Home Gaming Steam’s overhauled front page is still quite confusing

Steam’s overhauled front page is still quite confusing

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Steam updates its front page

I love Steam as a service, but I’m firmly in the basket of people who believe that service is in dire need of some major changes. The dawn of Greenlight a few years ago and the ease at which games could be published on the store made the entire platform extremely messy, not to mention a nightmare to actually navigate. The Discovery 2.0 update, which Valve just launched, was meant to fix a lot of that and, unsurprisingly, it hasn’t really done much.

For an update Valve has been touting for most of the year now, the revamp is oh so slight that you might no pick it up at first. The front page is slightly restructured, taking a focus on personalisation more than anything. What is nifty is the large bar of options down the left, which gives you quick access to friends, what they’re playing and any recent top selling titles. The rotating feature bar can also be tweaked to your preference now, which is quite handy.

The biggest change here is that, in line with Valve’s new policy, you’ll only be served screenshots of the game you’re looking at purchasing that come from the game itself. No concept art, no logos, just a clear view of what the game looks like. At least to the best possible degree (we all know how murky those waters can get prior to launch).

From there the front page is quite similar, listing deals, recently launched games and predicting what titles you might be interested it. It doesn’t make finding a particular game any easier than it was in the past, which is still a problem in the content heavy platform. Curators are given a bit more freedom to help sort that out, with each page allowing their admins to specifically recommend a game directly. It’s something, but if you aren’t already following a few curators it makes little to no difference.

It’s certainly not an update to get too excited over, and not at all indicative that Valve really understands the more serious issues their platform has with content discovery. It’s just a fancier front page for you to quickly click out of as you head to you library.

Last Updated: November 8, 2016

27 Comments

  1. Ottokie

    November 8, 2016 at 08:38

    I don’t like change 🙁

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      November 8, 2016 at 08:44

      R5 coins are very handy though.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn_hates_Raid0

        November 8, 2016 at 08:49

        For buying games during a Steam Sale?

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          November 8, 2016 at 09:01

          ALL THE GAMES! Except GTAV, that’s still a lot. 😀

          Reply

          • Skyblue

            November 8, 2016 at 10:50

            Over 10 million copies sold again this year… Get comfy and wait

          • Alien Emperor Trevor

            November 8, 2016 at 11:28

            Maybe never, I’m not all that keen on dl’ing 60gb either. 😀

          • Dungeon of JJ

            November 8, 2016 at 11:51

            It’s not really worth that 60GB+price. Sleeping Dogs is still superior imo.

        • Admiral Chief - N7

          November 8, 2016 at 09:02

          I hope Trump gives us cheeeeep games soon

          Reply

    • Admiral Chief - N7

      November 8, 2016 at 09:04

      Spoiler alert, your count(otto:year) has CHANGED recently…

      Reply

      • Ottokie

        November 8, 2016 at 09:09

        LEVEL UP!

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief - N7

          November 8, 2016 at 09:15

          Did you choose the LESS ANNOYING perk?

          Reply

          • Ottokie

            November 8, 2016 at 09:22

            Yup, I chose the skill that slows your metabolism for survival.

          • Admiral Chief - N7

            November 8, 2016 at 09:30

            Oooooh nice

          • VampyreSquirrel

            November 8, 2016 at 09:38

            Hahaha, no chance of him choosing that… he probably added +1 the brony

          • Admiral Chief - N7

            November 8, 2016 at 09:41

            +10 singing (quantity, not quality)

      • VampyreSquirrel

        November 8, 2016 at 09:11

        He changed! So he doesn’t like himself at the moment?

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief - N7

          November 8, 2016 at 09:15

          According to his statement, yes

          Reply

  2. Alien Emperor Trevor

    November 8, 2016 at 08:45

    Well it is an improvement, not much of one, but it’s a start.

    Reply

  3. Skyblue

    November 8, 2016 at 10:44

    Okay, I don’t get the all the fuss about this. My Steam starts up straight into my game Library (as it should with Family View enabled) so I never go into the Store unless I want to. I never have a problem finding games because there is a search bar and I certainly think the current layout is much cleaner than having all that Greenlight trash shoved in my face every time I browse the store.

    It’s better, that’s a start.

    Reply

    • Dungeon of JJ

      November 8, 2016 at 11:39

      My Steam has always opened up to the library, it’s just a setting if you want it to open to the store instead.

      Reply

      • Skyblue

        November 8, 2016 at 11:42

        Exactly, my comment was in reference to “It’s just a fancier front page for you to quickly click out of as you head to you library.”

        I think the gripes in the article weren’t even worth the time I spent reading them.

        Reply

        • Dungeon of JJ

          November 8, 2016 at 12:02

          Yea, different to Origin and Uplay pretty much everything is customisable on Steam. And I’ve personally never had an issue with the store page. Even if it did open to that, so what? Maybe I spot something cool that I didn’t know about. That’s part of the fun with pc gaming.

          Reply

  4. Dungeon of JJ

    November 8, 2016 at 11:38

    Yea, confusing for peasants! 😛

    Reply

  5. Dungeon of JJ

    November 8, 2016 at 11:41

    I like the change. It’s way nicer. The whole thing that makes Steam so much better than all the other clients is the amount of info available to you. That’s important to a lot of people (myself included) to make an informed decision. The store page in Origin tells me nothing of use besides pc requirements, so it’s never been good at convincing me to bother to get a game from there.

    Reply

    • Skyblue

      November 8, 2016 at 11:43

      Origin is cancer and will eventually spread to rest of your PC organs if care is not taken ;-p

      Reply

      • Dungeon of JJ

        November 8, 2016 at 11:58

        Haha. I accidentally clicked on mine the other day, but it needed ANOTHER update, so I could kill it before it opened XD

        Reply

    • miaau

      November 8, 2016 at 12:33

      Yeah, I agree.

      It still needs work though.

      Reply

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