Steam Cloud is really Here, Says Valve
Valve, software company better known for its Half-Life series, has finally accomplished its dream of taking Steam to the Cloud. Back in May, on the 29th to be more precise, Valve held a miniature press conference during which it announced that it is working on a Cloud app called Steam Cloud. We are glad to see that they have reached that goal!
What are the advantages of using Steam Cloud? Once you set up the controls just the way you like them (this means keyboard, mouse and gamepad configuration), adjust the multiplayer settings (spray-paint images for example), Steam Cloud will record them and they will be available to you, no matter if you play from your home computer or from your mate’s computer. It even grants you access to your save games.
Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve, comments: “For some time now, Steam has allowed gamers to log on from any computer in the world and access their applications. This also makes it easy to upgrade a PC without worrying about losing your games. Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability Steam affords gamers and developers, and we intend to expand its feature set as it is used in Left 4 Dead and other games coming to Steam.”
The “Left 4 Dead” game was mentioned in the above quote because it will be the first game to feature Steam Cloud. We expect “Left 4 Dead” to be launched on the 18th of November in the US and three days later in Europe – that is unless Valve does not push the release date back (again). A demo version of the game is expected to drop this week, giving us the opportunity to take a first look at Steam Cloud (the game comes second to us).
Note that Steam Cloud will be one feature short in the Left 4 Dead case – your saved games will not be stored by the app. The others features though should work just fine.
What are the advantages of using Steam Cloud? Once you set up the controls just the way you like them (this means keyboard, mouse and gamepad configuration), adjust the multiplayer settings (spray-paint images for example), Steam Cloud will record them and they will be available to you, no matter if you play from your home computer or from your mate’s computer. It even grants you access to your save games.
Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve, comments: “For some time now, Steam has allowed gamers to log on from any computer in the world and access their applications. This also makes it easy to upgrade a PC without worrying about losing your games. Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability Steam affords gamers and developers, and we intend to expand its feature set as it is used in Left 4 Dead and other games coming to Steam.”
The “Left 4 Dead” game was mentioned in the above quote because it will be the first game to feature Steam Cloud. We expect “Left 4 Dead” to be launched on the 18th of November in the US and three days later in Europe – that is unless Valve does not push the release date back (again). A demo version of the game is expected to drop this week, giving us the opportunity to take a first look at Steam Cloud (the game comes second to us).
Note that Steam Cloud will be one feature short in the Left 4 Dead case – your saved games will not be stored by the app. The others features though should work just fine.
