Steamworks Documentation
Licensees
This section describes the features of this program as well as the process for signing up and getting properly configured to operate Steam products within your location(s).

Navigate to the Getting Started page on the left for instructions on how to get everything set up.

Steam PC Café Features

Licensed Use of Commercial Content

  • A free license to offer Steam and SteamVR access to the public in your registered locations.
  • Access to purchase commercial game licenses for content offered on Steam from participating developers/publishers. Licensees will be able to purchase units in bulk and receive special commercial offers when available.
  • Licensees will be able to use regional payment methods available on Steam, up to US$2,000 per day.

Dynamic License Management

You can now offer your customers games on Steam using a dynamic pool of licenses. Users can log into Steam using their own personal Steam accounts and have access to both their own games and games that you offer. If they play one of your games, the license will automatically be "checked out" from your license pool and when the user is done or logs out, the license will be returned to the license pool. You won't have to create dedicated accounts for users anymore. Just add games to your license pool and they will be available to anyone running Steam on your network.

Support for Personal Steam Accounts

Using dynamic license management, your customers will be able to play your games using their own Steam accounts. This means that they can earn XP, badges, collect game drops, or even make in-game purchases within your business just as they would at home. This brings the full Steam experience to your organization and your customers. Patrons can purchase in-game content or DLCs for games they're "checking out" while in the arcade. Once they leave the arcade, the commercial game license will be removed from their account, but they will get to keep the purchases.

Local Content Caching

This enables your business to download games and updates only once and then offer them to everyone on your network without impacting your Internet bandwidth. Patrons that bring their own computer or laptop can also access the game files instead of using your location's Internet bandwidth.

Support for Multiple Locations

If your organization operates from multiple locations (sites) you can identify each site during the registration process and share all of your Steam content across those sites. Steam handles the management of that content for you. All you do is run one local site server at each location. Each location must be registered under the same PC Café Agreement and must be the same business entity.

Support for Wireless Networks and Personal Laptops

If you offer wireless access for users to bring in their personal laptops, you can share your content from your license pool with those users as well. Steam will even provide peer-to-peer downloading of any content that they might need directly from your site management server so that downloads will be fast and not impact your Internet traffic.

Analysis Tools

Steam provides analysis tools so you can see what games your users are playing. You can see if they are bringing in their own games or using the content that you provide. Additionally, you can:

  • See how long users are playing to better understand if they are just trying games out or are really interested in the content.
  • See how well utilized your content is to determine if you have enough license seats.
  • View when peak usage occurs and if users are denied access from lack of available licenses.