Have you ever come across a program that you wouldn’t expect to see on Steam? Well, that’s because Steam is a marketplace for more than just games. Over the years, several other program categories have emerged on Steam, covering everything from productivity apps to gaming hardware.
Here are seven things other than games you can find on Steam other than your favorite games.
1 Productivity Software
This might not sound right at first look, but Steam does actually offer a bunch of useful productivity software if you’ve been spending too much time gaming. A lot of the productivity programs you’ll find on Steam use a gamified approach to eliminate distractions and ensure you get work done in a calm space.
For example, Virtual Cottage is a productivity tracker set as a game where you can set yourself a goal and create an atmosphere to achieve it in. It also features lo-fi music from various artists and you can even toggle rain sounds. There’s also a sequel on the way that improves on the concept.
If you’re looking for something more straightforward, you can try On Track. It’s a simple productivity tracker that turns your PC into a train window with customizable day-night cycles and lo-fi tracks to help you focus. There’s also a to-do list built in to help you keep track of tasks. You can set a timer, adjust the ambient sound to your preference, and start crossing tasks off your list.
There are tons of other Pomodoro timers and productivity trackers available on the platform if you’re not into the whole “gamify my productivity” concept.
2 PC Customization Software
There are plenty of PC customization programs available on Steam. Programs like Wallpaper Engine, NB Desktop, and Decent Icons 2 let you change the way your desktop looks entirely with a ton of customization options like live wallpapers, animated icons, and more. You can even turn your desktop into a game if you’d like.
I’d definitely recommend trying out Wallpaper Engine, especially if you’ve been using something like Rainmeter to customize your desktop. The program lets you turn any image into an animated desktop background without eating up a lot of system resources. If that’s too much work, you can also browse the Steam Workshop and pick from any of the thousands of pre-made wallpapers that you can download and further tune to match your preferences.
Steam is also full of various creation and editing tools that you might have already heard of. You can find anything from video and photo editing programs, sprite creators, illustration programs, and even your own RPG maker.
For starters, Adobe has its Substance 3D Painter 2024 and Substance 3D Designer 2024 programs that allow you to paint and create various 3D textures and models. If you’d rather delve into the 2D world, something like Aseprite will help you create 2D animations, sprites, and any kind of graphics for such games.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’ve got even more tools for VR, 3D animation, eye tracking, posing reference, video frame interpolation, and more.
As you can probably guess by now, Steam not only provides gamers with a library of thousands of new games but also game developers with hundreds if not thousands of game development tools. Outside of the creation and editing tools mentioned above that can help you create assets for your games, there are tools that’ll help you build entire games.
You can find tools like RPG Maker MV, a tool whose developers claim is powerful enough for developers but versatile enough for a child to create the RPG of their dreams. It also has export options for macOS, Android, and iOS. There are also MZ and XP variants of RPG Maker.
A lot of these tools don’t require any coding knowledge as well. For example, GameGuru Max is a 3D game maker that lets you create open-world games with various terrains, storyboarding tools, and assets built right into the game library. It’s very similar to map makers you might come across in games like Age of Empires, except you get to make your own game instead of a simple map.
5 Overlays and Game Add-Ons
Steam also has a healthy dose of overlays and game add-ons to help you out. If you’re a racing sim enthusiast, I’d recommend checking out DashPanel. The tool allows you to create fully customizable HUDs as well as desktop and VR overlays for several racing sims including Assetto Corsa, iRacing, Forza, Project Cars, and even Farming Simulator; among other sims.
If you’re more into first-person shooters instead, something like Crosshair X will come in handy for you. The tool lets you overlay custom crosshairs in any game you like, giving you much more control over how your aiming reticule works compared to in-game options. You can download new crosshairs made by the Steam community or design your own.
Finally, programs like Lossless Scaling and DSX can help you get better graphics and controller compatibility for your PC games respectively. Depending on the type of games you play, you might have fewer options, but you’re sure to stumble across something useful.
There’s a good reason why you should benchmark your hardware often and Steam makes it rather easy. There are several benchmarking tools available on Steam including 3D Mark, Nero Score, EzBench Benchmark, and more.
However, the store also offers game-specific benchmarks. These benchmarks are available to download regardless of whether you own the game (in most cases) and can be a great indicator of how a specific game will perform on your PC. This saves you from dishing out the game’s full price only to find out your hardware can’t run it properly. Some noteworthy examples of this are the Black Myth: Wukong Benchmark Tool and Resident Evil 6 Benchmark Tool.
7 The Steam Deck
I don’t think you’d be surprised to know that Valve decided to sell its handheld gaming console on its own gaming platform as well. You can head over to Steam and order your Steam Deck, just like you order your games.
This isn’t the first time Valve has done this either. The gaming giant has sold other hardware like the Steam Controller and Steam Link from the marketplace as well. You can still find store listings for them, despite the hardware long being discontinued.
There’s also a dedicated VR Hardware section on the Steam marketplace, but it only contains links to the manufacturer’s website instead of allowing a direct purchase. Do keep in mind that this might vary from region to region.
Steam is a very versatile program for PC gamers with features I wish more people knew about. If you’ve only been using it to download and manage your games, more content categories are waiting for you to explore. Just keep in mind that the Steam splash screen popping up every time you open a program from your Steam library might be a bit of an irk. Otherwise, Steam can be a great place to find useful programs.
