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Steam Dev Days: Day One

January 15, 2014

Day 1

Day 1 of the Steam Dev Days has ended.

Session highlights

You can find a list of sessions here, and a schedule over here.

Videos of the sessions will be available to the public in "the coming weeks".

Welcome address by Gabe

  • Gabe wants developers to take control of the Store and how they promote their games
  • Gabe: "Our goal is to make Greenlight go away. Not because it's not useful, but because we're evolving."

Steam Machines in 2014

  • Alienware's Steam Machine will be launching in September. Intel Haswell and NVIDIA hardware
  • As of today, there are about 75 million active users on Steam
  • "They said there will certainly be experiences on Steam Machines that won't be available anywhere else." (Source)
  • Steam Controllers will be sold through Steam and retail
  • Valve wants to focus not only on gaming, but all things people want to do on a Steam Machine in the living room (Music, TV etc)
  • Every Steam Dev Days attendee gets a free Gigabyte Steam Machine (and a Steam Controller is in the goodie bag)

The Steam Controller

  • The retail controller will no longer have a touchscreen. It'll have a DPAD and ABXY buttons for backwards compatiblity
    Pictures of the new work in progress controller design: 3D render (source), 3D printed prototype (source).
  • The retail controller will use AA batteries, this means the user can also use rechargable batteries
  • Biometrics are important, but the hands are not the best place to capture them
  • The controllers have gyroscopes, but these are not implemented in the firmware yet
  • Core implementation of Steam Controller API is already available in the current Steamworks SDK
  • The Steam Controller API supports up to 16 controllers at once
  • Valve is keeping VR in mind while developing the controller
  • More changes to the controller are coming, they have just started processing beta feedback

Steam Business session

  • Valve wants to add these new currencies to Steam in 2014
    Currencies for: Australian, Thai, Canuck, Norwegian, Mexican, New Zealand, Philippines, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singapore, Ukraine, Japan and possibly Turkey which is only highlighted on the map.
  • Steam has been growing pretty rapidly (source)
  • The number of game releases/year has also been growing steadily (source)
  • Valve wants to remove itself from the process, and for devs to be closer to the community
  • The Steam for Mobile apps have over 7 million users (source)
  • Over 10% of games released to Steam in 2013 are Early Access titles (source)
  • During the 2013 Holiday Sale, 1.7m in-game items were given out, 2m Snow Globe trades and 2m daily market transactions (source)
  • Valve plans to allow money transfer between Steam wallets in 2014 (source)

Other highlights

  • Ryan Gordon (Icculus) has posted the slides of his "Getting Started with Linux Game Development" session
  • Mike Morasky (Composer at Valve) confirmed Kelly Bailey is back to doing work for Valve.
  • Valve is showing off their take on what VR could be like in 2 years (Vortex?), there's a panel about it tomorrow but initial impressions are already coming in.
    @TheDavidHensley's tweets on Valve's VR prototype:
    • (Source) "Valve’s VR demo felt like being in a lucid dream state and very much like a holodeck"
    • (Source) The Valve's VR prototype felt like playing an XBOX compared to the Oculus's "8bit Nintendo".
    • (Source) Resolution is higher compared to the Oculus Rift. Accurate positional/rotation tracking. Able to walk around.
  • Steam millionaire Garry Newman wrote a blog post about Day 1 including a very interesting paragraph on the VR prototype.
  • Source 2 was mentioned during the OpenGL talk. It's no surprise that Source 2 will support OpenGL at a low level.
  • Steam In-Home Streaming currently does not utilize hardware encoding/decoding, but will in the future. (Source)
  • Not so much SteamDevDays related, but Gabe decided to join Reddit today to raise funds for a charity Valve is involved in.

A lot of thanks to the many developers at the event that are live-tweeting what's going on, without you this post would not have existed.

Read about day 2 in our next post here.

TagsSteamVRSteamOSSteamMachineSteamDevDays
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Comments (35)

#
El Calhau January 15, 2014 – 19:37:38 UTC

Wait, the touchscreen will be replaced by a DPAD? Can you guys clarify?

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 15, 2014 – 19:40:38 UTC

Not exactly, will have to wait for Valve to clarify as we're getting all of this through people at the event.

#
El Calhau January 15, 2014 – 19:44:00 UTC

Ok :D Thanks a lot for doing this, currently sharing it with everyone

#
Mr. PsychoGamer January 15, 2014 – 20:37:14 UTC

Very stupid question but, does the attendance count here or in the actual event, and where is the event happening? Is it open to anyone or do people have to sign up?

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 15, 2014 – 20:47:29 UTC

Developers were personally invited by Valve.

