Steam update and new publisher signs up

If you like Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, Titan Quest or Supreme Commander you should be as ecstatic as I am that THQ has signed up to be a part of Steam. Developer Relic Entertainment has already done a fine job redefining the RTS genre and also doing away with one of the most annoying aspects of PC gaming: having to put the game's disk in your computer in order to play.

It seems only natural then to go on Steam, where all the games do not require a CD to play, since they are registered to a Steam account which downloads your games straight onto your computer. On top of that, those games can be installed quickly onto any computer with steam as long as you log in.

In other older news, Steam is getting ready to compete against Microsoft Live Arcade by releasing an update that features community functionality which will allow user accounts to create profiles, join groups, and review other gamers that they've played with. This builds out the existing features of being able to add friends and messaging them while in a game.

With 13 million registered users already on Steam, I can only hope that this will encourage even more big name publishers to sign up. The idea of a unified central location for gaming and connecting to users on a multitude of games is exciting.

Now to convince EA to drop EA Link, which supports a surprising unimpressive amount of titles, and join the Steam nation.