Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (Half-Life, Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (Steam and Source), today announced a special promotion granting those who pre-order Left 4 Dead early access to the official demo.

Left 4 Dead is the new survival action game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games.

Warner Bros. Digital Distribution announced today that the Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment game, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin will be available for digital download via partners in North America in conjunction with the day and date retail release. The game will be available through IGN Entertainment's digital retail store, Direct2Drive, and via Steam, a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games with over 15 million accounts worldwide.
"More and more gamers are taking advantage of digital distribution to access videogames," said Thomas Gewecke, President, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. "Digital distribution is going to be an important facet of the gaming world and we are glad to be a part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment's efforts to offer additional, convenient, and flexible options for players."
So now you can get F.E.A.R. 2 without even leaving your house. Users who have pre-ordered the game will be able to download it the same day the retail version hits store shelves on February 10, 2009.

Crysis Warhead is now available for purchase via Steam and to play for gamers in North America. In addition, the original Crysis is now available for purchase and play by gamers the world over. Outside of North America, Crysis Warhead will become available for play tomorrow (Thursday) via Steam.

Crytek and Valve today announced an agreement to bring Crysis Warhead and Crysis to Steam, a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games and digital content with over 15 million accounts around the world.

"The millions of gamers logging into Steam every week to play today's best PC games are going to love Crysis Warhead," said Avni Yerli, Managing Director at Crytek. "Crytek Hungary has done a terrific job creating this new experience while optimizing CryEngine 2, and we're looking forward to delivering it and the original Crysis as our first offerings on Steam."

Updates to Valve's Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

• Reduced Medic's unlockable requirements to match that of the Pyro's. Medic players now meeting the requirements will receive their unlockables shortly after joining a server
• Fixed Spy sapper view model animation popping
• Fixed another issue with the Hot on your Heels achievement
• Incorporated the new Russian fonts into the base Team Fortress 2 fonts. Fixes the missing fonts problem when running in Russian with English VO
• Fixed "Hot on your Heels" counting non-flamethrower based kills
• Fixed some Pyro achievements not working on some servers
• Fixed Compression Blast and Flare Gun trail particles on DX8
• Fixed Spy cloaked as Scout in response rules for all classes

Valve Software, the master mind behind Steam is now seeking to expand with Steam Cloud, the next major update for the digital distribution service. Steam Cloud will allow gamers to store not only their game profiles and graphics setting, but also all of their savegames created through Steam for life. You won't need to worry about your savegames anymore. All the data will be automatically uploaded to back-end servers whenever you go online. It will be accessible from any PC at no cost and there will be no space limitations to worry about. The first games to offer Steam Cloud support will be Half-Life and Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 and the forthcoming co-op shooter Left 4 Dead. Steam Cloud will also be freely available as part of the Steamworks set of developer tools. In addition, Valve plans a couple of other updates for the Steam platform in near future. They will include auto-updating of your computer's device drivers, social features including events and calendar systems, 'official' community pages for games, pricing localised to your country's currency, Amazon-style recommendations and shopping cart systems, and more payment options.

It's a good day for all hardcore Team Fortress 2 players. Valve today informed that the long-awaited PC update for TF2 has been released. This update includes 39 new medic achievements, three new medic items: The Blutsaugher, The Kritzkrieg, and The Ubersaw and a new Goldrush map for all players. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. In other TF2 news, a worldwide Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend will begin Friday at noon PDT, and offer free access to the entire game for anyone with a free Steam account from May 2 to May 4. Using the functionality made available through Steam and Steamworks, all of the files needed to join the Free Weekend are available for pre-loading now.

Ubisoft is delivering a slate of more than 40 action-packed games to Steam, including Assassin's Creed and the Tom Clancy series. Two fan favorites are now available to customers in Canada and the United States: the acclaimed action shooter, Far Cry, and the debut game in the groundbreaking stealth action series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. Save 10% on either game when you buy before Tuesday, April 8th.

