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Valve has made a number of announcements on the first day of its Steam Dev Days event.
The developer-only event opened with a number of statistics, including the fact that the number of users on Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam is now 75 million – with 10 million new users joining over the last three months.
North America and Western Europe make up the bulk of the Steam user base, with 41 and 40 per cent of players hailing from those countries respectively.
Valve chief Gabe Newell also discussed the future of the Steam Greenlight programme, which allows the Steam community to vote for independent games – the most popular games are then granted publication through Steam.
“Our goal is to make Greenlight go away,” Newell said.
“Not because it’s not useful, but because we’re evolving.”
Another product from the firm set to evolve is the Steam Controller. With 300 beta units already in the hands of Steam users, Valve has announced that the controller will see an overhaul, removing the central touchscreen, repositioning the face buttons into a more conventional diamond shape and adjusting the layout of the controller.
The redesigned controller will also add a new feature – ‘ghost mode’ – which will let users move a cursor on the screen by hovering over a sensor.
In addition, the company suggested that third-party manufacturers might be able to produce their own Steam Controllers in the future.
“The current plan for launch is for the Steam Controller to be made by Valve under the Steam Hardware brand," Steam Machine designer Greg Coomer explained to PC Gamer.
"Longer term, though, like, philosophically – and practically, I guess – we have no problem with other manufacturers participating in the production of those controllers and making design decisions that are different."
Image of redesigned Steam Controller via Twitter user @Votlin
