Valve have today announced that Steam – which already takes care of most other in-game needs for the PC market – will now be offering in-game downloadable content procurement as well.
What does [[link]] this mean? You’ll be able to get the DLC from the same program you’re launching [[link]] and managing the main game from, instead of fishing around somewhere else for it. Just fire up the game, hit shift-tab and you can shop to your heart’s content.
Convenient? Yes. Just don’t be surprised if that convenience comes at a cost when you find in six months that some of the stuff like map packs PC gamers used to get for [[link]] free (especially on games released over Steam) suddenly are not free.
The first game to take advantage of in-game DLC will be The Maw, but since the feature can be accessed from any game – old or new, purchased from Steam or from retail – it certainly won’t be the last.