Hooray! Steam Adding Remote Game Installs

Wait, why did I write "hooray" up there? This is terrible. The one thing that has - during Steam sales - kept me from making broken bacon from every last piggy bank in my possession is distance. Sure, while out-and-about, I could ogle the deals du jour on my phone or what have you, but it was like standing on the opposite side of the glass from a whimpering, doe-eyed puppy. I could look, but - much as it broke my screaming heart - I couldn't touch. Now, though, that's all about to change. The buying-games-on-the-go part, I mean. I still can't have a puppy, because mine is the harshest existence.

On the Steam forums, Valve's heralded the arrival of a new beta patch that will allow you to manage and install games on your main machine from any browser or mobile device. Steam feature betas are usually fairly quick affairs, so I'm guessing the full release will be live before too much longer. If you'd like to tame the mysterious telepathic beast as soon as possible, though, Valve's already released incredibly simple instructions here.

This, of course, enables many possibilities equal parts enticing and appetizing. No pre-loading? No problem anymore. Queue up your game at work and play when you get home. Same goes for being out of town, stuck in rush hour traffic, an internationally wanted fugitive mid-hurried-midnight-flight from the authorities, etc. This is a brave new world. Do you think Valve will let us download self-control any time soon?