Valve has announced that publisher THQ has signed up to distribute its games on the US independent developer's Steam service.

MCV sister site Develop reports that the firms believes the industry will see product from "some of the most prestigious development studios in the gaming industry" on the site as a result.

The games are Gas Powered's Supreme Commander, Pandemic's two Full Spectrum Warrior Games, Relic's Warhammer 40,000 line and Company of Heroes, Lore's Titan Quest and its expansion plus GSC Game World's STALKER.

"In the past couple years, THQ has established itself as one of today's premier PC publishers," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve.

"This success has come through delivering truly innovative gameplay experiences in the most popular PC genres. It's great to finally be working together with THQ and its studio system and offer this award-winning line up to Steam's growing audience, which represents over 13 millions accounts."

THQ is, of course, not the first big publisher to step up and embrace Steam - Eidos, Activision, Capcom, Ubisoft and many others have games available to download on the service, which is also used by independent studios to distribute new titles and mods.