[dex3108]

Steam Soundtrack Updates
8 JAN @ 8:00PM - SARENYA
Today we're enabling new functionality to better support gaming soundtracks on Steam. This new functionality can broadly be broken into two categories: fixing customer experience issues with the current "soundtrack-sold-as-DLC" model, and completely new features.

Fixing Existing Issues
Up until now, there was no "soundtrack" app type on Steam. The closest was "DLC", and so it became common to sell soundtracks as a type of DLC. This made sense at the time but over time has tied existing soundtracks to a large amount of DLC-specific functionality.

Today there's a new "soundtrack" app type. For music content, this has many improvements over DLC:

• customers can now purchase soundtracks without purchasing the base game.
• customers can now download soundtracks without downloading the base game.
• customers can browse and manage their owned and downloaded soundtracks directly from the new Steam library.
• customers can configure a Steam "music" directory where all soundtrack content will be placed, rather than having to locate it in subdirectories of game content.
• developers can upload and manage soundtrack content entirely through the partner site, without using steamcmd.
• developers can sell soundtracks where the base game itself is not available for sale on Steam.

Moving forward, we encourage all soundtracks to use the new app type, rather than DLC.

New Functionality
Besides fixing the user experience issues mentioned above, we've also added some brand new functionality.

First, soundtracks can support multiple quality levels. Every soundtrack will contain a set of standard MP3s, but soundtracks can also include optional high-quality audio depots (ie., FLAC, or raw WAV). Individual customers can opt-in to these larger, higher-quality audio files.

Second, there's a new interface for soundtracks in the Steam Library. This interface is minimal for now, but is designed to make it as painless as possible to perform the most common actions: playback, browsing, and managing contents.

Third, soundtracks can now contain bits of associated content, including album art and liner notes. These bits of content can also be viewed from the details page for a soundtrack in the Steam Library.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/st...96648440131992