Buying and listening to music on Steam gets better and easier

Valve has announced several welcome changes regarding the sale of music albums on Steam.

The first major change for Steam in 2020 is not about games, but games music. Specifically, Valve announced that as of today, game soundtracks are no longer treated as DLC game accessories but as separate products.

There are several benefits to users, the first being the fact that it is now possible to buy an album of music from a game without having purchased the game on Steam. Also, to download music from the game, you no longer need to install the game itself.

Furthermore, this means that Steam music albums will be available for sale on Steam. Users will be able to choose where they store downloaded music, and will be able to organize their catalog more easily through the new Steam interface. There will also be an option to choose the format in which the music is downloaded (eg MP3, FLAC, WAV) if the music manufacturer chooses to offer this option.

Admittedly, with the introduction of the new system, not all game soundtracks so far will magically switch to this new format. It's up to the developers to convert them themselves. However, Valve hopes to have a decent amount of music albums on offer as of January 20, when they plan action reductions for the range.