Full Steam Ahead

For the first few decades of the video game industry’s history, the Silicon Valley region reigned as the industry’s nerve center in the United States. In recent years, however, the Bay Area has faced a serious challenge from the Puget Sound area as the true seat of power.

While the pull of giants such as Microsoft and Nintendo of America has been responsible for much of this shift in brain trust, part of the reason for Seattle’s ascendance has come from the strength of its gaming innovations. Firms such as Bellevue-based Valve Software, which has created a whole new way for games to be distributed via its Steam platform, are helping to lead the way.

Launched in 2004, Steam is a portal that enables users to download game titles an unlimited number of times to PCs instead of by the traditional method of purchasing games on a DVD at a retail store for a standalone console. What makes Steam different is that it is used to distribute not only Valve’s popular game titles (“Counter-Strike,” “Half-Life 2” and “Left 4 Dead,” to name a few), but also other games created by more than 100 different studios, many of them independent.

Just as the music industry has been upended by sites like iTunes, Steam is creating a stir in the gaming world. “Our local industry is innovative and has a history of creating disruptive technologies,” says Kristina Hudson, business development manager of enterpriseSeattle. “Valve created Steam distribution, which gives the independent developers the ability to get their game to the consumer without having to be signed by a publisher.”

Steam did not invent the concept of downloadable games, but it has added significant value by including a suite of services to game downloads, such as anti-piracy features, automatic game updates, instant re-downloads to other PCs (so once the game is paid for, you can put it on other machines as well) and an ability to save games in cyberspace via its Steamcloud feature. Steam also has an online social network for gamers and a matchmaking system to pair up players in multiplayer games.

“We’re kind of a hybrid,” says Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing for Valve. “To some people, we look like a publisher. To others, we look more like developers. We just came up with a list of things we wanted to see in

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