Steam

Steam will help out gamers wishing to avoid Christmas-shopping at the mall by launching their gift purchasing service. Now, once you’ve purchased a game for yourself on Steam, there is an option to gift the same item to a friend. The recipient will receive an e-card which guides them through the Steam download process. With an ever-expanding list of games to choose from, there’s bound to be something in there which will bring Christmas cheer to those around you.

via Joystiq

A forum poster by the name of “slugz” has proven that all you need to do is ask, and you will find the answers that you seek. He wrote an email to Valve asking nicely as to whether we could expect any additional achievements on Steam for the classic Valve Source games, and received this very promising reply from a Valve staffer:

“We’re planning on adding achievements to all of our games you touched on in your mail [Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source]. We’re just now coming out of the post-shipping haze, so these should start showing up on Steam pretty quick here. We’re also planning on adding a bunch more to TF2, starting with an achievement pack for the Medic in the next week or so.”

via Gaming Today

This weekend Steam has knocked 20% off the price of both Bioshock and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The markdown brings both these games from US$50 to a very affordable US$39.95. The offer is valid to Monday 26th, so you had better be snappy if you want to take advantage.

via Kotaku