Valve Software has launched Steam Big Picture today, bringing its popular digital distribution platform to HD television sets everywhere. The new version of Steam allows gamers to bring their games in Steam to the big screen with higher resolution - and with some games - full gamepad support. Out of the gate, Steam Big Picture offers about 30 games that can be played on a gamepad.

Valve's digital distribution platform Steam has hit a major milestone, according to data found on the service's statisitics page. According to the data found there Steam recorded a record 6 million concurrent users over the weekend - up from the last record of five million concurrent users in January of this year. The exact peak simultaneous user figure was 6,046,314 at around noon we assume PT) on November 25.

Rockstar Games was forced to pull Grand Theft Auto: Vice City from Steam, according to reports from The Sixth Axis and Cinema Blend.

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) announced this morning that Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell will be the 17th inductee into the AIAS Hall of Fame. He will also deliver the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit as its Thursday conference keynote. The 2013 Hall of Fame Award will be presented to Gabe by Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps, who serves on the AIAS board of directors and the AIAS awards committee.

While Ethereal Entertainment's Faceless has been a top vote-getter on Steam Greenlight since the platform's launch in September, Valve has decided not to publish the game on Steam because of copyright concerns, according to Joystiq.

Valve Software announced via its Steam Greenlight site that it will announce the next round of games that have gotten the "greenlight" to be released on Steam via its community-driven game discovery system. The next batch of titles to receive the Steam Greenlight treatment will be on November 30. Valve also said that it will reveal the "first graduating class of Software titles," with at least five Software (non-gaming) titles targeted for inclusion in this group.

At a presentation at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Denmark earlier this week, Valve Software's Drew Bliss told attendees that the open-sourced operating system Linux is more viable than Windows 8 for gaming at this point. Valve has been a vocal critic of Microsoft's new operating system because of its included app store. The store is not an open environment and requires approval by Microsoft to get products certified for sale within the closed marketplace.

Computer World reports that the way browsers and other applications handle the "steam://" protocol URLs can be exploited by hackers, according to researchers from ReVuln. The Steam client can run on Windows and Mac OS X. Valve is currently testing a beta version of the client that supports Linux.

Eurogamer points to an interview earlier in the week with Valve's Chet Faliszek, who mentions in passing a Street Fighter-style fighting game that appeared on Steam Greenlight that lets you play as our current presidential candidates and past presidents like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Here is what he said about it then:

South Korean publication Joongang News (by way of GamesBeat) may be reading WAY TOO MUCH into a meeting between Nexon, NCsoft and Valve Software in South Korea this week.

Earlier this week Germany's Federation of German Consumer Organizations (or vzbv) called on Valve to explain the changes it made to the Steam end-user license agreement back in August. The vzbv found that the changes Valve made to its EULA were unfair to consumers and that Steam had no mechanism for allowing its users to trade games per a recent European High Court ruling. It required Valve to respond by September 26 to their insistence the company change its policy "restricting access to content based on the forfeiture of signing the new EULA."

While there's been a lot of disparaging news about Steam Greenlight, there is some good news from Valve's indie discoverability program: the first ten games to get the "green light" have been revealed. The first set of titles to launch via Greenlight will be released in "the months ahead," according to Valve. All of the titles are in different stages of development so exact release dates for each title were not revealed.

E. Zachary Knight makes a triumphant return in Episode 19 of the Super Podcast Action Committee. After a near-death experience (we might be slightly exaggerating) last week, he rejoins host Andrew Eisen to discuss getting older (be sure to wish him a happy birthday today!) Steam Greenlight's early hurdles, the latest GamePolitics poll, and Ubisoft's new DRM policy. Download it here: SuperPAC Episode 19 (57 Minutes).

As Valve works out the kinks in its new indie discovery initiative, Steam Greenlight, the company tells Gamasutra that they are not done tweaking and refining the service.

GamesIndustry International has an interesting article featuring No Reply Games co-founder Miriam Bellard. Yesterday we reported that the company's erotic adventure simulation game, Seduce Me, had been booted from Steam Greenlight. Today the founders of No Reply Games explained what they had hoped and their disappointment in how Valve handled their game.

Yesterday we mentioned that Steam Greenlight was having lots of trouble dealing with smart alecks and trolls posting fictitious games in its new indie game discovery program. Today Valve has come up with a solution: anyone who wants to submit a game to the service for consideration will have to pay $100. The money will apparently go to the Child's Play charity.

