What is steam?
Steam is a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Corporation for purchasing and playing video games. Steam offers digital rights management (DRM), matchmaking servers, video streaming, and social networking services. Steam provides the user with installation and automatic updating of games, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud saving, and in-game voice and chat functionality.
Other services
The software provides a freely available application programming interface (API) called Steamworks, which developers can use to integrate many of Steam's functions into their products, including networking, matchmaking, in-game achievements, microtransactions, and support for user-created content through Steam Workshop.
Market Share
The Steam platform is the largest digital distribution platform for PC gaming, estimated in 2013 to have 75% of the market space. By 2017, users purchasing games through Steam totaled roughly CAD $5.6 billion, representing at least 18% of global PC game sales.By early 2018, the service had over 150 million registered accounts with a peak of 18.5 million concurrent users online.
The Steam Website