list. Valve's handheld device launched back in 2022, promising fans a chance to play some of their favorite Steam titles while on the go. Now, the developer is offering a glimpse of which games have attracted the most attention on the Steam Deck over the last year, and Larian Studios' hit RPG Baldur's Gate 3 came in at number one.

It's hard for me to get a read on Steam sales, because my relationship and access to games is defined by my work. So I ask you, as the Steam spring sale starts: are Steam sales as big a deal as they used to be?

Valve’s not so little console that could has hit a new landmark.

Valve’s handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck, has hit an interesting new milestone. As spotted by Gaming on Linux, third-party Steam database SteamDB indicates that the digital distribution platform now features more than 14,000 games that are rated as being either Playable or Verified for the Steam Deck.

A new update for Steam brings a few handy new features out of beta and into the public branch, including the ability for gamers to mark certain games and applications as private. Considering the extremely wide variety of games and genres out there, it's no surprise that there are some games that Steam users would rather keep their ownership of to themselves, for a number of reasons.

After several months on the Steam beta build, Valve last night officially launched an update which revamps the shopping experience and lets you hide your shame. Two universal conveniences: your shopping basket is now shared across devices, so no losing track of things you meant to buy later; and buying gift copies is now less faffy. More conditional: you can now choose to make individual games private, meaning no one will ever see if you own them or are playing them. I won't ask why you might want to hide any particular games.

Valve Corporation's computer video game platform Steam has set a new record with over 34 million concurrent players. Record player counts boasted by Palworld and other popular titles have helped to drive users to the platform, along with dozens of indie titles released every day. Now, Steam itself has achieved another massive milestone, marking a great achievement for the decades-old platform.

Steam's done it again: another weekend, another concurrent user record broken and a new one set.

Steam has been at the center of the PC gaming scene for pretty much as long as it has been around, and though competitors have certainly emerged over the years, Steam’s own position has only grown stronger as time has gone on. That continues to be the case even now, with the platform having set another record for itself.

’s developer Arrowhead Game Studios recently issued statements about scam Steam listings impersonating the popular game. The Sony-published third-person shooter launched simultaneously on PS5 and PC via Steam last month. However, at least three fraudulent store pages recently appeared on Valve’s platform.

A gamer managed to turn their Steam Deck into a dual-screen system that borrows ideas from the Nintendo DS. Players enjoy having the ability to take their video games on the go with them, which has led to the creation of a number of different handheld consoles, including the highly successful Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck.

Valve has released a new report that revealed over 500 games earned more than $3 million in gross revenue on the platform last year.

In 2023, more than 500 games earned more than $3 million (around £2.3 million) in gross revenue via Steam, according to Valve. The stat was shared as part of their annual summary, a breakdown of the platform's past year in terms of new features and performance.

The best games are co-op games, and one of the best features of Steam is Remote Play, which turns local co-op games into online co-op games through the power of internet magic.

The latest Counter-Strike 2 update re-introduces Arms Race, a beloved multiplayer mode from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in which players level up and are handed new guns as they moider each other, with victory going to the player who levels all the way up and performs a final knifekill.

Valve likely made over $1bn last year from loot boxes in Counter-Strike 2.

The latest Steam Deck beta client update is out, and it’s made a pretty neat addition to the quick-access performance menu. A tap of the Y button now brings up a brief explainer for whichever individual setting is currently highlighted, a handy lil’ reference for anyone who wants to customise how their Deck (or Steam Deck OLED) runs without knowing exactly how things like TDP limits and half-rate shading affect performance. Clearly it’s also a brutal attack on the livelihoods of honest hardware editors who write guides to this sort of thing, but whatever, Valve.

A unique Counter-Strike 2 weapon skin that apparently eluded gamers for around a decade has finally appeared online, and it could be worth up to $1 million. The skin is so rare that acquiring it through a loot box or trade has been considered a statistical anomaly.

There’s some wild rumors out this early that claim to know the specs of the Steam Deck 2.

The developer of the Nintendo 64 version of Portal has taken the game down at the request of Valve.

The developer of the recently struck down Portal N64 port has shed some more light on what happened and told fans to not be mad at Valve.

A fan-made remake of Team Fortress 2 in the Source 2 engine has been cancelled after the ambitious project, three years in the making, ran into a double-whammy of recent development issues and a legal takedown from Valve.

Contrary to its usual image as a company open to fan games and mods, Valve has taken down two well-known community projects.

Valve has added a new in-game reporting tool in Steam which allows players to flag «illegal content» in games which include live-generated AI content.

Valve has adjusted its review policy for AI content on Steam, saying it will "release the vast majority of games that use it."

Little-known indie platform holder Valve have announced a new policy for Steam releases that make use of "AI" technology. To boil it down, developers will now have to disclose how they're using AI tools on Steam pages, including what "guardrails" they're putting in place for live-generated stuff that might be illegal or infringe on copyright. Valve are also introducing a new player reporting system for breaches. The company say these adjustments "will enable us to release the vast majority of games that use AI", with the exception of Adult Only Sexual content that is generated live.

A recently released fan mod for Portal 2 adds 40 new test chambers for players to wrap their heads around, including new mechanics and a brand new story.

Steam has once again topped its own record with 33,675,229 concurrent users online over the weekend.

Portal: Revolution is an eight hour fan-made Portal 2 prequel, with 40 new test chambers, voiced characters and new puzzle mechanics. It looks seriously impressive and it's out now, with a trailer below.

