While looking at one of my questions that was closed, I noticed that there are over 600 questions about Steam on the site.
Steam is not a game. It's not a gaming system like a PC or a Wii. If anything, it's a DRM system, or a game-purchase site not all that different from, say, Amazon. It even sells non-gaming software now.
So I'm curious: Why is it on-topic for this site?
Steam has never been in question about whether it's on-topic or not; the forgone conclusion is that its on-topic, and there ends the logic train. We've never really articulated why that is, though. And since they now offer non-games through Steam, perhaps it's time to do so.
Small history of Steam:
Steam has been around since the end of 2003. From the beginning, it's been a digital distribution platform, first for their own games, and then branching out and allowing other games to use their platform.
Since it was launched, it has gained widespread acceptance due to Valve's non-intrusive DRM, and much more recently, the daily deals.
In October 2012, it has branched out into offering non-games on the platform.
One of the more non-concrete aspects of Arqade is our policy about consoles and game distribution platforms. They're encompassed in the "Game-specific hardware and utilities".
From my other answer:
That's why we allow questions about XBoxes, Playstations, and digital distribution platforms like Steam. It's not that the hardware has to be specifically and only used for gaming; consoles, especially, have progressed beyond being simple game cartridge interpreters. My understanding of "game-specific hardware and utilities" is that if the primary use of said hardware or utility is gaming, then chances are good it's on-topic here.
It's good to draw parallels between consoles and Steam; they are all, when you boil it down, platforms on which to play games. They may have other uses, but the main focus of an XBox, or Playstation, or Steam, is for gaming. Since the primary use of the platform is gaming, it stands to reason that gamers would have the most collective knowledge of these platforms, and we are probably experts on their usage and tweaking. It's one of the related skills we get through experience and exposure to gaming through their platform.
Lately, though, Steam has started selling non-games. "Uh-oh, Steam is no longer just for games. Is it something we want to support?". It's not really a binary yes/no answer; if we supported only those things which can be used only for games, and nothing else, we'd never be able to support consoles at all. We'd also be throwing away the accumulated expertise of nine years (give or take) of use, for no other reason than Steam's not just about games anymore.
We've started re-evaluating our unquestioning support of consoles and their accessories, and I think that we'll need to do that for Steam at some point, too. As time goes on, and if the non-games start outweighing the games, we might want to take another look at whether or not Steam is something we're truly experts in.
That doesn't mean we're automatically going to support questions about 3DMark, or ArtRage, just because they use Steam. It can't be used as a "Get out of crappy question jail for free" card. Arqade is still about gaming. If a question is about Steam itself, right now, we support it, because it's still the same program we've known and tweaked and cursed and sometimes, even tolerated, for several years.
Some other fast points:
TL;DR:
It's Steam! Why are you questioning it? All hail our water vapor overlords!
