July 15, 2015 -- The International Dota 2 Championships (TI5) is still a few weeks off yet this year's community-funded prize pool has already shattered previous records with this year's purse currently over $16.5 mil, up from last year's record setting $10.9 mil.

In addition to the record setting prize purse, this year's International will mark the introduction of viewing parties in over 400 movie theaters across the US. Those interested in attending the viewing parties may find information and purchase tickets via www.FathomEvents.com

Meanwhile, new Secret Shop merchandise has been revealed (http://dota2.welovefine.com/). For the first time ever, TI5 ticket holders may now place preorders on Secret Shop items for pickup at The International. And online orders will be made available to the general public two weeks after TI5 concludes.

Marking the fifth year of the tournament, The International returns to The KeyArena from August 3 through August 8. Last year's tournament sold out in less than one hour, and was viewed online by over 20 million unique viewers as teams battled for over $10 mil in prizes.

Details regarding additional tournament broadcasts will be released in the coming weeks.

For more, please visit http://blog.dota2.com

July 15, 2015 -- The International Dota 2 Championships (TI5) is still a few weeks off yet this year's community-funded prize pool has already shattered previous records with this year's purse currently over $16.5 mil, up from last year's record setting $10.9 mil.

In addition to the record setting prize purse, this year's International will mark the introduction of viewing parties in over 400 movie theaters across the US. Those interested in attending the viewing parties may find information and purchase tickets via www.FathomEvents.com

Meanwhile, new Secret Shop merchandise has been revealed (http://dota2.welovefine.com/). For the first time ever, TI5 ticket holders may now place preorders on Secret Shop items for pickup at The International. And online orders will be made available to the general public two weeks after TI5 concludes.

Marking the fifth year of the tournament, The International returns to The KeyArena from August 3 through August 8. Last year's tournament sold out in less than one hour, and was viewed online by over 20 million unique viewers as teams battled for over $10 mil in prizes.

Details regarding additional tournament broadcasts will be released in the coming weeks.

For more, please visit http://blog.dota2.com

Open Marketplace for Paid Mod Support Debuts Today on the Skyrim Workshop

April 23, 2015 - Steam now offers new functionality in the Steam Workshop, allowing community mod makers the opportunity to earn money doing what they love. With this update, community-made Workshop content such as mods, items, or maps can now be made available for sale directly via the Steam Workshop for titles that have enabled this feature.

Workshop is now putting mod authors in business via a new streamlined process for listing, selling and managing their creations. Creators contributing to the Steam Workshop have the choice of listing their new creations for sale at a price of their choosing, or to continue to make their work available to players for free. Mods purchased from the Steam Workshop are available immediately for play.

"We think this is a great opportunity to help support the incredible creative work being done by mod makers in the Steam Workshop," says Tom Bui at Valve. "User generated content is an increasingly significant component of many games, and opening new avenues to help financially support those contributors via Steam Workshop will help drive the level of UGC to new heights."

Direct mod sales via the Steam Workshop debuts today with Bethesda Softworks'® award-winning title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim®, and additional titles will become available across the Steam Workshop in the coming weeks.

Mods on the Skryim Workshop have received more than170 million downloads to date. The thousands of free mods, items, weapons, and quests will continue to be available at the discretion of the players who made them.

Support for mod sales via Steam Workshop is the latest expansion of Workshop in recent weeks. In late January, support was added for third party games to sell in game items created by members of the community. Valve alsoannounced over $57 mil has been paid to community content creators since Workshop debuted in October 2011.

For more information, please visit: www.steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim® 2011-2013 Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company.

Open Marketplace for Paid Mod Support Debuts Today on the Skyrim Workshop

April 23, 2015 - Steam now offers new functionality in the Steam Workshop, allowing community mod makers the opportunity to earn money doing what they love. With this update, community-made Workshop content such as mods, items, or maps can now be made available for sale directly via the Steam Workshop for titles that have enabled this feature.

