Valve has quietly stepped into the waters of cloud gaming with the beta rollout of Steam Cloud Play, which introduces GeForce Now streaming integration. For now, publishers can choose to stream their games GeForce Now through the Steam backend.

Presumably, users can also launch GeForce Now streaming through Steam for supported games. Initially, only a limited number of games will be supported, and users will need to download the GeForce Now client and connect their Steam account to it, as they already have done.

"Customers will continue to get their games on Steam the same way they do now, and their payments to partners will not change," the page explains, which they already do; Valve is not sure what Nvidia is and is not doing with GeForce Now, and what it means for Steam appears to be helping explain how it will affect publishers.

This could be a big help for GeForce Now. Various Steam games are already playable through GeForce Now, but they are fragmented and have some major bumps in the road, as several developers and publishers have requested that their games be removed. Now that publishers can opt-in with the flip of a switch on Steam, Nvidia's library of supported games should grow more easily.

As for Steam's cloud capabilities, this appears to be just the beginning: Valve has stated that it will "continue to build features and server capacity for players," and when developers choose GeForce Now, they also choose "Valve-hosted" cloud streaming Valve has already built Live Streaming, Remote Play, and Remote Play Together technologies, and it is possible that Valve is building its own It is not too far-fetched to imagine Valve building a cloud streaming service.

Steam integration is part of broader changes to GeForce Now: Steam integration is part of broader changes to GeForce Now. GeForce Now is moving to an entirely new opt-in model, where developers and publishers Valve may also be feeling pressure from the Epic Games Store: in early March, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, said that Epic was "moving to a new model" that would allow developers and publishers to "have direct control over whether or not their games are accessible through the service. games and "Epic Games Store titles that choose to participate (including exclusive titles)" will "wholeheartedly" support GeForce Now.

Update: In response to our inquiry, Valve's Nathaniel Blue issued a statement indicating that the company is looking to integrate cloud-based games more deeply into Steam. [At this time, the Steam Cloud Play beta only supports Nvidia GeForce Now. Steam users in North America, Western Europe, and Asia Pacific can download the Nvidia GeForce Now client and play any supported game they own on Steam. On Wednesday, we sent an email to a small group of developers updating the documentation and detailing how to participate in the program. We are working with Nvidia to make the experience as smooth as possible for players and developers."

"We are constantly testing additional ways to play games in the Steam library. As such, this is a pilot for cloud-based gaming via Steam. We have no further announcements at this time, but we are open to adding Steam Cloud partners over time."