#
cybik January 15, 2014 – 21:18:16 UTC

Screw the dpad, I wanted the touchscreen.

#
カンムル January 15, 2014 – 21:27:25 UTC

But what happened with the touchscreen

#
Faydum January 15, 2014 – 21:33:47 UTC

They have removed the touchscreen and have put batteries. LOL?

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 15, 2014 – 21:47:23 UTC

It was already going to be wireless in the first place, so batteries are no surprise. What is a surprise is that users can switch them around unlike most controllers that just have proprietary batteries inside.

The touchscreen was removed because it didn't work out well. If you already have your fingers on the controller, you don't want to look down at the controller all the time. It's just useless most of the time. It'll also make the controller cheaper to make, and to buy.

#
Faydum January 15, 2014 – 22:05:42 UTC

But I wanted a minimap in the controller, = (

#
oxguy3 January 15, 2014 – 22:26:29 UTC

Second screen stuff seems to be big this generation, so maybe they'll roll out something like that for tablets/mobile devices. Wouldn't be surprised if something like that was announced at the same time as when they officially announce the Big Picture remote control stuff.

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 15, 2014 – 22:29:30 UTC

@oxguy3 Yeah, seeing controller no longer is an option for the mobile remote control interface Valve is making, the only viable platforms are well.. mobiles. Integration in the Steam app in the future is likely.

#
Fangh January 15, 2014 – 22:37:49 UTC

They are thinking about VR. If you have a screen on the controller, you cannot see it with a HMD

#
El Calhau January 15, 2014 – 23:03:43 UTC

Actually I was not a big fan of the abxy layout on the touchscreen version of the controller, now we have even more buttons to play with(a dpad and 4 extra buttons) all at a natural position to reach, just add a fancy steam logo in the middle and that's it :D

#
oxguy3 January 15, 2014 – 23:47:07 UTC

If anyone's looking for more ways to keep up on all the news, I've been filling a Twitter list with every developer I can find who is at the event actively tweeting (since many of them aren't always using the hashtag). Here's the list feed.

#
oxguy3 January 15, 2014 – 23:51:09 UTC

Huh, Twitter was being weird and that list wouldn't work outside of the Android app. I renamed the list and that seemed to fix it, so here's a fixed link.

#
dancemasterglenn January 16, 2014 – 00:02:03 UTC

Some thoughts about the new controller mockup, which is still hard to talk about without having one in my hands... but I'll give it a shot!

  • really hope that we'll get a cross-shaped (nintendo style) d-pad on this! The big N is really the model to go by when it comes to d-pads. Sony-style would be my second choice.
  • I hope we'll see some middle buttons make a return... also, since we've got some extra space in the middle now, we could make said buttons easier to get to by making the controller marginally less wide. Viable?
  • while I'm excited about the new buttons and d-pad, their position still seems like it will be taxing to use for long play sessions (again, not having picked any type of steam controller up yet). Ideally they go where the touchpads are now to be comfortable, but obviously that defeats the purpose of the touchpads quite a bit. Does putting two smaller touchpads where the mockup buttons are now make sense (a direct swap, making the controller Sony-styled)? Does swapping the new buttons on the right with the position of the right touchpad make sense (making the controller more Microsoft-styled)? What about making the touch pads removable and swappable with components such as these legacy buttons/d-pads/analog sticks? WHAT ABOUT SOMETHING EVEN CRAZIER THAT I CAN'T EVEN THINK OF??? :P

I'm really interested to see the iteration this new approach will go through. Wish I could help test!! I love doing QA. :) Just sayin! Either way, exciting times ahead.

#
Ph January 16, 2014 – 02:50:00 UTC

The editor's note on the mobile app not getting updated feels a bit unfair. Isn't it basically just a web browser, and therefore the app technically is updating by accessing newer versions of the mobile website?

#
insaneferret January 16, 2014 – 03:39:29 UTC

So 14 buttons? that's less than an Xbox controller, PC games need more than that, think MMOs and RPGs, we're not asking for full keyboard, but I'd love to see more, having 9 buttons in a 3x3 grid in that blank space would be awesome.

#
dancemasterglenn January 16, 2014 – 04:25:12 UTC

insaneferret, technically you could count more buttons if you count the way the touch pads are able to be divided. I hear what you're saying, though.

#
Foxhack January 16, 2014 – 05:06:53 UTC

Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. I'm Mexican and do not want to buy stuff using my crappy national currency. We already get pricegouged by EA on the Steam Store for no damn reason (20% higher price), probably so we buy stuff at Origin since it's much cheaper there... but it's Origin.

