Those of you familiar with PC gaming will no doubt be well aware of Valve Corporation's digital distribution platform Steam. Well, member PoliticalGamer over at the Steampowered User Forum just got back from a trip of a lifetime to Valve HQ in Bellevue, WA, and he brought back some interesting news.
In a discussion with Valve co-founder and frontman Gabe Newell, PoliticalGamer caught wind of Valve's interest in expanding its Steam operations onto both iOS and Android. While he had no direct quote, the paraphrasing below gives us some hope:
he said they were looking into the iOS/Android platform for possible expansions with Steam
It might seem like an obvious move for Valve given the recent explosion in mobile gaming, but it's nice to hear from the man himself that Valve do have their eyes on portable systems. On a personal note, I would be delighted even if it were just a basic Steam Chat IM client, with the protocol's non-standard nature making it currently impossible for third-party developers to create clients of their own.
One might be forgiven for thinking that there are enough marketplaces as it is, but considering the excellence of Steam on PCs, I would welcome its transition to my mobile phone with open arms. Now it just remains to be seen whether the infamous "Valve time" effect will allow for Steam's appearance on Android before Google runs out of letters in the alphabet.