Valve continues in its quest for world domination with the announcement of Steam Music, soon to be a part of SteamOS, Big Picture and – eventually – the desktop Steam client.

Steam spokesperson Christen Coomer explains:

With Steam Music, you can now listen to your music collection while playing games. Once you’ve pointed Steam to your local music directory, your Steam Library will include Album and Artist views of your collection.

Promising a way for you to “Listen to your music collection while you play games”, it looks like it could be as simple a process as pointing your Steam client towards your local music collection, and letting the program do all the work.

Obviously, as Steam Music is designed to work with SteamOS, it’s also been configured specifically for the Steam Controller. Coomer explains that it’s not an exclusive deal though, and “keyboard and mouse users” will be able to jump into the active player by using the Big Picture main menu.

The player itself will then fit in as part of the Steam client overlay, and give you the ability to manage playlists, browse your library, and listen to your choice of tracks.

Want in? You’re in luck: Beta signups (of a kind) have started today! Just head to the Steam Music group and express your interest.

Group members will be invited in waves, until the feature is released to everyone.

At this stage, Steam Music will include “the most fundamental set of features to offer a great music listening experience” – it’s not quite finished yet. Online detectives have already discovered hints that Spotify integration is “in the works”, and Valve reassures us that “our next steps for the feature will be influenced by your beta feedback”, so – if you don’t want Steam Music to be “just another music player”, now’s your chance to make a difference.