Valve Rolls Out a New Chat Update for Steam

It’s been a long while since Steam’s chat client got positive feedback from the gaming community. The old Steam Chat was rather awkward, failing to provide robust interaction for gamers. For this reason, other sleek communication services won the race almost hands-down. Valve are eventually fed up with user churn, helplessly seeing gaming fans flock to third-party chat platforms like Discord or TeamSpeak.

As the answer to its rivals, the company has released a revamped chat client that is expected to be a new trendsetter in game-themed communication. With beta testing started back in June, all the updated functions were successfully assessed. From now on, the renovated chat client is officially out in wild, according to the Steam Community’ news board announcement. Let’s delve into what the renewed Steam Chat has brought to the gaming audience so far.

A full scope of new features is available via web browser or Steam app. Improving the chat experience across players, Valve offers gamers to enjoy the following interaction benefits:

Updated friends list, which allows for easier, more flexible navigation and organization. That said, you can orchestrate your friends and playmates however you want as the list is now fully customizable and can be rearranged on the fly. For instance, best friends are kept within the Favorites group. If you play several games like, say, CS:GO and Dota 2 – now having your mates in separate groups is effortless!

Steam update Friends list The list has an enhanced UI that provides much wider information on your mates’ interests and current activities. You can see what titles are much played among your friends and join them as well. When some of your pals are offline, playing in a match or back online – all these can be seen and easily tracked. To ensure the more relevant communication, you can get your friends together into any specialized or even off-topic chat with ease.

In-line media sharing functionality. The new Steam Chat revolutionizes sharing in-line media data capabilities. No more unappetizing links to the video or images you’d like to share with your friends online. The reworked chat client grants the possibility to instantly embed YouTube video clips, GIFs, tweets and other actionable multimedia sources.
Persistent text and voice channel creation. To showcase how far the updated Steam Chat evolves, compared to the older version, Valve enables full-fledged channel creation. Once you are logged in to your Steam account, you can easily create and differentiate text- and voice-driven channels to ensure robust interaction between your mates. Make direct game invites in one click, email or text your friends to ask them join the game right from a web browser or your Steam app.
WebRTC-backed security. In order to provide safe and clear interaction between gamers, Valve beefs up its new chat client with an open-source communication solution, known as WebRTC. This technology encrypts all the voice traffic so that no one can intrude to eavesdrop your chatting with friends or steal your IP address data.

Steam update chat All in all, Steam Chat is totally refreshed and is going to be the a new interaction hub for the global gaming community. Join us on Facebook and Twitter to get latest insights from the gaming space.