A newly-discovered little bit of developer documentation suggests Valve has massive plans in thoughts for third-party builders of multiplayer games. Most notably, it seems like Valve is working towards letting builders host their games via the corporate’s personal devoted servers. Exactly how this may work in follow stays to be seen, however the characteristic is at the moment in beta amongst some some variety of builders.
The broader level of the brand new documentation is an API geared toward safe server connections via a VAC-secured set of protections, together with relays via Valve networks to maintain IP addresses personal. That ought to assist shield towards denial of service assaults, which is some extent Valve famous in a weblog submit earlier this yr – the identical one the place the corporate mentioned expanded plans for Steam TV.
But probably the most thrilling chance comes from these devoted servers, that are solely alluded to on this documentation (as famous on ResetEra). “Valve’s dedicated server hosting program” requires the usage of this API, and builders fascinated about a beta of that programme can contact Valve for particulars on methods to get in.
Similarly, we’ve reached out to Valve for additional information and can replace if we hear extra particulars.
Exactly how these devoted servers can be made accessible stays to be seen. Offering them free of charge would definitely go a good distance towards justifying Steam’s more and more controversial reduce of game gross sales on the platform, although equally it appears unlikely that such an costly characteristic would come out of nowhere.
Read extra: These are the best multiplayer games on PC
Regardless, Valve has been speaking about this type of factor for a really very long time – sure, even properly earlier than competitors from the Epic Games store began to be a priority. A Steam Dev Days video from 2016 even makes point out of internet hosting non-Valve games on Valve servers. Clearly, as with all Steam updates, it comes on Valve time.
Source
