Valve to host ‘Steam Dev Days’ event

Valve has announced that it will play host to a new invitation-only conference called “Steam Dev Days,” to be held in early 2014. The event is specifically for industry professionals to “share design and industry expertise, participate in roundtable discussion, and attend lectures by industry veterans.” Steam Dev Days will be held on January 14-16 in Seattle, Washington, and topics will include “game economies, virtual reality, Linux/OpenGL, user-generated content, and more.” The event will also give Valve a chance to seek feedback on the upcoming Steam OS, Steam controllers, and Steam Machines. Beyond that, more details are expected to follow in the coming weeks and months. Registration costs $95, but in order to attend you’ll need to receive an invitation directly from Valve. A website is currently up and running, but at the moment it is still awaiting updates on things like featured speakers and session information. A modder named SnooOranges3876 has released a plugin for Steam Deck titles that lets players adjust graphics on the fly, improving appearance and performance, and the best part is that it’s both free and easy to use. Called LetMeReShade, this plugin allows players to adjust illumination, contrast, colors, and much more on the fly. It can be particularly beneficial to older titles, too. The plugin is available through GitHub. It circumvents the often-complicated install processes for ReShade mods and instead lets players quickly apply those mods to games. In the example video, SnooOranges3876 is seen changing shaders in Cyberpunk 2077 and Heavy Rain, with several other titles like Alan Wake and Monster Sanctuary as potential options. I have a massive Steam library, and like most PC gamers I know, I’m always looking to add to it. Will I actually play the games? Maybe. Will I complete all of them? Certainly not. But I’m caught in a negative feedback loop of picking up new games constantly for pennies on the dollar, and Steam is feeding my addiction more than ever before. How? With Steam bundles. Steam bundles aren’t anything new, but I’ve seen a stark uptick in them over the last several months. They mostly revolve around similarly styled indie titles, offering a small discount of around 10% if you buy two or three games in bulk. That’s not why I’ve taken advantage of Steam bundles so often over the past several months, though.
The hack The Steam Deck Verified program was a good start, but it’s time to move on. Valve separates compatibility with the Steam Deck into four buckets. You have Verified games, which have a green check mark for Valve’s seal of approval, and you have Playable games, which would normally get a Verified badge had it not been for some small issues (i.e. small text or invoking the on-screen keyboard). Those are the two categories you gravitate toward.