Gather Your Party

As promised by Valve, Steam has unveiled their expansion from video game software into other areas of software sales. While, unsurprisingly, the majority of the software is video game related, there is some non-gaming software available for purchase and download. The pricing for these products range from free (Source Filmmaker and GameMaker: Studio) to $99 (3D-Coat).

The products available now are (if you don’t care skip to the end I just copy pasted their descriptions from Steam):

GameMaker Stuio (free)

GameMaker: Studio™ Family of Products The GameMaker: Studio family of products caters to entry-level novices                and seasoned game development professionals equally allowing them to create casual and social games for Steam                   Workshop, iOS, Android, desktop and the Web (HTML5) in record time and at a fraction of the cost!

3D-Coat ($99)

3D-Coat is the one application that has all the tools you need to take your 3D idea from a block of digital clay all the way to a production ready, fully textured organic or hard surface model. Key Features Voxel Sculpting. Start sculpting without restriction using voxel technology – no worries about topology. Painting With Layers.

ArtRage Studio Pro ($53.99)

ArtRage is a stylish, intuitive painting and drawing package that makes it easy to produce natural looking artwork on your computer. Its wide range of artistic tools lets you get right down to the creative process without forcing you to learn complex or technical controls. It’s like real paint without the mess!

3DMark Vantage ($17.99)

Test your PC’s performance with 3DMark, the world’s most popular gaming benchmark and graphics test. Featuring two stunning graphics tests and two CPU tests, 3DMark Vantage is the industry standard performance test for DirectX 10 graphics cards and gaming PCs.

3DMark 11 ($17.99)

Test your PC’s performance with 3DMark, the world’s most popular gaming benchmark and graphics test. Featuring six stunning real-time graphics and physics tests, 3DMark 11 is the industry standard performance test for DirectX 11 graphics cards and gaming PCs.

CameraBag 2 ($13.49)

CameraBag 2 is a desktop photo app with a whole new approach to photos. Redesigned from the ground up, CameraBag 2′s Analog Engine pairs a full suite of photographic tools with the high quality filters and vintage simulations the series is already known for.

Source Filmmaker (free)

The Source Filmmaker (SFM) is the movie-making tool built and used by us here at Valve to make movies inside the Source game engine. Because the SFM uses the same assets as the game, anything that exists in the game can be used in the movie, and vice versa.

It’s interesting to see Valve take Steam into that “more than just a gaming tool” realm that the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii are trying to occupy. If there’s anything that would count as the PC “console” I suppose Steam would be it, and it is progressing in much the same fashion as the other consoles. With Big Picture, and now this added non-gaming Software sales, it will be interesting to see where Valve takes Steam next. Valve seems like it’s trying to muscle its way into the living room, however. Take that as you will. For me they don’t need to, I already don’t leave my room enough as it is, my bedroom might as well be my living room.