New Steam feature allows all games to support persistent items

All Steam developers now have the option to support tradable, persistent items - like Team Fortress 2's hats.

Valve has released a new API for Steamworks, which it's calling The Steam Inventory Service. Currently in beta testing, the feature allows developers to enable "persistent items that have been purchased or unlocked by individual users" without writing their own systems in support of this.

"With this service, a game can easily drop items to customers based on playtime or can grant items based on specific situations or actions within the game," Valve said in a Steam News post.

"These items can be marked as tradable through Steam or sellable via the Steam Marketplace. Developers can also configure recipes for crafting different combinations of items that result in more rare, unique, or valuable items."

Steamworks now offers a a pretty huge list of benefits for developers in addition to DRM and the biggest PC storefront in the world - achievements, cloud saves, authentication services, error reporting, leaderboards, matchmaking, Steam Workshop, peer-to-peer networking, in-game overlay, downloadable content and more.