Steam News

Though a new Call of Duty is due to be announced next week, and will doubtless launch in November, Modern Warfare 3 is hanging tough. Activision's hosting another free multiplayer weekend on Steam, and you can start pre-loading now.

It was welcome news last week that EA had revised its Origin ban policy, no longer blocking banned players from every game they own on Origin. It's since come to light that Valve has made a similar change on Steam--over two months ago, in fact. Hurrahs all round!

The Spring Bundle from Indie Royale is now live, offering up a bundle of six titles for the low, low price of "pay what you want."

Sometimes, accidents are bad. But sometimes, accidents can be good. Super Monday Night Combat's release on Steam is just that.

Valve's hiring for an electronics engineer to work on designing and producing actual physical things. "We're not talking about me-too mice and gamepads here," Valve says in the job listing, "help us invent whole new gaming experiences."

A hands-on look at Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 3. (Phew.)

Niche publisher XSEED is taking its first steps onto PC with Steam releases of two games from action-RPG series Ys. This'll be the first time Ys Origin is sold in English, and the first official English PC release of Ys: The Oath in Felghana.

Tim Schafer has revealed that the current funding for Double Fine's Kickstarter adventure is nearing the levels used to make Grim Fandango.

Valve's Doug Lombardi has denied rumors that the company is working on consumer hardware, claiming that the "Steam Box" rumors were sparked by boxes built to test the Big Picture mode.

Valve Software has been evaluated at a worth of $3 billion. Co-founder Gabe Newell, according to the report, owns at least half of the company, so has a personal net worth of $1.5 billion.

Double Fine's charming Stacking is now available for PC through Steam, for only $9.99 thanks to a launch discount. It comes complete with the matryoshka doll puzzler's trampy DLC, The Lost Hobo King.

It's long been rumoured that Valve has plans to get into the hardware game. Now a new set of rumours are saying the Steam and Half-Life maker is planning a PC gaming platform, with standardised hardware and software it'll share with companies to make thei

This week's indie pick is Waveform, the unique, simple-to-learn, tough-to-master action game about riding a beam of light by Eden Industries.

The PC edition Borderlands 2 will use Valve's Steamworks suite as its DRM. Gearbox's shooter RPG will pack Steamworks features including multiplayer matchmaking, Steam Cloud storage, achievements, auto-updating, downloadable content, "and more."

For this week's Indie Pick, I roam through the poetically-beautiful Dear Esther by thechineseroom, a Valve-sanctioned remake of a Half-Life 2 mod.