Steam Hub
What is Steam Hub?
Steam Hub is the unofficial Steam app for Windows 8. Launch games, pin them to your Start menu, customize their tiles, manage favorites & categories, view news, shop on the store, chat with friends, and get deal notifications for daily deals.
In order to launch games, Steam for desktop must be installed. Don't have a desktop-enabled device (like the Surface)? No problem, you can't launch games (yet?) but you can still manage them and all your settings sync across devices (if you want them to!).
When will it be released?
Follow development on our site: http://steamhubapp.com/
Follow development on Twitter: @SteamHubApp
Follow development on Facebook: Steam Hub Facebook Page
The app is still under development but I am gunning for the first version to be submitted the first week of December. I just started this project November 30. That means I probably won't make the Apptivate deadline of Dec 6 for a certified app for the Windows Store BUT I am submitting this in any case.
Will it be free?
The app will be "freemium" since I work on this alone in my free time. You'll be able to do everything in the free version, but a few features might be available at a cost (still undecided). The Steam desktop application is free and always has been, I want to continue that philosophy but I also need to support its development. Suggestions are welcome on monetization.
Roadmap
Initial Version (this week)
This is what I plan to finalize before release. I wish to get this onto the store ASAP so some of these not-as-important features will fall off into the next release.
- Launch games from the app (done)
- Pin games to start menu (done)
- Sort games alphabetically with Semantic Zoom support (done)
- Open game details in browser (not started)
- Hide games you don't care about (or aren't installed) (not started)
- Full touch support (I own a Surface I am constantly testing on) (wip)
- Basic search charm support (not started)
- Snap view (done)
- Wide, Square, and Small tile logo support (wip)
- Sync settings across devices (done)
Pipe Dream Features
This everything I hope to do, even if they're a dream.
- Category support for library
- In-app profile (not launched inside a browser)
- "Launch To" - launch a game from your non-Steam-enabled device (possible?) to a device with the Companion app installed
- Store browser
- Community browser
- Steam chat
- Steam deals with Live Tile and Push Notification support
- Live tiles for pinned games (news?)
- Non-Steam-game support
- Customization of pinned tiles
- Customization of in-app library screen (essentially like the Start screen)
Technical Details
I am using the public Steam Community API to retrieve a user's games. It requires a Steam Community profile, but that's the best way I've found of getting at your game list.
I am using WinJS right now, but if the app is successful, I may also develop a Windows Phone version (there already is a Steam WP app).
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