Steam
| Steam | |
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| URL | http://store.steampowered.com/, http://steamcommunity.com |
| Status | Online! |
| Archiving status | Not saved yet |
| Archiving type | Unknown |
| IRC channel | #archiveteam-bs (on hackint) |
Steam is a video game distribution and content sharing platform owned and operated by Valve Software, a corporation founded in 1996 who rose to fame through franchises like Half-Life and Counter-Strike. Steam was announced in 2002, with a beta test in the first half of 2003 and then a public release September of the same year. Since then approximately 9 12 24 30 million people concurrently use Steam at peak times, with some days in excess of 10 14 25 33 million.
Vital signs
Stable, as Valve has stated that due to their privately owned nature there's no stockholder pressure to perform. Not too likely to die in the future unless there were a long series of catastrophic mistakes within a short timespan, considering the revenue generated from seasonal sales and microtransactions in Valve-published games.
It was reported by a redditor who deleted their account that there would be contingencies in place to ensure games published on Steam would remain playable in the event of Steam being shut down or Valve going under. This could entail redemption of codes on other platforms like GOG.com or as far as an official Steam cracker to make games that require the operation of Steam no longer require it, but the means for recovering games is unclear.
If Valve were to go out of business the primary area of concern would be the Steam Community, as it likely holds many hundreds of terabytes of data, possibly even a few petabytes at worst.
Steam Users' Forums
| Steam Users' Forums | |
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 Home Page | |
| URL | http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/ |
| Status | Offline |
| Archiving status | Saved! |
| Archiving type | Unknown |
| Project source | https://github.com/ArchiveTeam/spuf-grab |
| Project tracker | http://tracker.archiveteam.org/spuf/ |
| IRC channel | #archiveteam-bs (on hackint) (formerly #outofsteam (on EFnet)) |
| Project lead | User:Powerkitten |
| Data[how to use] | archiveteam_steamforums steamforums_spuf_archive_201706 steamforums_spuf_indices_201706 |
One of the largest vBulletin forums in existence, reported to be carrying 1.3M threads and 13.8M posts, also commonly referred to by many as Steam Powered User Forums, or SPUF.
Steam Discussions on the Steam Community have instilled a small dose of concern amongst some as they were concerned SPUF would be killed off at any point. The only saving grace at the moment is that Valve employees still post on SPUF from time to time even a couple of years after "SPUD" was introduced. These concerns would still be valid if there was a change of mood and SPUD suddenly became the only supported forum.
On May 15, 2017, Valve suddenly pulled the plug on SPUF as was feared. After users were upset about the sudden closure, Valve restored access to the site temporarily the following day, and outlined a closure date of June 5:
SPUF End of Life June 5th, 2017[IA•Wcite•.today•MemWeb]
Yesterday these forums went down, and we quickly heard from many of you that you wished there had been some warning so you could save off or archive some of the content here.
You were right that we failed by not communicating that the forums would go down and giving you a chance to save off content. As such, we’ve now restored access to the forums, but we won’t be able to continue to support them long term. They will go down permanently on June 5th, 2017. We encourage you to save off any posts or content that you find valuable in that timeframe or to migrate them to Steam Community Discussions.[1]
jmccaskey of Valve acknowledged that they screwed up by not giving notice initially.
URL Structure: (all number parameters increment normally.)
- Threads: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3182806
- Multi-Page threads: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3182806&page=2
- Members (requires login): http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/member.php?u=1778207
- Individual Posts: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=34923692
- Forums: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=5
- Multi-page forums: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14&page=2
Note: For the forums, log in to set a Thread Age Cut Off different from the forum default. Or append &daysprune=-1 to the URL (no login needed then).
Steam Greenlight
| Steam Greenlight | |
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| URL | https://steamcommunity.com/greenlight |
| Status | Endangered |
| Archiving status | Not saved yet |
| Archiving type | Unknown |
| IRC channel | #archiveteam-bs (on hackint) |
A component of the Steam Community, Greenlight is a way for indie developers to submit their games (for a $100 fee) to let the wider community vote on whether their game should be accepted on to the Steam store.
On February 10, 2017, Valve announced that Steam Greenlight would be replaced by Steam Direct at some point in Spring 2017. On June 6, 2017, Valve put up a message on Steam Greenlight reading that "Greenlight is no longer accepting new submissions and voting has been suspended. Starting June 13, Steam Direct will be the new path for developers to bring their game to Steam." On June 13, 2017, Steam Direct was officially released. Steam Greenlight is currently read only.
How can I help?
Running a Warrior
You can start up a Warrior and there select Steam Users' Forums. (If you don't really care what you are archiving, select ArchiveTeam's Choice instead, as at some points ArchiveTeam may prioritize another project.)
Running the script manually
If you use Linux and you're a bit familiar with it, you can try running the script directly.
The instructions can be found at github.com/ArchiveTeam/spuf-grab.
| Some additional information |
|---|
| Don't forget to replace YOURNICKHERE with your nickname.
The number after If you want to stop the script, please do it gracefully if possible. To do so, create an empty file named STOP in the folder of the script (terminal command: If you see "Project code is out of date", kill the script, go to its folder ( |
Donating to the Internet Archive
Content downloaded by the ArchiveTeam will be uploaded to the Internet Archive, where it will be stored and be available – hopefully – forever. However, storing it costs thousands of dollars in the long run. So, if you can afford, please consider donating to the Internet Archive, so that this piece of history can be kept for us all. http://archive.org/donate
Do you like our cause?
If you want to help in other projects, want to learn more about ArchiveTeam, or even help in development in general, navigate to the Main Page of this wiki, from there you can reach a lot of information. The Team consists of volunteers working on the projects in their free time, so helping hands (and resources) are always welcome.