Workshop is now putting mod authors in business via a new streamlined process for listing, selling and managing their creations. Creators contributing to the Steam Workshop have the choice of listing their new creations for sale at a price of their choosing, or to continue to make their work available to players for free. Mods purchased from the Steam Workshop are available immediately for play.

"We think this is a great opportunity to help support the incredible creative work being done by mod makers in the Steam Workshop," says Tom Bui at Valve. "User generated content is an increasingly significant component of many games, and opening new avenues to help financially support those contributors via Steam Workshop will help drive the level of UGC to new heights."

Direct mod sales via the Steam Workshop debuts today with Bethesda Softworks'® award-winning title, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim®, and additional titles will become available across the Steam Workshop in the coming weeks.

Mods on the Skryim Workshop have received more than170 million downloads to date. The thousands of free mods, items, weapons, and quests will continue to be available at the discretion of the players who made them.

Support for mod sales via Steam Workshop is the latest expansion of Workshop in recent weeks. In late January, support was added for third party games to sell in game items created by members of the community. Valve alsoannounced over $57 mil has been paid to community content creators since Workshop debuted in October 2011.

For more information, please visit: www.steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim® ©2011-2013 Bethesda Softworks LLC, a ZeniMax Media company.

Products and Technologies to Continue PC Gaming Momentum

March 3, 2015 - Valve announces a number of product and technologies at this week's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

"We continue to see very strong growth in PC Gaming, with Steam growing 50% in the last 12 months," said Gabe Newell, Valve's president. "With these announcements we hope that we are helping build on that momentum."

Steam Machines, Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux PCs will be able to take advantage of a new product announced at GDC called Steam Link. Designed to extend your Steam experience to any room in the house, Steam Link allows you to stream all your Steam content from any PC or Steam Machine on the same home network. Supporting 1080p at 60Hz with low latency, Steam Link will be available this November for $49.99, and available with a Steam Controller for an additional $49.99 in the US (worldwide pricing to be released closer to launch).

Steam Machines from partners Alienware and Falcon Northwest are being shown, with Machines from a dozen other partners slated to release this November. Steam Machines will start at the same price point as game consoles, with higher performance. Customers interested in the best possible gaming experience can choose whichever components meet their needs. Epic will give a demonstration of the newly announced Unreal Tournament running on a 4K monitor driven by the Falcon Northwest Steam Machine. "We love this platform," said Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games. "Whether you're running incredibly detailed scenes at 4K or running 1080p at 120 FPS for an intense shooter experience, this brings world-class gaming and graphics to televisions with an open platform true to Valve's PC g aming roots."

Valve will show a virtual reality (VR) headset. Developer versions of the headset will be available this spring, and partner HTC will ship their Vive headset to consumers by the end of the year.

Two new technologies are part of the VR release - a room scale tracking system codenamed Lighthouse, and a VR input system. "In order to have a high quality VR experience, you need high resolution, high speed tracking," said Valve's Alan Yates. "Lighthouse gives us the ability to do this for an arbitrary number of targets at a low enough BOM cost that it can be incorporated into TVs, monitors, headsets, input devices, or mobile devices." Valve intends to make Lighthouse freely available to any hardware manufacturers interested in the technology.

"Now that we have Lighthouse, we have an important piece of the puzzle for tackling VR input devices," said Valve's Joe Ludwig. "The work on the Steam Controller gave us the base to build upon, so now we have touch and motion as integrated parts of the PC gaming experience."

"We've been working in VR for years and it was only until we used SteamVR's controllers and experienced the magic of absolute tracking that we were able to make the VR game we always wanted to make," said Alex Schwartz of Owlchemylabs.

VR demos being shown at GDC include work from Bossa Studios, Cloudhead Games, Dovetail Games, Fireproof Studios, Google, Owlchemylabs, Skillman & Hackett, Steel Wool Games, Vertigo Games, and Wevr.