I also hope we don't get hit with the stupid 16% sales tax we have...

#
genetic January 16, 2014 – 06:00:04 UTC

You write that the "kr" currency is used in Sweden, yet it is Norway (which also uses kr) that is highlighted on the map. That said, Denmark, Czech Republic and Iceland also uses their own kind of kr.

This is probably bad for us Scandinavians, resulting in more expensive games :( I miss universally using the American dollar.

#
kebhow January 16, 2014 – 07:17:42 UTC

A little correction, one of the currencies that will be added this year is Rupiah (Indonesian currency), with symbol "Rp". it's there on the bottom row, right in the middle.

#
L-r | Canti January 16, 2014 – 07:18:39 UTC

If they're gearing the controller toward VR, then a touchscreen would be useless. How would you even look at it while wearing the headset? Not to mention it would drive the cost of the controller up, make it far more fragile and wouldn't be backwards compatible with anything. Good riddance, I say.

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 16, 2014 – 08:49:55 UTC

@Ph You're right, thanks.

@genetic @kebhow Fixed (i think), thanks!

#
XKrieg January 16, 2014 – 09:53:12 UTC

Rp currency is Indonesian Rupiah and not Indian Rupee. India is not marked green on the attached map while Indonesia is.

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 16, 2014 – 10:23:21 UTC

@XKrieg Fixed, thanks!

#
Eishun January 16, 2014 – 10:36:06 UTC

"Indonisian", haha small typo

also please re-confirm with valve, checked the picture and wondered the same because India isnt marked as green and Rp can also means Indonesian Rupiah

#
Marlamin [DEV] January 16, 2014 – 10:49:47 UTC

@Eishun We've reached out to Valve, but don't really expect a reply until friday when people are back in the office.

#
Oscar January 16, 2014 – 12:36:02 UTC

How about having one of the Dpads upright in a christian cross and one angled like an X (or and St Andrew Cross if you like to get your christian folklore from internet forums).

Would that not allow for a greater variety of applications? After all, once muscle memory kicks in and you know the controller, no matter where the buttons are (think N64 and Game Cube random buttons everywhere for reference).

I'm thinking of the dozens of games with axonometric views that I had to control with straight arrows... Telling your friends something is "up" or "left" on the diablo 2 map has been the end of many a friendship.

#
Sefir January 16, 2014 – 15:20:00 UTC

No touchscreen and batteries AA???? I don't want steam controller anymore

#
Japanese Darlie January 17, 2014 – 13:28:42 UTC

Wow , about currency target in 2014 . I do not have right emotion or way to express it THE RIGHT way , every time sales going on (especially 75% offer) , we just bought it with Dollar ... not whining about how expensive it was but THE TAX. No man can stand with that. The tax alone can eat up 3-5 games in local store(sure is pirated, ppl do want to support the dev - but look at that). Many games nowadays worth getting genuinely , and .

After reading that ; my feel now is mixed , the only right word to say right now is. THANK YOU GABEN FOR INCLUDING Muh Country right there!

#
3,30€orinarh January 18, 2014 – 13:49:52 UTC

Valve wants to add these new currencies to Steam in 2014 Currencies for: Australian, Thai, Canuck, Norwegian, Mexican, New Zealand, Philippines, Malaysian, Indonesian, Singapore, Ukraine, Japan and possibly Turkey which is only highlighted on the map.

I think valve should change prices in few countries [they did it to brazil and russia so why not Poland?] - i live at Poland and games on steam are like 100% more expensive than on origin/uplay/or just typical local store/muve. Let's say i want to buy Assassin's Creed 4 on steam - i have to pay 49,99 euro which is 208,23pln (zł) and at poland every you can get every new game for about 100-130pln (zł) which is almost 2x less! [BTW i bought AC4 two months ago on uplay, sorry steam but your prices are way too high]. So valve should change their price if they want us to buy new games - i really like steam i have about 300 games but i can't afford those tremendous prices, so valve force me to buying while sale or buying steam keys (win-win if they change their prices, they should be happy with more profit and we should we happy because we can get games for same price as local store/origin/uplay/polish web game sellers like muve)

-Valve plans to allow money transfer between Steam wallets in 2014

And that's pretty good news can't wait for that feature.

#
diegzumillo May 1, 2014 – 01:40:43 UTC

Good thing it will have a D-Pad. My number one reason to play with a controller instead of keyboard are platformer games, almost everything else I prefer the keyboard and mouse.

#
HDCoffee September 9, 2014 – 18:51:45 UTC

I got an email from steam saying my currency will be set to rupiah, but I don't live in Indonesia. What do I do?

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