We've just released an update to Steam Greenlight based directly on feedback and requests from the community – both developers and consumers. This update includes the ability to skip items in your vote queue, improvements to collections, and new stats for game and software developers.




Since the Steam Greenlight service went live back in August, an average of three new games have been posted to Steam Greenlight every single day. With so many great game and software titles being added it can be pretty hard to keep up. One of the great ways to discover new titles is to just jump into your queue. It is your own personalized queue of games you haven’t voted on. From there you can vote Yes, No, and now 'Ask me again later' to skip a title for consideration again at a later date.

If you really like a particular Greenlight entry, you can favorite it to easily find it later, or now you can opt to separately 'follow' items to be notified when the developer posts new announcements. Similarly, you can now 'follow' collections in Greenlight to be notified when collection authors post announcements.

Meanwhile, a new set of detailed statistics are now available for developers to show exactly how many people are looking at their item, voting, and how that adds up over time.

You can read the full update details on the Greenlight blog here.

You've probably got some favorite games that you play a lot and know pretty well. Or maybe you've mastered playing as a certain class or character in Team Fortress 2 or Call of Duty. Or maybe you're just really good at finding all the hidden secrets in the latest Elder Scrolls game. How do you put that knowledge to use and help fellow gamers? Create a game guide on Steam!

Today we're rolling out Game Guides as a beta to members of the Steam Community Beta. With Game Guides, you can create a guide to help fellow gamers and share your expertise in whatever game you like. To get access to the beta, please join the Steam Community Beta Group.

Creating a Guide:
Once you've joined the beta group noted above, simply go to the Game Hub for any game you play on Steam and look for the "Guides" tab.



Under that tab, you'll find a button to create a guide. You'll be able to upload and insert images or use screenshots that are already in your Steam cloud. You can insert YouTube videos and you can add friends to help you write the guide. When you're done, just publish your guide and it will be accessible to the community.

Feedback? Questions?
We've set up a sub-forum for discussing guides and giving feedback within the Community Beta group here.

Please let us know what you think and if you encounter any bugs.

Preview of Team Fortress 2 Game Hub now accessible for all

August 16, 2012--Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the launch of a limited access Beta for its new Steam Community features.

The Steam Community Beta is now open to the first 50,000 players who earned the 'Pillar of the Steam Community' badge and includes another invite to share. Beta access will increase incrementally until the public launch.

To celebrate the launch of Team Fortress 2's new game mode, Mann vs. Machine, the Team Fortress 2 Game Hub is now accessible to everyone.

The new Steam Community update includes:
Game Hubs - Every game on Steam now has a Game Hub, which provides a quick way for users to browse the best of a variety of content as rated by the community at large. Each Game Hub also includes a game-specific discussion area where players can talk about their favorite Steam games.

Group Updates - Player-created groups have been redesigned so it's now easier to see what a group is all about and who is participating in it. Groups now also include public and private discussion areas where they can remain in touch with their own communities.

My Content Updates - The content you've created now lives in one central place with new viewing options including an "image wall" layout that showcases your top-rated content. Also new is the ability to mark screenshots, videos, and workshop items as Favorites to save or share with friends.

Friend Activity - The new feed makes it easy to view, rate, and comment on the content and activities of your friends in a visually-rich and interactive presentation. Players can also broadcast game-specific status updates to start a conversation with their friends, directly in the activity feed.

Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC and Mac games with over 40 million accounts around the world and over 2,000 titles offered.

More details regarding the Steam Community update are available at www.steamcommunity.com/communitycontent.

Preview of Team Fortress 2 Game Hub now accessible for all

August 16, 2012--Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the launch of a limited access Beta for its new Steam Community features.

The Steam Community Beta is now open to the first 50,000 players who earned the 'Pillar of the Steam Community' badge and includes another invite to share. Beta access will increase incrementally until the public launch.

To celebrate the launch of Team Fortress 2's new game mode, Mann vs. Machine, the Team Fortress 2 Game Hub is now accessible to everyone.

The new Steam Community update includes:
Game Hubs - Every game on Steam now has a Game Hub, which provides a quick way for users to browse the best of a variety of content as rated by the community at large. Each Game Hub also includes a game-specific discussion area where players can talk about their favorite Steam games.

