If you thought that PC gaming was dead, or at least in the process
of kicking the bucket, think again. While the activity is still very strong
here in South Arica, we often hear that it is on the decline in other parts of
the world. But performance figures released by the Steam distribution platform
show nothing but growth.
With more than 1 800 games on offer, and 40 million
user accounts, steam delivered twice the amount of content in 2011 than it did
in 2010… around 780 petabytes of data. A petabyte, by the way, is 1 000 terabytes,
or a million gigs. That’s a lot of data…
In addition, 14.5 million new games were registered with
Steam in the time period, a remarkable 67% increase; an indicator, perhaps,
that Steam’s apparent non-issue with piracy and aim to deliver a service that
would be more appealing than pirated software may just be working.
"Steam and Steamworks continues to evolve to keep up
with customer and developer demands for new services and content,"
president Gabe Newell said, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz.
"Support for in-game item trading prompted the exchange
of over 19 million items. Support for free-to-play games, launched in June, has
spurred the launch of 18 FTP titles on Steam, with more coming in 2012. Looking
forward, we are preparing for the launch of the Big Picture UI mode, which will
allow gamers to experience Steam on large displays and in more rooms of the
house."
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