by Janet Pieterse

Created on: July 30, 2011   Last Updated: September 09, 2011

The best way to describe Steam to someone who knows nothing about it is to say that it’s like a Facebook for gamers. Except that it’s not like Facebook at all, when you get down to specifics.

Steam started out life as an update engine for online games, specifically those developed by Valve Corporation. From there it has grown into a massively multiplayer online social network, with a

peak concurrent usage count of around 3.4 million players.

There are many parts to Steam, and the best place to start is the Store. After all, if you’re into gaming, you want to see what games are on offer - and there are well over a thousand to choose from. You can buy games, download them, and play them through your Steam account on any computer. 

Nor do you have to buy blind. In many cases, Steam offers you demos that are hard to find elsewhere: play the demo, see if it runs on your PC or Mac, decide if you like it before buying it. But don’t be in too much of a hurry to buy, as Steam offers daily discounts - anything from 10% to 75% off! You never know when you’ll be able to buy that coveted game at a quarter of the usual price.

Once you have bought games from Steam, you can add friends. Before that, you have to wait for your friends to add you. And here’s where the fun starts. You can see what games your friends have, which ones they play most often, and what achievements they have in those games. Steam is full of Steam achievements: little titles and awards for completing certain game objectives. If you play the same games, you can even compare achievements.

You can see which of your friends are online, and what games they are playing at the moment. If the game has a multiplayer option, you can join them. Steam has a chat option that allows you to text or voice chat while playing a game; some games offer voice chat options through Steam as well. It’s all very social in the broadest sense of the word: make friends, meet friends, and play your favourite games together. 

In fact, by seeing what your friends are playing, you even get to meet new games you may never have tried otherwise! You are not limited to games you have bought through Steam. You can add games (and even non-game software) you have bought elsewhere to your Steam Library, and play them through Steam. This way your friends can see that you are playing a non-steam game, and can still get the option to join you, depending on the game.

If you don’t have too many game-playing friends in real life, and need to find more people to play with, it’s time to check out the Steam groups. Just search for the game you play, and find all the groups that have formed around it. Join one, introduce yourself, compare gameplay notes, and start making friends.

If you play any kind of online game at all, you need to know about Steam: just look for steampowered.com and you should find it easily enough. Signing up is quick - and free. There’s no constant ad-spamming either. Steam is a community for gamers, by gamers. What more could you want?

Learn more about this author, Janet Pieterse.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.