Steampowered.com Biography & Web Analysis

Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve. It was launched as a standalone software client in September 2003 as a way for Valve to provide automatic updates for their games, and expanded to include games from third-party publishers. Steam has also expanded into an online web-based and mobile digital storefront.
Steam offers digital rights management (DRM), server hosting, video streaming, and social networking services. It also provides the user with installation and automatic updating of games, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud storage, and in-game voice and chat functionality.
Valve had entered into a publishing contract with Sierra Studios in 1997 ahead of the 1998 release of Half-Life. The contract had given some intellectual property (IP) rights to Sierra in addition to publishing control. Valve published additional games through Sierra, including expansions for Half-Life and Counter-Strike.
Around 1999, as Valve started work on Half-Life 2 and the new Source engine, they became concerned about their contract with Sierra related to the IP rights, and the two companies renegotiated a new contract by 2001.
In 2002, the president of Valve, Gabe Newell, said he was offering mod teams a game engine license and distribution over Steam for US$995.
In 2004, the World Opponent Network was shut down and replaced by Steam, with any online features of games that required it ceasing to work unless they converted over to Steam.
Beginning in 2005, Valve began negotiating contracts with several third-party publishers to release their products, such as Rag Doll Kung Fu and Darwinia, on Steam.
Larger publishers, such as id Software, Eidos Interactive, and Capcom, began distributing their games on Steam in 2007. By May of that year, 13 million accounts had been created on the service, and 150 games were for sale on the platform. By 2014, total annual game sales on Steam were estimated at around $1.5 billion. By 2018, the service had over 90 million monthly active users. By 2019, the service had over 34,000 games with over 95 million monthly active users.