Valve’s Robin Walker has just published a blog post on the official Steam Blog which details Valve’s “philosophy” in regards to the upcoming changes planned for the Steam Store.
Walker explains the upcoming changes have been implemented based on user feedback, stating that Valve are always “really interested to read the discussions” which surround any changes or updates to the Steam Store. He lists the various users of the Store and its features (which boil down to a list of the different kind of gamers and developers) and also explains what’s been done so far, using Greenlight as an example of Valve making some “positive steps”.
The blog post details what is to come in terms of the future of the Steam Store, with Walker explaining that Valve wants to be more transparent about the “inner workings” of the Store. One example of this is the new explanatory text which accompanies the Store’s “Discovery Queue” feature: a “checklist” chunk of words which will explain why Steam’s algorithm has decided that this recommended game might be right for you. (Options include things like good reviews, and that a lot of your Steam friends have the game in their Wishlist.) As far as I can tell, it’s essentially a longer version of what was already in place.
He finishes with this, explaining what future blog posts will entail:
Hopefully this post gives you a better understanding of what we’re trying to do with the Steam Store. In our next post, we’ll be covering the ways that bad actors have been gaming the Store algorithms to create revenue for themselves, which confuses our algorithms enough that it starts serving customers less effectively. We’ll cover some changes that we believe should tackle the problem.
Following that, we’ll talk about Steam Direct’s publishing fee, and how we’re approaching that decision.
Reactions to the post have been mixed: some comments are praising Walker and co. for taking a step in the right direction in terms of putting users first again, whilst others only see this as an opportunity for Valve to make more money off of people via more extensive recommendations and features. A lot of people are also asking where they can leave their personal feedback in terms of how they think the Store is operating, and are wondering if Valve will create a dedicated forum thread for it. There are also lots and lots of comments asking if the old gifting system of storing games in inventories can be reinstated. People are still pretty upset about that.
What do you think about the planned Store changes? Let us know in the comments below!
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