Friday, August 10, 2007

Everyone at Valve extends a big welcome to those of you who joined the Steam Community this week. In just four days, more than 65,000 people created a profile and more than 10,000 groups staked a claim (the largest boasting 1,000 members). Thousands of events, from tournaments to LAN parties, have been scheduled. Needless to say, the Community is thriving.

Your participation is helping us improve the experience and your continued feedback (you are providing feedback, right?) is keeping our design team busy refining and building new features. Stay tuned: tons of new and improved features are on the way.

To take part in the beta, go to the Settings screen from the File menu while logged into Steam. In the Beta Participation area, click the "Change..." button and select 'The Steam Community' from the pull-down menu. Restart Steam to activate the Community tab.

Last week we held a public playtest for Left 4 Dead at QuakeCon 2007. We had a blast playing and chatting with gamers from around the world. Be sure to check out the write-ups and videos posted on GameTrailers.com, IGN, GameSpy, GameSpot, and Eurogamer. By the way, thanks to all the QuakeCon volunteers and attendees who made us feel right at home.