Got yourself one of those fancy, unshaped, uncapped internet connections that verify your alpha male status amongst all the local internet junkies? Then you’re probably also a fan of legally downloading all those great new games that are released on the Steam Network, because walking to a gaming shop is chumps, right? Except, that sometimes, downloading new games is a slow and agonising experience, no matter how fast your connection is. Well not anymore, says Steam.
Data from steam is now set to be sent over a firewall friendly HTTP system, while reducing the amount of data sent so as to be friendlier to those consumers with monthly bandwidth caps.
Valve has commented on more features being released later on for the service such as download scheduling, bandwidth throttling and priority on which games should be downloaded first. Updates for games will also be able to be downloaded during a gaming session, with the update being applied once you have finished playing.
It seems that the Half-life developer is finally taking notice of its competition, EA and their Origin service, implementing changes that the industry has been asking for, for quite a while now. Digital distribution just got a little bit more interesting, and a lot less aggravating.
Source: PCGamer.com
Last Updated: July 18, 2011