Steam to Get Big UI Changes Soon: Valve

Valve has notified developers of a host of changes to Steam – the world’s largest PC game distribution platform. These include an overhaul of the home page, additional navigation options, improved curator presence, and a whole lot more.

“We wanted to let you know about some upcoming improvements we’re working on for the Steam Store and what it might mean for your game,” a private post on a Steam developer group that found its way to NeoGAFreads.

(Also see: Steam User Reviews Will Now Include Games Not Bought on Steam: Valve)

“When we launched the Steam Discovery Update, we introduced a new and smarter Steam store built around personalization and recommendations. In the time since the Discovery Update, we’ve iterated on the features and made improvements to support the goal of helping each customer find the titles they are most likely to enjoy playing. We think our progress in this direction has been really valuable in supporting a broader variety of gaming experiences big and small, while better serving individual customer tastes.”

The post goes on to state what you can expect. These include a home page visual refresh, resulting in bigger images in a few places and to “add some new ways of surfacing games, and remove some visual clutter.”

Furthermore, the navigation column on the left will contain links to new releases, top sellers, recently updated games, upcoming releases, and specials. When logged in, users will see what’s popular among friends, their discovery cue, and recommendations from curators they follow.

(Also see: Steam on Windows 10 Will Get ‘Progressively Worse’: Gears of War Developer)

Interestingly, it goes onto to explain changes in terms of how new games used to get visibility on Steam and how it wasn’t working, highlighting the fact that discoverability isn’t a problem for the App Store and Google Play alone.