Rumor: Valve Is Bringing Steam Branding To Everything: PC Hardware, Games, Netcafes, And More

Dataminers have found an interesting document that highlights what could be Valve’s future plans for their hardware, and third parties.

As shared on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit by user Fidler_2K, they found a document called Steam Brand Guidelines for Software, Hardware & Games. The subreddit is focused on SteamOS coming to other hardware, but it certainly looks like Valve has bigger plans than that.

But let’s address that first. Valve has stated before that they do want to share SteamOS to other PC gaming manufacturers, particularly so that the likes of the ASUS ROG Ally and the Lenovo Legion Go could have a Steam Deck like experience. While fans see this as generous, clearly Valve benefits a lot from getting third parties on board with making their devices exclusive platforms for Steam.

The document indicates that any hardware that could run SteamOS would have a “Powered by SteamOS” branding on it, with its own exclusive logo that says the same thing. The document does not specify it has to be a gaming handheld, so it’s entirely possible that Valve could bring this to devices like laptops, convertibles, mini-PCs, and just plain old desktop PCs.

Aside from that, the wording is generic enough that Valve could bring these to devices that don’t run on x86/x64 architecture. So could Valve license this “Powered by SteamOS” logo to a Snapdragon X ARM device? Or maybe even Android devices? We believe Valve is already assuming that anything is possible.

But, as we hinted at, it does not actually stop there. Valve has another set of rules so that games can say that they run on Steam. These rules indicate how they can advertise that their games run on Steam, including instructions on how to redeem Steam games. Unfortunately, the rules do not indicate anything about physical games, like the Steamworks disc games that carried Valve’s branding from a decade ago. Maybe Valve does not anticipate that physical games aren’t returning to PC, but they may also intend to never support them again.

There are also instructions for “Steam Included” branding for devices that have Steam preinstalled, and those are vague enough that they could be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux devices. Video game controllers and peripherals can use the “Steam Compatible” branding, “Steam Play Here” branding is for netcafes and other brick-and-mortar establishments, and there are SteamVR and SteamVR Compatible brands as well.

Valve may have laid out these rules in anticipating of some or most of those plans coming true, while they don’t have actual plans yet. But Valve is certainly riding high on the success of the Steam Deck, and we can absolutely see them making a real retail push for a LinuxOS, with those PC gaming handhelds, and maybe even something of a Steam Machines 2.0 program. But we’ll see how many of these rules actually end up getting used in products that actually go to market.