Valve Goes Into the New Year with Big News on Three Fronts - The UpStream

Valve Goes Into the New Year with Big News on Three Fronts

posted Thursday Dec 20, 2012 by Nicholas DiMeo

Valve Goes Into the New Year with Big News on Three Fronts

While Gabe Newell, Valve's co-founder and managing director, may be a bit extremely crazy at times, there's no doubt that the company's distribution and game platform, Steam, has been wildly successful. From innovative decision-making to exclusive and massively popular game franchises, Steam has been the service to model after, as we see with services like EA's Origin, among others. On top of that, Valve has also managed to come up with new and interesting ways to market their products and brands to amass an almost cult-like following behind them. This week, Valve was in the news a lot, with their highly-anticipated Steam Holiday Sale starting, introducing new DLC for Team Fortress 2, licensing branding rights to tech companies.

Steam's annual Holiday Sale

Starting December 20th and running through January 5th, new deals each day show up on the Steam-powered store, with some games discounted as much as 75 percent. Valve is also bundling some publisher packs together, where you can get the entire Valve collection for only $49.99, for instance. The best part is that the community can also join in on voting which titles they'd like to see on sale next. Plus, if you don't see the game you want, you can sign up for a wishlist notification, in which Valve will email you or notify you via its mobile app if the game shows up on the deals list. Right now, the app is only available via Android. The big name deals expire as new ones show up so check early and often to grab the best games on the cheap.

Adult Swim and Team Fortress

The subtitle should be enough to tell you that this is just an awesome duo that we should see more of. Adult Swim has partnered up again with TF2 to bring even more humor to the game in the form of DLC.

Adult Swim and Team Fortress are combining again to bring you even more amazing virtual gear. Brush back Brock's flowing mane, before you shoot your friend in the face. Get ready to put Carl's flip flops up that annoying guy's ass. Or become the Minion you've always wanted to be. The Adult Swim store is coming soon to Steam with a boatload of new Adult Swim DLC to buy.

Of course, you have to head into the game to pick these skins and add-ons up, but there are 360-degree previews available on Adult Swim's website right now. The Heavy, Soldier, Scout and Pyro are currently the only classes that have Adult Swim antics added to them, with more to come later.

Valve gives Plantronics license to use game logos

Plantronics has been making a slow comeback in gaming headsets and communications headsets in general. To further progress their reaffirmation into the space, and to appeal to hardcore gamers, Plantronics has acquired the rights to release four Valve-official branded gaming headsets. Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Mann Co. from Team Fortress 2 and the beloved Aperture Laboratories logo will be displayed across the headband of the Plantronics Commander and 780 series of gaming headsets. The 780 set will run you $80, while the Commander line costs $300, and even though they won't make it in time for Christmas if you order one now, I'm sure they'll be completely accepted as a belated present.

So, are you excited about any of this news? It sure beats having to explain why PCs in the living room won't work. Let me know what games you'll be picking up from the Steam sale in the comments below.

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