Epic Games and Valve, two of the PC industry's leading technology and content development studios, have inked an agreement to bring Epic's award-winning titles to Steam, a leading platform for PC games and digital content with over 15 million accounts around the world. The Epic hits now available on Steam include Unreal Gold, as well as Unreal II: The Awakening and the Unreal Tournament series of games, including the recently released Unreal Tournament 3, which has shipped over one million copies to date. All of Epic's titles available on Steam are offered in the Unreal Deal Pack, an incredible value for just $59.95. And, to celebrate the launch, all of Epic's games on Steam are available for 10% off their regular price. For more information or to purchase Epic's games via Steam, please visit Steam Games.

Valve has revealed that Atari has become the latest big name addition to the list of publishers distributing their games via Steam, with a number of well known titles going on sale. Nine games are now available for download; Act of War: Direct Action, Act of War: High Treason, ArmA: Combat Operations, Atari 80 Classics in 1, Death to Spies, Desperados 2: Cooper's Revenge, Indigo Prophecy, RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum and Tycoon City: New York. Two more major titles from Atari which will go on sale in the coming weeks are The Witcher and Neverwinter Nights 2. Nizzi Renaud, Atari's Vice President of Online Entertainment, said:

Atari is excited to team up with Steam and deliver great games through a digital platform that our fans have asked for. We look forward to making an extensive collection of games, across many genres, available to Steam's extensive, globally-connected community.

Valve has confirmed to Joystiq that The Orange Box -Valve's acclaimed compilation containing Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 - will be split into separate PC titles on April 9th. Valve has yet to officially announce pricing details, but retailers currently list Portal at $19.99 and the other two packages at $29.99 each. Expect more details soon.

THQ's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm is now available on Steam. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm is the third and final expansion to the genre-defining and critically-acclaimed RTS, Dawn of War. The digital purchase of this game will cost you $39.95.

After making record sales for the holiday season last year, Valve Software may now add music and video downloads to its digital distribution platform Steam. According to the company's marketing VP Doug Lombardi the new service will be operational before the end of this year.

We're also looking at other types of content like video and music,

We're definitely having those conversations and meetings, and we're reaching out to folks with other types of digital entertainment. I think before the end of the year, you'll probably see some pilot programs with other digital entertainment on Steam.

Read the full interview at Tom's Games.

Tomorrow at 11 am PST all PC versions of Team Fortress 2, the class-based multiplayer action game named PC Game of the Year by Gamespy.com, will receive its largest update since the product was first made available on October 10, 2007, as part of Valve's best-selling Orange Box compilation. The free update includes global optimizations for networking, graphics, and player statistics, plus improvements to Source TV for tournament viewing. In addition, this update introduces the "Badlands," a new map that pushes control-point gameplay onto vertical landscapes. Click here for the full change list.

Valve's Steam service for downloading PC games and digital content has gone through another milestone surpassing 15 million accounts and releasing year-over-year sales growth of 158% through the holiday season. Throughout 2008 Valve also promised to bring more community features as well as new titles such as Valve's Left 4 Dead. "PC gaming is thriving, and has evolved into an era of constant connectivity," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "That connectivity gives us the ability to have a much better relationship with customers, not just for delivering our games, but across all aspects of our business - including the design, development, and support of our games. Features like Guest Passes, Free Weekends, Gifting, and the Steam Community have been very well received both by customers and the developers who are using Steam. We are accelerating our release of new functionality in the next year as well as finding new ways to work with our partners such as the release of Steamworks, which allows them to bring the many benefits of Steam to their packaged products."

A Steam client beta is now available. To access it, go to File -> Settings and on the Account tab choose "Steam Client Candidate" in the Beta participation section. The specific changes include:

• Fixed downloads becoming paused
• Improved download speeds
• Decreased application launch time
• Fixed URL links in chats to not include trailing punctuation as part of the link
• Changed group event notifications to open at most 8 dialogs

GCS Game World and Valve announce that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be available for digital download worldwide exclusively on Steam. The official prequel to the Survival FPS game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is currently slated for simultaneous release on Steam and at retail outlets later this year. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky brings the players one year prior to the events of the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game in 2011. A group of stalkers has, for the first time, reached the very heart of the Zone-Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant-and brings about a cataclysm on the brink of a catastrophe. Through a rich narrative and gripping combat action, players uncover new challenges and insights in the Exclusion Zone. A new version of the game engine, X-Ray 1.5, powers superior graphical details and realistic and non-scripted combat AI. More information and a collection of new images may be found here.

