Steam to get major overhaul

BY THE end of July, Valve's gamer network Steam will have seen a substantial overhaul that brings voice communication and social networking to the service.

Gamers will not be able to create their own profile pages and pages for their clans on the service. They will be able to voice chat in lobbies, rate other gamers and join groups as a party. The new features will be available through the standard Steam client, as well as through a web-based interface.

Touted as 'advanced community features', the upgrade seems to be taking on Xfire's friends-list dominance as well as the growth of clan gaming and casual networked gaming.

The specifics have not been revealed, but Valve is touting the update as the largest change to the platform since its inception in 2004. Stay tuned for what is sure to be the inevitable backlash. µ