Steam, The iTunes Of Games with 65M Users, Adds Music and It Could Be Game Changer
Steam, the online gaming arm of Valve, has added music to it's platform. That may not seem like big news until you realize that steam has a user base of 65 million with as many as 6-7 million using its online gaming platform at any given time.
For now, Steam Music allows users to play their music within their gaming console. That's certainly a nice feature for gamers, but the real potential for music lies if – or perhaps more realistically, when – Steam adds in-player music sales and/or streaming. Beats, Rdio, Deezer and Spotify all want to scale quickly, and a deal with Steam could accomplish that almost overnight.
Steam has a history of listening to user feedback, and connecting with Spotify or another music streamer is one of their top requests. "Steam currently offers a number of game soundtracks for sale. Your feedback will help guide where we take things next," the company wrote it's users.
How they keep that promise is likely to make or break one of the plethora of music streamers currently jockeying for users.
Then again, Steam could launch its own music service…
Wow the potential here looks huge. With Steam boxes and steam OS coming out this could branch out in many ways. Gamer playlists, music apps, new sync/monetization opportunities for artists…etc. Great company, excited to see how it pans out.