Valve has announced the latest batch of games and application software to be approved for sale on the digital distribution platform as part of its Steam Greenlight program. Eighteen new games and two new software programs join the 90 titles Greenlit since Steam Greenlight launched in August of last year.

Valve Software today revealed a new feature for Steam users called "Early Access" which allows consumers to roll the dice and buy a game still in development and play it early. Valve calls this an opportunity to "go behind the scenes" and experience the development cycle of games first-hand. They'll also be able to interact with game developers and provide the feedback that could potentially make the game better.

After a long wait, Linux users can finally use the Steam Client on their favorite open sourced operating system. Linux users can download the free Steam client from the Ubuntu Software Center right now. Steam for Linux client is fully compatible with Steam's Big Picture mode, which allows users to play games on their high definition television sets using a controller. At launch the client supports around 50 Linux compatible games including Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life, Team Fortress 2, and more.

Speaking to Polygon, Star Trek and Star Wars: Episode VII director J.J. Abrams says that plans for movies based on Valve Software's hit franchises Portal and Half-Life are in the early stages and that that he's personally interested in bringing those universes to film. Abrams made his comments to the publication at the 2013 DICE Summit going on this week near Las Vegas.

The German consumer advocacy group The Federation of German Consumer Association has filed an official complaint against Valve Software for its Steam's end-user license agreement because it does not allow consumers to resell digital content. The European High Court ruled last year that digital content games can be sold. The complaint against Valve filed with the German courts is directly related to that ruling.

Valve has officially launched a Guides tab in its community hub, allowing players to get some much needed hints, tips, and tricks from fellow gamers. The new tab allows the Steam community to share helpful guides for their favorite games using text, video, and screenshots.

In a post on the Steam forums (as reported by GameSpot), Valve Software's Chet Faliszek confirmed that the company is exploring legal options in resubmitting Left 4 Dead 2 for an R18+ ratings classification in Australia.

It was long rumored to be Valve's home console and now it's a reality. The home console system called "Steam Box" when it was just a rumor is real. Valve today announced during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas a new home console called the Xi3 Piston. Valve has teamed up with hardware startup company Xi3 to create a mini-PC.

Valve Software announced today that the Steam Linux beta client is now available to all Steam users. The Linux client for the popular digital distribution platform had previously been available only to a select few Steam users. Along with access to the client for everyone, the beta is supported by a "growing catalog" of Linux-supported games, an "active" Steam for Linux community group, and a new GitHub bug reporting repository.

Hammerpoint Interactive's controversial zombie survival game The War Z has been removed from Steam. Earlier this morning we reported on the very vocal and public outcry of consumers who say that The War Z was falsely advertised by its developers and that it was missing features promised in the game's original product page - which was later revised. You can get the rundown on all those issues in this news story.

Doug Lombardi of Valve has confirmed with ShackNews that the company has hired former PopCap Games developers Jeff Gates and Tod Semple. Both worked on many excellent franchises - most notably the ultra popular Plants vs. Zombies. Earlier reports indicated that Valve had opened a San Francisco office, but Lombardi said that that wasn't exactly what Valve was doing in this case:

The rumors about Steam Box - a console-like system powered by Valve's popular digital distribution platform Steam may turn out to be true after all. Speaking to Kotaku recently Valve co-founder and top executive Gabe Newell said that custom PC packages featuring Steam that can go head-to-head with Sony and Microsoft will start shipping in the early part of 2013.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.