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As we learned earlier this year, Valve is planning some significant changes to the Steam Store at the moment. One of the key changes has been Steam's recommendation algorithm, which Valve has now fully detailed in a new update, going over the Steam Store's ‘philosophy' and the tech behind it all.
In the first of a series of three upcoming community posts, Valve has taken the time to explain its thinking behind the Steam Store and its next steps.
For starters, Valve has divided Steam users into two core groups, players and developers. One of the problems Valve has faced thus far is implementing changes that are beneficial to both groups and most of the time, these two groups have “competing interests”. As a result, Valve is going to be more transparent about the thought process behind these changes and how it impacts both sets of Steam users. In return, the company hopes that this creates more valuable feedback.
One of the more recent changes made to Steam has been the Discovery update, which did help smaller developers get their games noticed but didn't necessarily benefit players who are mainly interested in big triple A titles. As a result, going forward game pages on Steam will now include an “algorithm section” that lists off the reasons the store thinks a game will be interesting to you specifically.
This algorithm section will also give reasons as to why you may not be interested in a specific game, essentially showing where the algorithm may have gone wrong.
Now that this first blog post is out in the public eye, Valve's next one will be based on the “bad actors” who have been gaming the store algorithms in order to generate revenue for themselves. This post will also centre around how Valve intends to fight the problem. The final post will centre around Steam Direct and Valve's proposed fees, which have been under consideration for several months now.
KitGuru Says: Valve is being more open about how it operates now than ever before. Posts like these are a good example of that. Do many of you pay attention to Steam's recommendations on the store home page? Have you ever bought a game off the back of one?
Mainpage on steam POPULAR NEW RELEASES in at number 8 is the surprisingly well reviewed Sci-Fi Space Horror Prey……..and in at number 7 the game you’ve all been waiting for, that’s right tell the kids to put down the homework it’s finally here….PORNO STUDIO TYCOON with a massive -26% off. lol FFS Steam get a grip…..but not too tight.
I don’t know what the hell they did to Steam but I hope they carry on doing it, I’ve saved an absolute fortune. Since the new algorithm I’ve just about stopped buying games. I have 190 games because I like to take a punt and try Indie games and obscure stuff, things like Sunless Sea, Eufloria and The Long Dark as well as the Usual stuff like CIV 5 but the algorithm sees this and then offers up an endless stream of clones and games under the catch-all Adventure or Open World.
Skip past FEATURED AND RECOMMENDED and you have SPECIAL OFFERS, general rule of thumb is if it’s not in your wish list avoid the temptation of the special offer.
Then you have YOUR DISCOVERY QUEUE…….which is not, it’s their discovery queue. I can’t remember being interested in at least 75% of those games so who compiled the list???
They better do something already, cause as it is atm it is a cesspool not a store.
Crippling store gifts won’t help them for sure.