CCP's massively multiplayer online game in space, EVE Online, will be the first MMO to be available on Steam, Valve announced today. To celebrate the occasion, a special 21-day trial period for EVE will be available, free of charge, to all Steam gamers. Steam gamers will also save $5 off their first full month of EVE Online. "Launching EVE on Steam means the addition of another fantastic PC game and the introduction of MMOs on Steam," said Jason Holtman, director of business development at Valve. "The team at CCP continues to expand EVE's universe and gameplay for the legions logging in to play each month, just as we continue to expand Steam's consumer and developer features."

Valve is planning on releasing two more maps for Team Fortress 2 within the next two months, Valve employee Robin Walker informed. One of the new arenas is a remake of Team Fortress Classic's Badlands map. In the meantime, while waiting for the map pack to be released, Valve will ship other new content. That other content includes the forthcoming Medic achievement pack, which will add several new achievements for the Medic as well as a significant gameplay tweak for the class. "It's a large scale modification to the core of the game," Walker hinted. "It'll debut in a limited fashion through the Medic first, but it'll be affecting all classes eventually." "We're really looking forward to the community reaction," he continued. "We're really excited about where TF2 will be going over the next year."

The most recent Steam Hardware Survey shows more Steam gamers play on NVIDIA GeForce hardware than any other graphics platform. In an effort to further support this popular PC gaming configuration - Steam games plus NVIDIA hardware - Valve and NVIDIA have entered into an agreement to collaborate on development, distribution, events, and more. Effective immediately, all NVIDIA gamers may receive a free copy of Portal: First Slice, a special version of the award-winning new game from Valve, by visiting www.steamgames.com/nvidia1 and "Taking the test." Steam will then auto-detect the presence of NVIDIA hardware and make Portal: First Slice available immediately, free of charge. To make it easy for all NVIDIA customers to redeem this offer, a link to the Steam offer will also be included in all NVIDIA drivers.

Rockstar Games, the publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, and Valve announce an agreement to launch Rockstar Games' entire PC catalog on Steam, a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC games and digital content with over 13 million accounts around the world. Starting today, gamers may purchase Rockstar Games' titles, including the complete Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne series plus Manhunt and Midnight Club II. To celebrate the launch, Rockstar is offering all its Steam games for a 10% discount during launch week. The Rockstar games now available on Steam include: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto II, Grand Theft Auto, Midnight Club II, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Max Payne, Manhunt and Wild Metal Country. For more information about Rockstar Games on Steam, please visit this page.

All gamers in Germany may experience what many are calling the best multiplayer game of 2007 during the Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend, offered exclusively to German gamers via Steam January 4th through 6th. The Free Weekend is open to all gamers in Germany during the event. To participate, simply visit steamgames.com and install the free client. To maximize the free play time, Team Fortress 2 is available now for pre-loading, so players can have everything installed and ready to play the moment the Free Weekend begins on Friday, January 4. The Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend in Germany will conclude on Sunday, January 6 and no purchase is required to participate in the free weekend. Team Fortress 2 is one of three new games introduced in The Orange Box, a unique collection of new critically acclaimed games from Valve available for the PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 that is winning Game of the Year awards across the world. For more information, please visit Steam.

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.

Valve has announced that every game in the Steam store is now on sale. Titles in the catalog are discounted between 10% and 50%, which means you can now get games like The Orange Box for $38, BioShock for $41, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl for $22. The sale ends January 1st, so start shopping now.

Valve has released the first significant update for the PC version of Team Fortress 2 in about a month, making several gameplay tweaks and bug fixes. If it has not already patched itself in your copy of Steam, Team Fortress 2 will update automatically when you attempt to launch it. Particularly interesting changes include Sudden Death now being a server option that defaults to "off," the Spy doing slightly less damage to buildings with his weapons after sapping them, the Medic healing at a faster rate during the pre-round setup time to offset the need for players to self-inflict wounds and boost the heal rate, as well as some fixes to SourceTV and the Source engine. There are also a number of changes specific to the Dustbowl map.