Valve Corporation - Steam

Steam

Valve announced its games platform Steam in 2002. At the time it looked merely to be a method of streamlining the patch process common in online video games, but was later revealed as a replacement for much of the framework of the World Opponent Network service and also as a distribution/digital rights management system for entire games.

Valve has shown support for some of their games. For example, Valve has offered considerable updates for Team Fortress 2; including adding new maps, new game modes, additional weapons, new achievements, and additional game play mechanics, as well adding a store which sells in-game items. All such updates, with the exception of the aforementioned in-game items, are mandatory, and provided free of charge.

There are over 1,400 games available on Steam, and in October 2010 Valve announced that it had surpassed 30 million active user accounts.