Valve announced the Source 2 engine, the successor to the Source engine used in Valve's games since the launch of Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2. "The value of a platform like the PC is how much it increases the productivity of those who use the platform. With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity. Given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favorite games," said Valve's Jay Stelly. "We will be making Source 2 available for free to content developers. This combined with recent announcements by Epic and Unity will help continue the PCs dominance as the premiere content authoring platform."

Also as part of supporting PC gaming, Valve announced that it will be releasing a Vulkan-compatible version of the Source 2 engine. Vulkan is a cross-platform, cross-vendor 3D graphics API that allows game developers to get the most out of the latest graphics hardware, and ensures hardware developers that there is a consistent, low overhead method of taking advantage of products. Vulkan, previously called Next Generation OpenGL, is administered by the Khronos Group, along with other standards such as OpenCL, OpenGL, and WebGL.

GDC 2015 will mark the 13th anniversary of Valve's first public announcement of Steam, which has since become the leading platform for PC, Mac, and Linux games and software. In the last year, Steam realized the addition of many new services and features - including In-Home Streaming, Broadcasting, Music, and user-created stores - as it grew to over 125 million active accounts worldwide.

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

Products and Technologies to Continue PC Gaming Momentum

March 3, 2015 - Valve announces a number of product and technologies at this week's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco.

"We continue to see very strong growth in PC Gaming, with Steam growing 50% in the last 12 months," said Gabe Newell, Valve's president. "With these announcements we hope that we are helping build on that momentum."

Steam Machines, Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux PCs will be able to take advantage of a new product announced at GDC called Steam Link. Designed to extend your Steam experience to any room in the house, Steam Link allows you to stream all your Steam content from any PC or Steam Machine on the same home network. Supporting 1080p at 60Hz with low latency, Steam Link will be available this November for $49.99, and available with a Steam Controller for an additional $49.99 in the US (worldwide pricing to be released closer to launch).

Steam Machines from partners Alienware and Falcon Northwest are being shown, with Machines from a dozen other partners slated to release this November. Steam Machines will start at the same price point as game consoles, with higher performance. Customers interested in the best possible gaming experience can choose whichever components meet their needs. Epic will give a demonstration of the newly announced Unreal Tournament running on a 4K monitor driven by the Falcon Northwest Steam Machine. "We love this platform," said Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games. "Whether you're running incredibly detailed scenes at 4K or running 1080p at 120 FPS for an intense shooter experience, this brings world-class gaming and graphics to televisions with an open platform true to Valve's PC g aming roots."

Valve will show a virtual reality (VR) headset. Developer versions of the headset will be available this spring, and partner HTC will ship their Vive headset to consumers by the end of the year.

Two new technologies are part of the VR release - a room scale tracking system codenamed Lighthouse, and a VR input system. "In order to have a high quality VR experience, you need high resolution, high speed tracking," said Valve's Alan Yates. "Lighthouse gives us the ability to do this for an arbitrary number of targets at a low enough BOM cost that it can be incorporated into TVs, monitors, headsets, input devices, or mobile devices." Valve intends to make Lighthouse freely available to any hardware manufacturers interested in the technology.

"Now that we have Lighthouse, we have an important piece of the puzzle for tackling VR input devices," said Valve's Joe Ludwig. "The work on the Steam Controller gave us the base to build upon, so now we have touch and motion as integrated parts of the PC gaming experience."

"We've been working in VR for years and it was only until we used SteamVR's controllers and experienced the magic of absolute tracking that we were able to make the VR game we always wanted to make," said Alex Schwartz of Owlchemylabs.

VR demos being shown at GDC include work from Bossa Studios, Cloudhead Games, Dovetail Games, Fireproof Studios, Google, Owlchemylabs, Skillman & Hackett, Steel Wool Games, Vertigo Games, and Wevr.

Valve announced the Source 2 engine, the successor to the Source engine used in Valve's games since the launch of Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2. "The value of a platform like the PC is how much it increases the productivity of those who use the platform. With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity. Given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favorite games," said Valve's Jay Stelly. "We will be making Source 2 available for free to content developers. This combined with recent announcements by Epic and Unity will help continue the PCs dominance as the premiere content authoring platform."

