Steam Digital Games Platform

Steam is the world's leading digital distribution platform for PC gaming, launched in September 2003. Originally developed to provide automatic updates for games created by Valve, it eventually expanded to include third-party titles and grew into a massive ecosystem that includes community features, cloud saving, and a digital marketplace.

The platform remains under the private ownership of Valve Corporation, which avoids many of the pressures faced by publicly traded companies. While its headquarters are based in the United States, its infrastructure, servers, and regional content distribution occur globally. Steam has reinvented how PC gaming is consumed, moving the industry away from physical media and toward a centralized digital library model.