Home Gaming Valve reveals eight big changes for Steam in 2019

Valve reveals eight big changes for Steam in 2019

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Steam-cha-cha-changes

2019 may just be the most crucial year for Valve and their Steam platform. After years of digital distribution dominance (try saying that five times fast), the platform is currently under siege from all sides. It’s totally like the battle of Helm’s Deep in that one Lord of the Rings movie, with the Uruk-Hai being every other new dedicated platform from a publisher and the Epic Games Store being this dude:

Orcamikaze

Anyway, Valve has begun to realise that even with record-breaking numbers of users and games on their side, it can’t just be business as usual for Steam. In a blog post, Valve detailed new features for their system, such as a library update, an entry in the Chinese marketplace and a new events system. Here’s a quick breakdown of what Valve has planned for the future of Steam:

Store Discoverability

We’re working on a new recommendation engine powered by machine-learning, that can match players to games based on their individual tastes. Algorithms are only a part of our discoverability solution, however, so we’re building more broadcasting and curating features and are constantly assessing the overall design of the store.

Steam China

We’ve partnered with Perfect World to bring Steam onshore into China. We’ll reveal more details about this in the coming months.

Steam Library Update

Some long awaited changes to the Steam Client will ship, including a reworked Steam Library, built on top of the technology we shipped in Steam Chat.

New Events System

We’re upgrading the events system in the Steam Community, enabling you to highlight interesting activities in your games like tournaments, streams, or weekly challenges.

Steam TV

We’re working on expanding Steam TV beyond just broadcasting specific tournaments and special events, in order to support all games.

Steam Chat

We’re going to ship a new Steam Chat mobile app, so you can share your favorite GIFs with your friends while on the go.

Steam Trust

The technology behind Trusted Matchmaking on CS:GO is getting an upgrade and will become a full Steam feature that will be available to all games. This means you’ll have more information that you can use to help determine how likely a player is a cheater or not.

Steam PC Cafe Program

We are going to officially ship a new PC Cafe Program so that players can have a good experience using Steam in hundreds of thousands of PC Cafes Worldwide.

It all sounds good, but Steam is still going to need to show off some big guns if it wants to compete with the Epic Games Store, whose generous split between sales and distribution fees is starting to become mighty tempting for the biggest publishers and developers on the block. That, and having a way to see fewer cookie-cutter hentai puzzle games would probably be neat…or in my case, I’d like to see more of them. Don’t judge me.

Last Updated: January 15, 2019

39 Comments

  1. 8/8 not relevant to me

    Reply

  2. Alien Emperor Trevor

    January 15, 2019 at 10:17

    So many hentai puzzle games while browsing my discovery queue during the sale. So many.

    If there’s one thing I wish Steam would do it’s better curation. And I know they’re very laissez-faire about what get’s released on the store and how’s they don’t want to be perceived as gatekeepers, but fuck me there’s a lot of real shit.

    My suggestion would be to have a 3-way split in the store:
    1) A human-curated section with actual quality control on release-ready games with some minimum criteria for them and an eyeball test
    2) Early access – which would graduate to 1 on release should they choose to undergo the curation process
    3) The wild west – everything else

    It doesn’t stop anyone from releasing stuff on Steam, but it’d give a better user experience because you can decide how deep into the rabbit hole you want to go.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      January 15, 2019 at 10:17

      1. Fully agree
      2. Fully agree

      Steam is like the Google Play Store, majority is copy/paste garbage or no effort garbage

      Reply

  3. Dutch Matrix

    January 15, 2019 at 10:30

    Only game or rather, DLC I bought in recent memory is Far Harbour for Fallout 4. No games for me. Also, none of those new features will make a big hoo-ha in my life so…

    Reply

  4. G8crasha

    January 15, 2019 at 12:19

    I admit, the Steam Library is functional, but I would love to see a whole new rework of its frontend appearance.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief

      January 15, 2019 at 12:25

      ^^^

      Reply

  5. Admiral Chief

    January 15, 2019 at 10:17

    Now I’ve been a Steam user since Orange Box. And the last two years, Steam has got little to nothing from me moneywise, nothing excites me about Steam anymore. Either I’m getting old and grumpy and love towards Valve is about as big as Darryn’s fanbase…or Steam really needs to bring some innovation

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      January 15, 2019 at 10:31

      I do very little impulse or day-one purchasing now, save all my purchasing for the winter & xmas sales for the most part. Buy in bulk & save yo.

      Reply

      • Pariah

        January 15, 2019 at 10:35

        Humble Monthly. Bulk. Cheap. All the gaming I could ever need.

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          January 15, 2019 at 10:40

          Yeah, and I only kept my sub active for 3 months last year, and I’ve paused the new one too. It’s not great when I either have the main games or they’re online stuff I couldn’t care less about. Not interested in gambling $12/month on the rest of the lucky packet.

          Reply

          • Pariah

            January 15, 2019 at 12:45

            Eh that’s fair. I like the random little surprises. Spotify calls them tastebreakers, I like that sort of thing. But, it’s 100% got less value if like you, the games are either owned or unwanted.

      • Admiral Chief

        January 15, 2019 at 10:51

        I planned on getting MYZ, and I loved it.
        I planned on getting BattleTech for MONTHS, and glad I got it.

        Both gave me DOZENS and DOZENS of hours of pleasure, and still enjoying BattleTech

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          January 15, 2019 at 11:21

          Battletech is awesome. I backed the KS so I got it nice & early.

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief

            January 15, 2019 at 12:25

            Yeah man, digging it big time. Love managing everything, combat is harsh but rewarding, story is good, the ‘animation’ of the people in campaign is unique. Totally worth it

    • Pariah

      January 15, 2019 at 10:26

      The only time I’ve bought from Steam in the last year or so is if I see a streamer playing a game that I like. Otherwise, I really don’t spend money on the store. Even sales, like I just don’t even bother looking any more. I check my wishlist occasionally, but that’s about it.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief

        January 15, 2019 at 10:31

        I went totally SPENDY McSPENDFACE in December and bought TWO games
        Mutant Year Zero (again, because of how damn awesome it is)
        BattleTech (because sale, and GIANT ROBOTS)

        Reply

        • Pariah

          January 15, 2019 at 10:35

          TWO GAMES?! Holy shit you really went all out there!

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief

            January 15, 2019 at 10:40

            Yeah man, BIG SPENDER, a full R350!!!

          • Pariah

            January 15, 2019 at 10:46

            Are you sure Steam deserved the R105 they got from that?

          • Admiral Chief

            January 15, 2019 at 10:51

            Absolutely not

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