Valve patent application hints at instant play of downloaded games

A patent application reveals that Valve is working on a feature that will allow games to be played directly on PC via Steam while they are still being downloaded. Valve would analyze the read operations of other users’ games and adjust the order of files to be downloaded.

According to the patent application, the underlying software analyzes the read operations of .exe files from various client machines already running the game. The access data determines an order in which other users can download the data. That order is aimed at ensuring that the player has the data as soon as possible to start and play the game, before the complete download is ready.

It seems that Valve doesn’t differentiate between new and old games; the analyzes can of course also be applied to existing games. It is currently unclear whether the functionality will actually be implemented in the Steam app or on SteamOS.

Companies such as Sony, Microsoft, EA and Blizzard have long offered gamers the option of playing games during installation or download. With the announcement of the PS4 in 2013, Sony announced that many titles would be playable after some of the installation files had been downloaded. The files were split up for this purpose, according to Sony. In 2018, Microsoft announced FastStart. This technology allowed Xbox One console users to launch their games after “a fraction” of the files had been downloaded. Through machine learning, an analysis was made about which files had to be downloaded first to start the game. FastStart was only possible via an internet connection with a download speed of at least 20Mbit/s and with a limited number of games.