Valve To be launching A Steam TV Service
Valve has accidentally revealed it’s working on improving its Twitch-like Steam broadcasting feature. Steam.tv briefly came online on Friday, revealing Valve’s new streaming site that appears to be dedicated to the company’s Dota 2 tournament.
“We are working on updating Steam Broadcasting for the Main Event of The International, Dota 2’s annual tournament,” explains a Valve spokesperson to The Verge. “What people saw was a test feed that was inadvertently made public..”
Valve’s new Steam broadcasting comes just as The International, an annual Dota 2 e-sports tournament, is about to begin on August 20th. The International is the biggest e-sports tournament in the world, thanks to its massive prize fund of over $24 million. It makes it an ideal time for Valve to launch its own streaming service.
Steam’s new broadcasting feature looks rather basic from the brief steam.tv appearance though. It’s limited to Dota 2, and signing in with a Steam account only gives you access to a friends list and group chats. CNET notes that you can watch a stream together with friends and chat, but you can’t currently sign-in and start streaming your own Steam games for others to watch.
It’s not clear if Valve has ambitions beyond just streaming Dota 2 games, but there’s already plenty of competition to Twitch right now. Microsoft has its own Mixer streaming service, and Google has YouTube gaming. Both services are big rivals to Twitch, and they allow gamers to stream their gaming, and watch others broadcast titles.
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Senior Member
Posts: 3534
Joined: 2014-10-20
Never understood people that sit for hours, donate their MONEY to watch someone else play....
Senior Member
Posts: 853
Joined: 2015-11-13
Neither did I, but then again there exists people for decades now, when they sit for hours and watch sports on TV, so I guess it's not that different in a principle.
Senior Member
Posts: 6070
Joined: 2011-01-02
You obviously don't have to donate money. So it's no different than watching a TV show or sport, while being able to express your emotions in chat for all.
So it's not just watching someone play, but rather being able to participate in chat and give advise to streamer or joke around and just have fun.
And with above streamer creates community around him or her, which people follow. People who really enjoy specific streamer tend to donate money, cause they want the show to go on and improve.
I recently enjoy watching They Are Billions on twitch. Some players play on ridiculous difficult levels and it's really fun to watch someone doing nearly impossible pushing the limits of the game.
Senior Member
Posts: 3534
Joined: 2014-10-20
You obviously don't have to donate money. So it's no different than watching a TV show or sport, while being able to express your emotions in chat for all.
So it's not just watching someone play, but rather being able to participate in chat and give advise to streamer or joke around and just have fun.
And with above streamer creates community around him or her, which people follow. People who really enjoy specific streamer tend to donate money, cause they want the show to go on and improve.
I recently enjoy watching They Are Billions on twitch. Some players play on ridiculous difficult levels and it's really fun to watch someone doing nearly impossible pushing the limits of the game.
That explains why I don't have a TV.
Posts: 6070
Joined: 2011-01-02
Well, steam already has broadcast function for a while now : https://steamcommunity.com/updates/broadcasting
Any steam user can start streaming their game with single click. Issue is, it's only screen capture, so I don't think I can add my webcam stream to it.
They better have Gaben icon/emote, otherwise it's useless.