Steam OS and Big Picture modes will soon include a music interface, as revealed by Valve last week. Gamers will be able to listen to their personal music collection while playing games with the integrated music player, which can organize music by album or artist. For gamers who spend hundreds of hours in a game, this added feature will be an added convenience for anyone who has special playlists for exploring in Skyrim or strategizing in Crusader Kings 2 .
Anyone who wants to take part in the Steam Music beta can join the community group; members of the group will receive invites in waves. After pointing Steam to the directory that houses your computer's music collection, you'll be able to navigate a display of songs, albums and artists directly from the in-game Steam overlay. For me, a big perk for this type of integration would be managing volume levels without having to alt+tab out to iTunes.
Valve promises that the future of in-game music integration will be based on beta feedback, so participation counts. Head over to the community group , where pleas for integration with streaming music services like Last.fm and Pandora have already begun.