If you were expecting smooth sailing with Steam Greenlight, Valve's new community initiative that lets them decide which indies should get on Steam in the timeliest manner, then you are probably delusional. While the core idea of it works, there's always going to be people that use the system to basically waste people's time and be offensive.

While Valve Software has adamantly denied the rumor that it was getting into the hardware side of gaming (the infamous SteamBox rumor), a new job listing from the company seems to indicate otherwise. In that job listing Valve says that it needs an industrial designer to work on "product design and manufacturing, ergonomics, usability, aesthetics, and surfacing."

Amsterdam-based indie developer No Reply Games issued a statement yesterday saying that their first game to make its way on to Steam Greenlight has been kicked off the service. The game is called "Seduce Me," and is an erotic themed dating simulation. From the trailer we viewed of the game, it contains some nudity, adult language, sexual themes, and adult situations.

"Many people still view games as 'for children' in spite of the fact that the average gamer is 30 years old," said No Reply Games Miriam Bellard.

Stolen Couch Games has launched the Green Light Bundle a budget-minded collection of indie games for a minimum $1 purchase, or up to eight games for $5 or more. Those willing to pay more than $1 can get Stolen Couch's Ichi, AngryMob Games' Muffin Knight, PixelJam's Dino Run SE, and Studio Evil's Syder Arcade.

For $5 or more, you'll get Gunman Clive, Madfinger's Samurai II Vengeance, AngryMob's Guerrilla Bob, and Crescent Moon Games' Paper Monsters, along with five bonus soundtracks.

Valve Software offered more details on Steam Greenlight and "big picture mode" last night during an episode of GameTrailersTV. Steam Greenlight, which is set for an August 30 release allows the Steam community to pick and choose which indie game titles can be bought onto Valve's service.

There's no feud between Valve and EA over their competing digital distribution platforms (Steam and Origin) - at least according to EA's Chief Operating Officer Peter Moore. Speaking to Eurogamer at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this week, Moore brushed aside the idea that there's some sort of grudge match between the two companies.

Valve Software today officially announced that its digital distribution platform Steam will expand its software offering to include creativity and productivity software offerings. Steam is one of the top digital distribution platforms for PC and Mac game software in the world.

"The 40 million gamers frequenting Steam are interested in more than playing games," said Mark Richardson at Valve. "They have told us they would like to have more of their software on Steam, so this expansion is in response to those customer requests."

In an announcement made this morning over at the official Steam web site Valve Software revealed a change to its Steam Subscriber Agreement that makes it so that subscribers can no longer file class action lawsuits against the company (Federal Arbitration Act). Under the terms of the new agreement, Steam users agree not to form a class action lawsuit against the company, using a "dispute resolution" process to deal with complaints on an individual basis (arbitration).

In a short statement posted on the Saints Row: The Third forums, Volition acknowledges that there are still problems with the PC version of the popular over-the-top action game several months after it was released on Steam, and that they are still hard at work trying to iron out problems that still exist.

David DeMartini, the man in charge of EA's Origin platform, said in a recent conversation with MCV that he knows that some hardcore gamers have "issues" with his company's digital download service but wasn't all that surprised with the negative reaction.

If you bought an Ubisoft game available as part of Steam's massive Summer Sale, you may experience what users are feeling right about now: angst and rage. Apparently some players who bought Ubisoft games have found that they cannot play them because of uPlay, the online service in charge of validating DRM in many of Ubisoft's titles.

If you would prefer to spend your hard-earned cash on digital goods but also want to trade-in some of your used games too, then GameStop is offering a deal worth mentioning. For the remainder of Steam's massive summer sale trade-ins at GameStop will net you an additional 30 percent in value if you put that credit towards the purchase of a Steam gift card. The deal runs until July 23.

Valve Software's business development chief Jason Holtman finally offered a response to what EA Origin boss David DeMartini said last month about Steam sales "cheapening intellectual property." At the time DeMartini said that EA's digital distribution platform would not copy Steam's frequent and deep discounting sales tactics.

Valve has revealed Steam for Schools, a cool initiative that brings the joys of learning with Portal 2 to America's classrooms, at the Games For Change Festival. Steam For Schools, launching in a limited beta, will provide a limited Steam Client and a tailored version of Portal 2, along with the level editor and a workshop for hosting and organizing user-created levels. It will be free to teachers, who will have administrator access so that they can control what levels get shared.