Steam: The Content Distribution Platform for Games
Within the last couple of years, Valve Corporation (of Half-Life fame) over in Bellevue designed and implemented a content distribution platform called “Steam” with the intent of distributing its games through a distributed network placed around the world. Their goal was three-fold: (1) make it simpler to roll out updates instead of forcing clients to manually download patches, (2) make a streamlined interface to purchase, configure, and use the games, and (3) cut out the middle-man (the publisher) and take the additional profit to implement Steam.