Also as part of supporting PC gaming, Valve announced that it will be releasing a Vulkan-compatible version of the Source 2 engine. Vulkan is a cross-platform, cross-vendor 3D graphics API that allows game developers to get the most out of the latest graphics hardware, and ensures hardware developers that there is a consistent, low overhead method of taking advantage of products. Vulkan, previously called Next Generation OpenGL, is administered by the Khronos Group, along with other standards such as OpenCL, OpenGL, and WebGL.

GDC 2015 will mark the 13th anniversary of Valve's first public announcement of Steam, which has since become the leading platform for PC, Mac, and Linux games and software. In the last year, Steam realized the addition of many new services and features - including In-Home Streaming, Broadcasting, Music, and user-created stores - as it grew to over 125 million active accounts worldwide.

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

Redesigned Steam Home Page Brings Recommendations, Curators, and Customization to the Forefront

September 22, 2014 – Valve today launched the Steam Discovery Update, which introduces new functionality and features designed to optimize the Steam shopping experience as the number of new titles on Steam increases.

In the past nine months, Steam has added over 1,300 new titles and grown to over 100 million active accounts. Designed to meet the demands of this growth, the Steam Discovery Update delivers a smarter Home page, offering recommendations based on past purchases, recent playtime, and recommendations by friends.

Steam Search has also been updated with extremely detailed filters. And a new feature called Curators allows anyone to become a taste maker and build a following.

"We have made great efforts to increase the number of titles we can publish on Steam, which means more choices for customers," said Alden Kroll of Valve. "This update introduces multiple features and functionality to help customers explore Steam’s growing catalog and find the games they are most interested in playing."

Steam is a leading online platform for PC, Mac, and Linux software, games and digital entertainment with over 3,700 titles and 100 million active accounts. It is the product of Valve, creators of game technologies (Source, Steam) and numerous best-selling game franchises (Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Half-Life, Portal, and Team Fortress).

For more information and to see your own personalized store, please visit www.steampowered.com and sign in.

Redesigned Steam Home Page Brings Recommendations, Curators, and Customization to the Forefront

September 22, 2014 – Valve today launched the Steam Discovery Update, which introduces new functionality and features designed to optimize the Steam shopping experience as the number of new titles on Steam increases.

In the past nine months, Steam has added over 1,300 new titles and grown to over 100 million active accounts. Designed to meet the demands of this growth, the Steam Discovery Update delivers a smarter Home page, offering recommendations based on past purchases, recent playtime, and recommendations by friends.

Steam Search has also been updated with extremely detailed filters. And a new feature called Curators allows anyone to become a taste maker and build a following.

"We have made great efforts to increase the number of titles we can publish on Steam, which means more choices for customers," said Alden Kroll of Valve. "This update introduces multiple features and functionality to help customers explore Steam’s growing catalog and find the games they are most interested in playing."

Steam is a leading online platform for PC, Mac, and Linux software, games and digital entertainment with over 3,700 titles and 100 million active accounts. It is the product of Valve, creators of game technologies (Source, Steam) and numerous best-selling game franchises (Counter-Strike, Dota 2, Half-Life, Portal, and Team Fortress).

For more information and to see your own personalized store, please visit www.steampowered.com and sign in.

Dota 2 Championships to be Carried Live on ESPN3,
Exclusive Final Match Preview Show on ESPN2

July 17, 2014 - Valve today announced that coverage of The International Dota 2 Championships will be presented in collaboration with ESPN on its live multi-screen sports network, ESPN3. In addition, an exclusive show previewing the final match will be presented on ESPN2 on Sunday at 8:30 pm Pacific. Live access to ESPN2 is also available on digital platforms via WatchESPN.

