Steam's Bigger Picture

Steam launched their Big Picture beta the other day and for the most part it seems like a small and rather insignificant new feature that goes with the service. It's an unassuming new feature from a company we know to be working on cutting edge stuff, and a company known for having a great grasp what direction this industry is heading in the future.

So what's so great about Big Picture then? I've been hooking up my PC to the TV for years. What's new here?

Well, the interface for one, and the ability experience something that has been optimised for TV. It's a way for people who need a less frustrating and technically challenging experience with PC gaming on their large screens. It connects the 40 million+ users of the the most influential PC games service to the centerpiece of the living room - your TV.

Steam connects you with friends and your gaming experiencing, and it's the PC equivalent of Xbox Live or PSN if you will, but it's also the iTunes of PC games accounts for an estimated 70 percent of all digitally downloaded games. That's what's coming to TV's now, and it looks sleak, comes with less of the clutter we see on other services - and it could open up Steam to a larger audience.

Steam started it's life as the ultimate Trojan horse of gaming. As publisher Vivendi focused on shipping as many copies of the eagerly awaited {Half-Life 2} in 2004, little did they know that what was also included in the box would become the most powerful digital outlet of PC games for years to come. And of course, in the beginning Steam was anything but the powerhouse we know today, instead it was just something we had to endure in order to play {Half-Life 2}.

Playing PC games on your TV is probably never going to be an entirely smooth experience. With Big Picture it involves hooking up your desktop to your TV (the integrated graphics cards on most laptops won't do the trick), and even if massive efforts have been made to ensure the interface is optimised for controllers (giving you that console like feeling) it still feels as though there is a threshold to entry. And just looking at the diverse range of games available on Steam, playing them on your average 720p TV is probably not going to be an optimal experience simply because most modern PC games have been designed with higher resolution in mind.

{Half-Life 2} - the game that introduced Steam.

But what's the bigger picture then (sorry, had to do that)? Why are Valve taking an interest in TV's and what's their next move. Steam started out as a straight forward service, and Valve's interest in TV surely goes further than just having people hook up their PC to it. Is there a masterplan in the works to expand Steam across all facets of daily life? Probably not, Valve seem to be content to let us know their focus is on gaming and on evolving it.

Steam as we know it is Step 1. Big Picture could be a feeler or potentially even the full on second step. And the third step is where it gets really interesting. If Valve was a company solely focused on expansion and the bottom line, it would be easy to point to Big Picture as evidence that they want to expand beyond their comfort zone of more or less hardcore PC gamers into a more casual and potentially lucrative space. But perhaps the truth is that Valve are simply hedging themselves and making Steam a part of as much of the gaming landscape as they can - with TV being a natural extension of the service and wearable computing being a utopia they strive towards.

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Theory 1.

Big Picture, especially in its current beta phase is a brilliant testing ground as far as perfecting interface and sharpening the experience people have with Steam and their TV. It will allow Valve to monitor, make changes and react to user feedback. Invaluable experience if Steam Box ever comes to fruition. And Steam Box really could in theory just be a box that communicates with your desktop and plugs into your TV running Big Picture - maybe allowing you to stream it through your local network and having the box communicate with your controller. But really, if that's all Steam Box is, call it a Virtual Steam Box, then it seems almost pointless.

Theory 2.

How will the evolution of smart TV's impact a possible move from Valve to further establish themselves in the living room? Could there be a smart app capable of running games and the service right there on your TV? Surely once everything is connected and TV's are powerful enough that could be a possibility. Could Steam then double as a streaming service? Is that even technology that interests Gabe Newell?

Obviously there is a problem with that - the nature of the games that are on Steam and how they would perform in that sort of environment (something they were not designed for). For Valve one of the keys to success has to be to be able to transfer as much of the Steam experience (and the games are of course the biggest part of that) to the living room. And with little or no compromise along the way.

Theory 3.

Steam Box remains the most down-to-earth alternative. An optimised, small box with PC hardware that is capable of running the entire Steam experience on any screen it's hooked up to. It's also and old school way of approaching the issue, and that is why I doubt this is the route Valve plan on taking when and if they take a second step. Meanwhile, Valve seem more than happy to discuss their venture into the world of wearable computing - something so far beyond the mundane idea of creating a gaming console that it's hard to imagine the same 300 people strong company would be working on it. Of course, Valve probably wouldn't have an interest in selling and manufacturing hardware - nonetheless if a design is there surely hardware companies would throw themselves at the opportunity to manufacture a Steam Box.

Valve's wearable computing AR helmet as revealed in a recent NY Times piece.

Valve is in a somewhat unique position in this industry. The company is doing incredibly well (valued at $2.5 billion by some analysts), but there are no investors, no outside pressures to meet targets, or anything of the sort. They have a strong fanbase, and a very patient one at that. In some ways Valve feel more like a force of nature than anything else - of course, that is a romanticised version of a company that in part (mainly the Steam part) had to conform in order to communicate with the multitude of partners they deal with as part of the Steam business.

Big Picture is not going to transform the way we experience games. But it could very well be the first step towards making Steam something bigger than it is today, and knowing Valve they're probably working on several scenarios on where to go next. They may never go beyond Big Picture in the living room space or they may have another Trojan horse up their sleeve. The problem with predicting Valve's next move is that they have that uncanny knack of being one step ahead of everyone else. And we can probably rest assured that whatever the next step is, it's not one that will compromise our gaming experiences on Steam - more likely it's something to enhance it.