Valve has announced that it is making some changes to the Steam store page. In fact, it is available now, if you’re willing to wade through the field of uncertainty that is the beta client. Overall though, the idea is to consolidate a lot of the elements so that you get a cleaner experience.
On the announcement post, Valve notes that it is combining the left column and the blue bar at the top of the Steam store page. In its current form, the former is a bunch of links to categories that you may be interested in. You’ll also see some repeats in the latter, which the company says made it “hard to anticipate where to find what you needed”. The company is consolidating the two into just the bar at the top, which will appear on more pages.
Said bar is also where the search panel is, which Valve also says it will be improving. The new one will also offer more options, including Popular Searches that shows you what others are searching for, and Recently Viewed which is self explanatory. Then there’s also the ability to search for categories, tags, publishers and more than just titles. Finally, there’s “Advanced Search link” with filters to go with them. It doesn’t sound like you’ll be able to search for games by their acronyms still, though.
The Browse, Recommendations and Categories & Tags tabs of the Steam store page are also getting reworked a little. Valve is giving these pages much larger buttons, while also personalising the latter for you. This, combined with the Popular Searches bit mentioned above, seems to have a pretty straightforward goal. Which is selling more games to you.
Again, to see these changes now, you have to be participating in the Steam Client Beta. No word on when these will go onto the general live client. Hopefully it happens before the next seasonal sale.
(Source: Valve)