Group Updates - Player-created groups have been redesigned so it's now easier to see what a group is all about and who is participating in it. Groups now also include public and private discussion areas where they can remain in touch with their own communities.

My Content Updates - The content you've created now lives in one central place with new viewing options including an "image wall" layout that showcases your top-rated content. Also new is the ability to mark screenshots, videos, and workshop items as Favorites to save or share with friends.

Friend Activity - The new feed makes it easy to view, rate, and comment on the content and activities of your friends in a visually-rich and interactive presentation. Players can also broadcast game-specific status updates to start a conversation with their friends, directly in the activity feed.

Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC and Mac games with over 40 million accounts around the world and over 2,000 titles offered.

More details regarding the Steam Community update are available at www.steamcommunity.com/communitycontent.

New features announced each day this week, beta access available soon

A new set of features are being previewed today, focusing on organizing and showing off your collection of screenshots, videos, and Workshop items.

With this update, Steam is putting all the content you’ve created and shared in one convenient place to make it easier to both show off and manage. Your screenshots will be organized into a rich, continually scrolling page that we’re calling the ‘Image Wall’, showing off both your recent and top-rated images at the top. Videos and Workshop items will also get their own sub-section in your shared files, with the ability to easily sort and manage them.

Plus, when you come across someone else’s screenshot or video that you really like, you can add it to your favorites to easily find it later in this same area.

Please visit www.steamcommunity.com/communitycontent for more details. The final set of new features will be announced tomorrow, along with plans for the closed beta.

New features announced each day this week, beta access available soon

A new set of features are being previewed today, focusing on improvements to user groups in the Steam Community.

With this update, the 2.5 Million user groups on Steam will be upgraded, adding discussions, customization, and a fresh new layout making it easy to see who’s in the group and what the group has been up to recently.

The new discussion feature gives each group their own forums where members can post questions or discuss the topics and issues that are important to them. Groups can even set up sub-forums for more focused discussions.

Groups will also be able affiliate themselves with their favorite games and set the default language for the group, making it easier for gamers to find groups of interest to them.

Please visit www.steamcommunity.com/communitycontent for more details and be sure to check back each day through August 16th for a preview of more great features.

Every so often we need to update the Steam Subscriber Agreement (“SSA”) and Valve’s Privacy Policy. These documents are the terms to which you (and all Steam users) agreed when first creating an account. Whenever we need to make changes to these agreements we like to bring the changes to your attention and explain why they’re necessary. The next time you log in to Steam you’ll be asked to read and agree to the new terms.

This time around there are a number of changes reflected in both documents including the opening of a new Valve office in Luxembourg to better serve our EU customers and partners. If you live in the EU, your SSA will be with our Luxembourg subsidiary Valve S.a.r.l. and the SSA has been amended to reflect additional terms specific to our EU customers. We've added other terms related to the Steam Wallet and Steam trading to accommodate new features and capabilities of Steam.

We’re also introducing a new dispute resolution process that will benefit you and Valve. Recently, a number of companies have created similar provisions which have generated lots of discussion from customers and communities, and we’ve been following these discussions closely. On Steam, whenever a customer is unhappy with any transaction, our first goal is to resolve things as quickly as possible through the normal customer support process. However in those instances in which we can't resolve a dispute, we've outlined a new required process whereby we agree to use arbitration or small claims court to resolve the dispute. In the arbitration process, Valve will reimburse your costs of the arbitration for claims under a certain amount. Reimbursement by Valve is provided regardless of the arbitrator’s decision, provided that the arbitrator does not determine the claim to be frivolous or the costs unreasonable.

Most significant to the new dispute resolution terms is that customers may now only bring individual claims, not class action claims. We considered this change very carefully. It’s clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases however, class actions don’t provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims. Class actions like these do not benefit us or our communities. We think this new dispute resolution process is faster and better for you and Valve while avoiding unnecessary costs, and that it will therefore benefit the community as a whole.

Thanks for reading through our thoughts on these updates and for your continued use of Steam.

