Adding to their their already expansive and versatile Steam digital distribution service, Valve announced Steam Cloud, a service that will allow gamers to store data such as their saved games, system configurations, and more on Steam's servers.

The announcement, which was made earlier today via a live Rock, Paper, Shotgun blog session from Valve, should come as good news to gamers who have had the misfortune of losing saved data due to technical difficulties, as well as those who enjoy their Steam library on multiple systems.

"Your games are now available on any PC," said RPS writer John Walker, "and you can play exactly where you left off, without having to invert the mouse and disassemble your friend's lunatic configuration."

Additional functionality will include a system scan that will determine whether your machine can run a specific game. Also planned is a driver auto-update function, which will check your rig's current hardware for any and all updated driver files. Finally, the days of going to your sound card manufacturer's site, then hopping onto your video card manufacturer's site, then snagging new mouse drivers - those cumbersome days look to be finished thanks to Steam Cloud.

Walker continued by saying that the real excitement should come in the versatility and innovation Valve constantly adds to their Steam service and, subsequently, to PC gaming as a whole. "PC gaming is strong, and getting stronger, and Valve wanted to say so," Walker wrote.

Steam Cloud will be released as a free update and will be available soon.