NCsoft has embraced the digital distribution concept with their own PlayNC architecture, but in an about face, sources have told us that they will be turning to the Steam platform from Valve, as well, to take advantage of its 20 million users in order to reach more players.

First up on Steam is said to be City of Heroes, with Guild Wars and Lineage to follow on Steam in the coming weeks. The MMO underground rumbles with additional suggestions that the NCsoft MMO products will be offered in some sort of package deal with special pricing. We expect details to come to light in the next couple of days.

NCsoft has used other digital distribution providers before such as Direct2Drive, so the decision to branch out by offering their products on Steam (which has a much larger reach) really is not that much of a surprise. Our sources indicate that part of the reason to move to Steam right now is two-fold: first, the resurgence of City of Heroes due to the released user-generated content that we told you about recently, and secondly, NCsoft wants to get established on the Steam distribution platform prior to the release of Aion which will launch this fall and will also be available via Steam.