Enlisting the community to help select new titles

July 9, 2012 -- Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Steam Greenlight, a new platform feature that enlists the community’s help in selecting some of the next games to be released on Steam.

Steam Greenlight will allow developers and publishers to post information and media about their game in an effort to convince the Community that their game should be released on Steam. Greenlight piggybacks on Steam Workshop’s flexible system that organizes content and lets customers rate and leave feedback.

As well as serving as a clearing house for game submissions, Greenlight will provide an incredible level of added exposure for new games and an opportunity to connect directly with potential customers and fans.

“Making the call to publish or not publish a title isn’t fun,” said Anna Sweet, at Valve. “Many times opinions vary and our internal jury is hung on a decision. But with the introduction of the Steam Workshop we realized an opportunity to enlist the community's help as we review certain titles and, hopefully, increase the volume and quality of creative submissions.”

Steam Greenlight will be released August 30.

For more information, please visit www.steampowered.com/greenlight

Announcing Workshop Collections, a new way to discover, organize, and share content in the Steam Workshop. With Collections, anyone can create a customized list of Workshop items for others to discover, rate, and subscribe.



Help expose the talent and craftsmanship found across the Steam Workshop by creating collections of mods or items that you feel work well together or to highlight content you think other people should pay attention to. Numerous artists and fans have already created quite a few collections of the incredible items submitted to the Workshop for Team Fortress 2. And PC Gamer was eager to jump in and put together a couple collections for Skyrim, highlighting their favorite Improvements and New Content.

PC Gamer also recently posted a nice write up detailing the forthcoming Portal 2 puzzle creator and integration with the Steam Workshop. When the Portal 2 beta concludes, and the world can begin happily creating their own test chambers, you’ll be able to use collections to create playlists of Portal 2 maps that you think are awesome or that should be played in a certain order.

Visit the Steam Workshop for Team Fortress 2 or Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and check out the collections that fans and authors are already creating, or put your own together.

Be sure to join the Official Steam Workshop Community Group for the latest news and announcements.

Whether you are a fan of Team Fortress 2 or The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you’ve probably discovered some of the countless talented authors in the Steam Workshop and wished that you could keep track of the new stuff they are creating. Well, now you can! For any item, you can click “View all shared files” to see what else the author has created, and then choose to follow that author. Following someone in the Workshop will let you easily discover the latest items and mods that they create, which is accessible through the “Followed Authors” filter on the right side of the Workshop. If you’re just getting started with the Workshop, let us point out a few of the more than 5,000+ authors that have been busy contributing.

On the Team Fortress 2 side, [WDZ] The Ronin and [HoV] Psyke have been busily collaborating on dozens of items, including this sweet hat, which you might recognize as the Brown Bomber. Meanwhile, Svdl has been involved in the creation of over 70 items and seen his items One-Man Army, Snapped Pupil, and Your Worst Nightmare become available in the game. Plus, following will let us see if Tex ever submits a follow up to the successful neck-wear Crocodile Smile.

A few of the authors in the Skyrim Workshop that we’re excited to see more from include, LtMattmoo, Cliffworms, and Arthmoor. LtMattmoo has been busy making mods to improve horses, armor, and giving you the ability to camp out under the stars. Meanwhile Cliffworms has been at the mixing board, fine-tuning the audio across the dungeons and wilderness of Skyrim. We’re definitely looking forward to his upcoming Civilization and Special Events modules. And Arthmoor has given us the ability to ride horses right into cities and to start a new life to experience Skyrim all over again.

In other news, it’s been a little over three weeks since the Workshop for Skyrim was unveiled and gamers could start subscribing to mods directly through Steam. In that time, gamers have collectively subscribed to mods an astonishing 5,566,006 times and counting. It’s incredible to see so many talented individuals and teams sharing their passion with the community.

Other recent additions and updates to the Workshop:

There is now an ‘author’ tag next to comments where a workshop author is replying to comments left on their page.

The information that comes up when you hover over an item in browse view now includes whether you are subscribed and if any friends have added that item to their favorites.

There are new filter options in the right column to see your friends’ favorites as well as your own favorites and subscribed files.