Home Gaming Steam’s search function has been overhauled and it should be a lot easier to find stuff

Steam’s search function has been overhauled and it should be a lot easier to find stuff

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The addition of new filters and an infinite scrolling option means it should be much easier to unearth that one indie game you’ve heard so much about.

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Steam is great, we all use it, we all love it. It was a game changer over a decade ago and it still maintains its dominance as a digital platform despite the recent surge in competition. Yet while we can all sit here and wax lyrical about the great deals and convenience of Valve’s marketplace, let us also not forget that searching for games on Steam sucks. Like, it suuuuuuuuuuuuucks. The search function feels clunky and outdated and just in serious need of some kind of revamp. Which, fortunately for us folks that don’t want to sift through thousands of hentai sliding puzzle games, is about to change as Valve has announced that Steam Experiment Labs 4 is targeting the Search function.

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The expansion of Steam’s search function was first started back in September 2019 as a part of the Steam Labs program, which looks at improving Steam to a point where it’s actually not a hideous pain to use. These improvements have now gone live and include a range of new options to help you search through the seemingly endlessly increasing wave of games being added to the marketplace every day.

A price slider, tag inclusions and exclusion and the option to exclude games already owned or on your wishlist will no doubt make the system much easier to use. Beyond that, you’ll also be able to exclude games of certain languages and VR-exclusive games. Maybe I’m a cynic but when I read through those additions, my first reaction wasn’t one of happiness but more confusion. Those just seem like really simple additions to the search feature and I’m baffled that it took Valve this long to implement them.

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Infinite scroll is now also an option for those of you who hate having to manually select a new page to load up instead of fighting the carpel tunnel slowly developing in your index finger. After this update went live, Steam confirmed that they have more improvements for Steam’s search engine planned for the future and invited users to provide feedback over on the Steam Labs page.

Last Updated: February 26, 2020

4 Comments

  1. Pariah

    February 26, 2020 at 14:18

    But can it find my dad?

    *sobs quietly*

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      February 26, 2020 at 14:59

      I wouldn’t bet against there being a “Find My Dad Simulator” game.

      Reply

  2. Son of Banana Jim

    February 26, 2020 at 15:24

    “Steam is great, we all use it, we all love it.”

    Is that a love born from a natural sense of desire and attraction or was it forced upon our young minds? Wouldn’t it be more true to say that we’re all suffering from Stockholm Syndrome? Or perhaps it’s a love emerging from necessity, like being a 1950s housewife, forced to care about her uninteresting and fat middle-aged husband. I wouldn’t say I love steam. It’s provided me many amazing sales, but love… ? Would I be gutted if it disappeared tomorrow? I doubt it, but I will certainly mourn the lack of access to a library that I’ve build up over nearly two decades.

    Reply

  3. HvR

    February 26, 2020 at 18:48

    I have honestly never had an issue searching on steam.

    I type in the name and auto suggestion pops up with the correct one 4 letters into the title.

    I also never search blindly as Steam is enticing my gaming budget out of me by the 2nd week of the month like Old Dodgy Pete in his old Carravel with Suggu sweeties next to the playpark.

    Reply

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