It’s Chriiiiiiistmas, as Noddy Holder screams every morning to the terrified residents of Toyland, no matter what the season. Beneath a mechanical tophat festooned with mirrors and baubles, he gambols and grimaces, throwing colourfully decorated parcels containing tiny tartan trousers and other glam trinkets.

Steam is a lot like young Noddy, spreading goodwill whatever the season with its regular sales. But now is your chance to grab gifts for one and all (yourself included), because the Holiday Sale has just begun. Highlights below.

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Yesterday, Hatred was removed from Steam Greenlight. Despite having more than 13,000 votes and being the seventh ranked game of 2,000+, the isometric killing spree simulator had its page removed and Valve told the developers, “based on what we see on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we ll be taking it down.”

Now it’s back and developers Destructive Creations have posted what appears to be an apologetic email from Gabe Newell regarding the decision. That’s below.

… [visit site to read more]

Destructive Creations’ Hatred looks horrid. There’s little doubt about that. It’s a mass-murder simulator, created seemingly in order to offend, and it looks tacky and unpleasant. But then, you know, it’s allowed to be that if it wants to be. It’s not, however, allowed to be sold on Steam. Valve has taken the move to delist the game from Greenlight within a couple of hours of its appearance, despite its showing enormous popularity amongst potential customers. Which asks the question, what are> Valve’s criteria for accepting a game?

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Major update: Cor, this didn’t go well! Currently the Steam Winter Auction is a big “nope”. Head there now and you’ll see a message saying there have been “some issues” with it, and it’s closed until they can fix it. Those issues, we’ve heard, are that bugs meant people were getting millions of gems, and the whole economy went kaput. Of course Steam’s fervent community was going to find exploits right away, and it looks like they found the mother lode. Quite how Valve will repair everyone’s sales, swaps and crafts in the last 12 hours it’ll be interesting to find out. I expect a lot of strops.>

From today, until next Thursday, Valve has just announced they’re running a Steam Auction. This is a way for users to trade (“recycle” they say) unused items in their inventories for “Steam Gems”, which can then be used to bid – from next Monday – for games in an auction. Because it’s come to this.

… [visit site to read more]

Microsoft might long ago have abandoned Flight Simulator X when they dismantled its developer shortly after release, but for the past eight years the game has been supported dutifully by its community and third-party developers. That’s continuing next week when Dovetail Games – famed for Train Simulator and its oodles of DLC – are bringing an updated version of the game to Steam. The slight revision will feature “enhanced multiplayer functionality”, along with Windows 8.1 support and a future of (albeit paid-for) updates.

This obviously has consequences for other third-party Flight Sim X developers, though Dovetail say they’ll make “every effort to ensure that as many of them as possible work”.

… [visit site to read more]

Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na Vi s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.>

Yesterday Valve announced the beta for its Steam broadcasting service. It predictably prompted a slew of headlines which instantly put the service in competition with Twitch, another game-focused streaming service.

It might well become a competitor to Twitch at some point but at the moment they’re very different prospects. I thought I’d spend this week’s Dote Night digging into the current situation a little more, not because it’s Dota specific but because Twitch is how I consume the majority of my Dota 2 pro matches so the potential impact is worth keeping an eye on. Should be back to game-focused shenanigans next week!

… [visit site to read more]

An odd phenomenon of the last month or so is the disappearance of Ubisoft’s end-of-year gaming bonanza from the UK version of Steam. While Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew are all available on the US and other international versions of Valve’s blue-grey shop, in Her Majesty’s The United Kingdom, they are conspicuously absent. The games can be bought, at surprisingly huge prices, through the convoluted bizarreness of Uplay, and through other portals like GamersGate or Greenman Gaming, but the most popular and widely used digital distro has an empty shelf. So what’s up?

… [visit site to read more]

An odd phenomenon of the last month or so is the disappearance of Ubisoft’s end-of-year gaming bonanza from the UK version of Steam. While Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, and The Crew are all available on the US and other international versions of Valve’s blue-grey shop, in Her Majesty’s The United Kingdom, they are conspicuously absent. The games can be bought, at surprisingly huge prices, through the convoluted bizarreness of Uplay, and through other portals like GamersGate or Greenman Gaming, but the most popular and widely used digital distro has an empty shelf. So what’s up?

… [visit site to read more]

Oh me oh my, Valve are wading into the livestreaming waters. You know, that livestreaming thing, where you can watch other people play video games or have other folks watch you play video games? Valve today launched a public beta of Steam Broadcasting, building livestreaming into the Steam client. It’s trying to make livestreaming more casual and coincidental rather than a big fuss we consciously go through. But look, click this link and you can watch games through the Steam Community right now.

… [visit site to read more]

Oh me oh my, Valve are wading into the livestreaming waters. You know, that livestreaming thing, where you can watch other people play video games or have other folks watch you play video games? Valve today launched a public beta of Steam Broadcasting, building livestreaming into the Steam client. It’s trying to make livestreaming more casual and coincidental rather than a big fuss we consciously go through. But look, click this link and you can watch games through the Steam Community right now.

… [visit site to read more]