This year's International, happening at a sold out KeyArena in Seattle, WA this Friday thru Monday (July 18-22), features a record-breaking prize pool of over $10 mil - the largest ever for a competitive gaming tournament. And for the first time, viewers can watch all the matches, interviews, and analysis happening over the course of the four-day event on ESPN3, accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

On Sunday, viewers can tune in to ESPN2 for an exclusive preview of the tournament's final match, featuring highlights from the games, expert analysis, plus interviews with the players and Valve's Gabe Newell.

"From the success of the Compendium to the collaboration with ESPN, this year's International really demonstrates how much competitive gaming has grown to rival traditional sports," said Erik Johnson of Valve. "We believe the teams have also pushed to a new level of play this year and will further demonstrate the incredible advances made across this tournament since it first began three short years ago."

The International was first held in Cologne, Germany during the 2011 Gamescom with 16 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world competing for a grand prize of $1 million.

In 2013 the prize pool was bolstered beyond Valve's contribution by Dota 2 player participation in the Interactive Compendium, driving the total prize pool to over $2.8 million, up from $1.6 million.

This year the Compendium has driven the prize pool over $10 million.

Dota 2 is a free-to-play, online action strategy game created by Valve (Bellevue, WA based makers of multiple game franchises and the leading online distribution platform, Steam).

For more visit http://www.dota2.com

About ESPN3
ESPN3 is ESPN's live multi-screen sports network, a destination that delivers thousands of exclusive sports events annually. It is accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The network is currently available to more than 92 million homes at no additional cost to fans who receive their high-speed Internet connection or video subscription from an affiliated service provider. The network is also available at no cost to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers, smartphones and tablets connected to on-campus educational and on-base military broadband and Wi-Fi networks.

Dota 2 Championships to be Carried Live on ESPN3,
Exclusive Final Match Preview Show on ESPN2

July 17, 2014 - Valve today announced that coverage of The International Dota 2 Championships will be presented in collaboration with ESPN on its live multi-screen sports network, ESPN3. In addition, an exclusive show previewing the final match will be presented on ESPN2 on Sunday at 8:30 pm Pacific. Live access to ESPN2 is also available on digital platforms via WatchESPN.

This year's International, happening at a sold out KeyArena in Seattle, WA this Friday thru Monday (July 18-22), features a record-breaking prize pool of over $10 mil - the largest ever for a competitive gaming tournament. And for the first time, viewers can watch all the matches, interviews, and analysis happening over the course of the four-day event on ESPN3, accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

On Sunday, viewers can tune in to ESPN2 for an exclusive preview of the tournament's final match, featuring highlights from the games, expert analysis, plus interviews with the players and Valve's Gabe Newell.

"From the success of the Compendium to the collaboration with ESPN, this year's International really demonstrates how much competitive gaming has grown to rival traditional sports," said Erik Johnson of Valve. "We believe the teams have also pushed to a new level of play this year and will further demonstrate the incredible advances made across this tournament since it first began three short years ago."

The International was first held in Cologne, Germany during the 2011 Gamescom with 16 of the best Dota 2 teams in the world competing for a grand prize of $1 million.

In 2013 the prize pool was bolstered beyond Valve's contribution by Dota 2 player participation in the Interactive Compendium, driving the total prize pool to over $2.8 million, up from $1.6 million.

This year the Compendium has driven the prize pool over $10 million.

Dota 2 is a free-to-play, online action strategy game created by Valve (Bellevue, WA based makers of multiple game franchises and the leading online distribution platform, Steam).

For more visit http://www.dota2.com

About ESPN3
ESPN3 is ESPN's live multi-screen sports network, a destination that delivers thousands of exclusive sports events annually. It is accessible online at WatchESPN.com, on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The network is currently available to more than 92 million homes at no additional cost to fans who receive their high-speed Internet connection or video subscription from an affiliated service provider. The network is also available at no cost to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via computers, smartphones and tablets connected to on-campus educational and on-base military broadband and Wi-Fi networks.