In the latest Steamworks SDK update, Valve has released a beta for what it’s calling The Steam Inventory Service, a set of APIs and tools that lets developers hand out ‘persistent’ items to players.
Think of the hats in Team Fortress 2, essentially. The update means developers won’t have to create their own special servers to deal with in-game items that players have purchased or unlocked.
“With this service, a game can easily drop items to customers based on playtime or can grant items based on specific situations or actions within the game,” Valve explains. “These items can be marked as tradable through Steam or sellable via the Steam Marketplace. Developers can also configure recipes for crafting different combinations of items that result in more rare, unique, or valuable items.”
Expect every game on Steam to feature its own unique and colourful selection of tradeable headwear by the end of the week. Hopefully not.
The Inventory Service joins cloud saves, Steam achievements, matchmaking, mod support, and various other tools that developers on Steam have at their disposal.
