Mid Dec. 2008 Electronic Arts finally caved and decided to offer its latest titles through Valve's digital delivery system Steam, in addition to its own, often criticized, EA Store. The initial titles were Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online, Mass Effect, Need for Speed Undercover and FIFA Manager 2009, with more to follow. Several weeks later a second batch of titles has been added, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, and Dead Space with Mirror's Edge to follow in the near future.

The Steam Holiday sale is on now. Through Jan. 2, 2009, every game on Steam is available at 10% to 75% off the regular price. Select publisher catalogs such as Ubisoft, THQ, and 2K Games are 25% off. Award-winning titles such as Bioshock and Portal are available for 75% off the regular price.

Meridian4 has decided to give gamers a break this holiday season and will slash its Steam lineup by 50%, while also introducing the Meridian4 pack, where you can get every single one of their games on Steam for one low price of $49.99.

Last week, EA brought its titles to the North American users of Steam, and now Europeans also have access to the same titles, such as Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Mass Effect, Need for Speed Undercover and FIFA Manager 2009, with Red Alert 3, Mirror's Edge and Dead Space to follow shortly.

As was hinted at earlier this week with the sudden Spore EULA appearance, EA is bringing its titles to Steam starting with Spore, Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Mass Effect, Need for Speed Undercover and FIFA Manager 2009, with Red Alert 3, Mirror's Edge and Dead Space to follow shortly.

Even though last year Valve and EA partnered up to distribute The Orange Box, which was available at retail and as digital download, both companies have their own download services. Earlier this year, Crytek signed its own agreement with Valve to offer Crysis Warhead, an EA title, through its Steam delivery service, which is superior to EA's download platform. A recently spotted End User License Agreement for Spore might be the first indication that financially hurting EA might be considering offering its titles on Steam, starting with Maxis' life simulation game.

Overgrowth takes place in the savage world of Lugaru where rabbits, wolves and other animals are forced to use paws, claws and medieval weaponry to engage each other in battle. Using Wolfire's brand new Phoenix Engine, Overgrowth combines third-person adventure platforming with intricate melee combat.

The THQ Collector's Pack, which includes one dozen titles from top franchises such as Company of Heroes, Titan Quest, and Dawn of War, is now available via Steam for just $99.99 — a savings of more than $100. In addition to the THQ Pack, Titan Quest Gold (the complete Titan Quest collection) is available at a 50% savings through Monday, Dec. 1, 2008.

Rockstar is bringing its open-ended crime series to the PC with GTA IV, returning the franchise to New York situated around the Eastern European protagonist Nikolai. The PC edition comes with a replay editor with Rockstar Social Club integration, expanded multiplayer, higher resolution, and match filtering.

Valve is now offering Half-Life for just 98¢ in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the company's debut title. Launched 10 years ago today, Half-Life was greeted with overwhelming review scores (Metacritic of 96%), earned over 50 Game of the Year Awards, and birthed a franchise with over 20 million units sold to date. The special 10 year anniversary price is available via Steam until 12:01 pm PST on Nov. 21.

Silent Hill: Homecoming is a psychological horror game thrusting players into a shadowy world of chaos and terror with atmospheric HD graphics, an all-new iconic and chilling soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka, and an original storyline that sheds new light on the desolate, fog-shrouded town of Silent Hill. For the next 5 days PC fans will receive a 10% discount on Steam.

Valve announced the roll out of Steam Cloud, a set of services for Steam that stores application data online (keyboard, mouse, and gamepad configurations, as well as multiplayer settings such as spraypaint images) and allows user experiences to be consistent from any PC.

Empire: Total War, the new installment in The Creative Assembly’s Total War RTS franchise, will maintain the series 3D battles, grand turn based campaign map and rich historical flavor while for the first time introducing 3D naval combat into the series. The Special Forces Edition includes a range of exclusive elite units and a detailed print of the globe-spanning Campaign Map. Steamworks adds downloadable content, friend-list support and achievements.

Hidden Path Entertainment's Defense Grid: The Awakening is a unique spin on tower defense gameplay that will appeal to players of all skill levels, featuring beautiful environments, spectacular effects, and a dynamic, engaging soundtrack.

Fallout 3 places a player in the role of a Vault-dweller, who ventures from his secluded, underground survival Vault into a post-apocalyptic world of mutants, radiation, gangs and violence. Bethesda Softworks' post apocalyptic RPG Fallout� 3 is now available for pre-order via Valve's digital download service Steam.

Exodus from the Earth is a sci-fi first-person shooter, where the player will have to solve numerous quests and eventually to find out if human life and civilization are possible beyond the Earth's confines. Until Oct. 24th, fans who pre-order on Steam will receive a 10% discount.

Tripwire Interactive announced that select MODs created for Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 are now available free of charge directly through Steam to all owners of the popular World War II themed online action title. To celebrate Tripwire is reducing the price 75% to $4.99 until Monday 20th October.

Set in a modern day survival-horror universe, the co-operative gameplay of Left 4 Dead casts four "Survivors" in an epic struggle against hordes of swarming zombies and terrifying "Boss Infected" mutants. Pre-Orders, now on Steam for 10% off, for L4D are already 65% higher than The Orange Box.

Galactic Bowling is a new stylized sports video game, powered by the Vicious Engine, delivering stunning, detailed graphics as well as intuitive and fluid, lifelike game play. Pre-order now and take 10% off its regular price ($19.99).

X³: Terran Conflict is a new stand-alone game set in the universe of X³. It is the culmination of the X trilogy, with a grand finale that takes us all the way back to Earth's own solar system. Fans can now pre-order the game on Steam, while World of Goo, a physics-based puzzle/construction game, will be available on Oct. 13, 2008.

Sports Interactive's long running sports simulation franchise is getting a new installment with Football Manager 2009, known in North America as Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009, which is finally making the move to 3D with a new match engine.

Pyroblazer is a futuristic combat racing game set amidst the awe-inspiring locations of New Apeiron, where players get the opportunity to race through a multitude of environments using a wide selection of anti-gravity craft known as Blazers.

The first five MODs to ship on steam will be Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. As always, owners of any Source game will be able to download and play all of these MODs for free." Mods hosted on Steam will also use Steamworks for stat tracking an other community integration. Once installed, these MODs will appear in your "My Games" list and will receive automatic updates just like other games on Steam.

Valve let us know that every Rockstar game and games pack is currently available for a 50% savings, including the classic Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne games, but only this weekend, so have at it while they're cheap.