Steam is a download agent of on line games permitting to buy and to download them. Compared with the classical installation from a CD or DVD, this method has many advantages. In particular, it removes the problems of :
- media (scratches, damaged disk)
- updating
- loss of serial number because the keys are included in the steam account.
It has been designed by Valve editor who has created the game of Half-life 2. Many editors have joined their forces to enhance the games in this application. In addition to its main functionality, Steam offers some shared options, for instance, an instant messaging client.