Steam is introducing a major site update, overhauling the way users access the frontpage and navigate the site. There are three new features coming with the update. Namely, these are the Steam Discovery Queue, Recommendations, and Steam Curators.
The queue uses Steam’s algorithms to find you games based on what are selling well, what games you have played before, and what you could be interested in. Steam hopes that this queue will ensure that you won’t miss any of the games you like.
Bolstering this is a Recommendations system, which uses user applied tags to determine what games you would like to play. Steam’s algorithms look at the tags at the games you play, and find matches with games you do not own yet. These recommendations are filtered further in terms of popularity, frequency, etc. You will see the results of these search operations in a new Recommendations feed.
Any Steam user can become a Steam Curator. On your Steam Curator Page, you can share a list of games you recommend to others. Once again, there will be no money exchanged between Valve and Steam users here, but it is certainly a new way to exert influence and increase your individual reputation.
All these features have some degree of customization, and will make Steam a more personalized, efficient experience.
However, discovery in app and game stores has remained an issue for years now, and not one platform holder has found a solution yet. This early on, RPS observes that Steam’s setup does not allow you to just see the latest released games. This is a concern for indies in particular, who may have completely unique and original games, but people will never know they exist.
In fact, old or new, unique games are unlikely to come up on recommendations or tag-based algorithms, as the same types of games remain popular, and the popularity of a smaller set of games is possibly reinforced by these systems. This conspires to make them even harder to find, and decreases their chances of success.
What do you think about Valve’s new system? What improvements did you want to see? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
