[ad_1]
Steam has been primarily a gaming market for PC games over the years, but Valve seems to double its social aspects with its brand new Steam Chat messaging app for Android and iOS.
While Steam Mobile allows users to manage their accounts and send messages from their smartphone for years, Steam Chat divides the platform's email service into a dedicated application. Steam Mobile does not leave, however; both applications will exist simultaneously, with Steam Chat dedicated to communication and Steam Mobile covering other aspects of the service, such as game purchases, remote downloads and Steam Guard account security.
Here is the full list of features of Steam Chat at launch, according to the official Valve blog announcing the app:
- List of friends: See who is in the game or online at a glance. Never miss an opportunity to play.
- Rich chat: Your discussions are even better with links, videos, tweets, GIFs, Giphy emoticons, Steam and more.
- Invite links: Add new friends on Steam with a link. Generate an invitation link that you can send via SMS or email.
- Customizable notifications: With mobile notifications, you'll never miss a message or invitation to a game. You can customize your notifications by friend, newsgroup, and chat channel.
- Group Discussions: Get everyone on the same page. Groups make it easier for you to stay in touch with your communities and to organize an evening of games with your best friends.
Some Steam messaging features for chat are not present on the Steam chat at launch, such as voice chat, but Valve confirmed in his blog that they will be added soon.
The Steam chat seems to be aimed primarily at existing Steam users, and more generally at PC gamers, but the features of the application are reminiscent of many other email services on smartphones. Unsurprisingly, Steam Chat includes functionality similar to that of the mobile application of one of Steam's newest competitors, Discord. By splitting Steam's messaging functions into its own application, Valve seems to be looking to broaden the appeal of the service. After all, you can create a Discord server for any subject right now; why not a group of steam?
After you download and install the app, you must sign in with your Steam account (or create a new one) and verify the device with a confirmation code sent to your email address. Once you're signed in, you'll be able to send a message to your Steam friends even if it's not connected to your PC and without needing the main Steam app.
If you decide to give a boost to the new app, Valve wants to get feedback from its users via the official Steam Community page of the Steam Chat app. Until now, comments from Steam users are appearing … well, "mixed" would look good. Here are some excerpts from Steam ad comments:
Manatee-Nyan! ♥ Floor lamp: "Merge this with the classic Steam app, there's no reason to have two separate apps. This is an inconvenient inconvenience.
Mairo ??: "Could you please then at least update Steam Guard to use a damn classic 2FA system so that I can just use something like authorization, remove all Steam apps from my phone." The appropriate Steam app has been down for years with zero update and no one even uses the chat anymore because every time I get a chat message I have to find who sent me the message first because that the application does not tell me. "
Voldiemert: "Discord wins with the group chat, especially on mobile. I have no idea why the time has been put into this. I would much rather see the updated Steam app. ♥♥♥♥♥ browses the store, buys a game and tries to install the game remotely.
m4x7us: "FINALLY"
Hello ich bin Grünspan: "How about some ENDYT to end encryption instead of letting Steam read and analyze all our texts? Also, how difficult can it be to add some sort of discussion history that records all of your threads into a text file or whatever? "
[ad_2]
Source link