The year of 2023 featured the most number of games released on Steam since the platform first went live all the way back in 2006. As tracked by SteamDB, 14,531 games were released on Steam throughout 2023, which is quite a big jump from 2022, which saw 12,559 releases on the platform.

Over 14,000 games were released on Steam in 2023, according to according to data tracked by SteamDB. The number is nearly 2000 games more than in 2022, and continues a steady trend of growth on the digital storefront.

With the arrival of the new year, Valve has officially dropped support for older versions of Windows. This means that Steam users that are still running Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 will need to upgrade to Windows 10 or 11 in order to continue using the digital storefront.

The player-voted Steam Awards have reached their conclusion, and the results are about as weird as the nominees. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the weirdest game possible won in several categories, such as Red Dead Redemption 2 for the Labor Of Love award and Starfield for "Most Innovative Gameplay".

Acclaimed developer Valve is well-known for its tendency not to revisit franchises after the second entry, but that doesn't mean that a game like can never be expanded upon. serves as a model sequel in many ways, taking the original game's interesting concept and story and expanding on it across the board without losing the fundamental ingenuity. It's hard to imagine a great way to revisit the Aperture Science Enrichment Center in Chell's shoes after the credits of roll, but there's still room for interesting surrounding stories in the facility.

Valve has unveiled its annual ‘Best of 2023' list on Steam, revealing which titles dominated sales on PC. The titles haven't been numerically ranked, but have been grouped into tiers — Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze — based on data collected from January 1 through December 15, 2023. The Top 12 category is populated by both free-to-play multiplayer games and the biggest launches, with the award-winning Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077, and Hogwarts Legacy emerging as the best-selling titles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was disliked by both fans and critics alike, also made it to higher echelons, thanks to a dedicated fanbase wanting to experience its multiplayer segment.

Valve’s portable PC platform has enjoyed another good year, with a new OLED model and cheaper entry point contributing to a steady increase in popularity.

Valve have put together their "Best Of 2023" lists on Steam. This is different from the Steam Awards, voting for which is ongoing, and instead is built from Steam data like revenue, peak concurrent players, and so on. It's interesting every year as older games or indie obscurities do better than you expect.

The Steam winter sale is now underway, with discounts across the digital storefront's catalogue of games from now until January 4th. This also means that voting is now open in the 2023 Steam Awards, with the slightly earlier closing date of January 2nd.

If you've opted in to the Steam client beta, you can now mark games in your Steam library as private so that they're invisible to other users. That means that if you're - as a hypothetical - a games journalist who once had to buy and install some games with questionable names and subject matter for an article you were writing, you can now hide that so it's no longer visible to your friends or - hypothetically - your child.

If there are some games you would rather your friends and family didn't know you were playing, for whatever reason that may be, Steam has your back.

Valve has announced that the newest version of the Steam Client beta now has updates to how the platform’s shopping cart works. Among other things, the update now allows players to mark games they might purchase as private right from the shopping cart.

The nominees for the public-voted Steam Awards have been announced and they are, perhaps more than ever before, baffling to me. If I was being uncharitable, I'd say that's because the list is overrun by games with large multiplayer communities that can be encouraged to vote for them - but who would want to be uncharitable? Let's instead say that the list is certainly not boring, even if Starfield gets a nod for "most innovative gameplay".

Valve's making a list, and checking it twice; it's gonna find out who's naughty and nice. And if you happen to be on its Naughty List — which pretty much applies to any one of the «thousands» of DOTA 2 players now identified as being dirty, filthy cheaters — you can expect a cheerfully gift-wrapped lump of toxic coal and a permanent ban in your stocking as your festive treat for 2023.

Valve has released a new trailer to celebrate the upcoming Steam Winter Sale. The sale, set to go live on December 21 and feature games at deep discounts until January 4, will include quite a few PC titles available at lower prices. Check out the trailer below.

Valve has announced a major update for Steam, bringing with it new features for the Steam Workshop, and how players can download and organise the various game mods available through the service. According to a post on the Steam blog, the company has announced that the new Steam Workshop features are available on the Steam Client beta branch.

Valve has asked Steam Deck owners to stop sniffing the fumes which come out of the handheld's vents.

Valve have asked Steam Deck owners to stop inhaling the fumes from the Steam Deck’s air vent, after the portable PC’s uniquely moreish smell became an obsession among the community.

Hitman 3 at 60% off. No Man's Sky at 50% off. Tetris Effect: Connected at 50% off. These are great games whether you play them in VR or not, so even if you don't own a headset you might want to check out Steam's VR Fest, which is live now until December 11th.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has been ordered to appear in court as part of an antitrust lawsuit filed by Wolfire Games.

Half-Life recently received a big update to celebrate its 25th birthday, but a significant bug remained. In a famous scripted sequence during which a long, green tentacle busts through a window and drags away a scientist, the scientist and the tentacle would be mis-aligned, making it look like the scientist floated out of the window of his own volition.

An «extremely early» Left 4 Dead prototype is now available to play thanks to Counter-Strike's 1.6 update.

Valve CEO Gabe Newell has been ordered to attend an in-person deposition regarding an antitrust lawsuit filed by Wolfire Games.

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Steam has introduced a new way to spot which PC games support PlayStation’s DualShock and DualSense controllers, as well as being able to search by specific controllers.