EGS is having an affect, Valve announce an almost complete redesign of your Steam Library

[Master Disaster]

Valve appeared at GDC to announce some big changes to Steam, more specifically the steam library.

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This week at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Valve announced a series of changes coming soon to Steam. Foremost among them are an overhauled game library and an event system that can be used by developers to keep players clued in about what’s happening in games they own.

 

During a press pre-briefing on Tuesday, Alden Kroll from Valve described the library changes as a “complete redesign.” Users’ Steam libraries will soon have their own home page, not unlike the Steam store’s front page. 

The new design features the ever popular Carousel and is going to be more tailored towards delivering online news and content updates.

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The Steam library home page will have a carousel dedicated to game updates and events, to keep players clued in about what’s going on in their games. There will also be a widget dedicated to friend activity, allowing you to see what your pals (and/or lifelong nemeses) are up to in individual games. From there, you’ll be able to matchmake into games with them, if you want.

 

Individual game pages in the Steam library are also getting re-tooled, again with a focus on providing players with information about updates, events, and friends. There’ll be a feed for events and updates, as well as one for friends’ screenshots, achievements, reviews, and things of the like. Here’s how that’ll look:

It will also be getting the same tagging system as the store and the ability to create groups by tags in the games that you own.

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Players will also soon be able to sort their games using the same tag system that the Steam store currently employs. Any games that fit the criteria for a specific collection—Kroll used open-world role-playing games as an example—will automatically be added to that collection, taking some of the hassle out of keeping your colossal game collection from bursting out of your figurative closet.

The final update will be an announcement system which will allow developers to deliver announcements about their games and online services straight to players. There will be traffic measuring systems for the back end too

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The other big change coming to Steam in the near future is a robust event system designed, said Kroll, to improve Steam’s functionality in this era of “live service games.” Developers will be able to announce an event—say, a tournament, a major update, or a livestream of a big esports match—and players will be able to receive notifications via the method of their choosing. Players will also be able to set reminders about the events that can reach them by way of email, text message, phone notification, Google Calendar, or other options.

This will all be bound together by an events home page that will be different for every user based on which games they have in their library. The page will have sections for recommended upcoming events, as well as “major” and “minor” ones.

The changes are currently in closed beta, open beta should start within a few months.

 

https://kotaku.com/steam-libraries-are-getting-an-overhaul-1833473185

 

Interesting changes, I like the new look. It's true what they say about competition being necessary for innovation.

[D13H4RD]

I'm curious over what more they'll do. 

 

Because as much as I hate exclusivity, Epic is starting to get Valve's attention, and I hope they respond appropriately. 

 

Just not with more exclusives, because fuck that. EGS third party exclusives are already bad enough. We don't need more. 

[Fnige]

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

 

tis is freakin BEEEEAUTIFULLL

[D13H4RD]

I think it'll be nice to see Valve give the Steam Client itself a design overhaul, especially with the big changes coming. 

 

As it stands, the UI is functional but nothing really more. And looks a bit out of place together with the overhauled main body. 

 

For the longest time, I've used Metro for Steam and I adore its look and feel. But I think Valve should do their own thing and find a way to make the Steam Client itself feel fresh in terms of design. 

[Quadriplegic]

What is this, Twitter?

 

Nnot a fan of cluster-like design, but I may not be one to talk, as I basically don't even use Steam client.

[BachChain]

Steam 2.0 has been known about for at least six months

[Derangel]

Its a bit of a stretch to say that this is due to Epic. Redesigns like this could take several months to even get to this state. There has been talk of big changes to Steam's UI since before Epic started trotting out exclusives.

[Delicieuxz]

Cool. I think it looks alright. I stick to the small-mode view, though, and I hope it's still basically the same after the update.

 

EGS might have pushed Valve to hurry up with it, but it's been long in the making.

 

3 minutes ago, BachChain said:

Steam 2.0 has been known about for at least six months

It's been talked about since early 2017.

 

https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-universal-new-client-leak

[D13H4RD]

4 minutes ago, Derangel said:

Its a bit of a stretch to say that this is due to Epic. Redesigns like this could take several months to even get to this state. There has been talk of big changes to Steam's UI since before Epic started trotting out exclusives.

It might have been expedited in response. 

 

Although I have a feeling more are coming 

[BachChain]

5 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

It's been talked about since early 2017.

 

https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam-universal-new-client-leak

Yeah, but it only left vaporware status after the launch of the chat overhaul

[Bananasplit_00]

This looks like hell for me, I have 180+ games, I want a compact list not a carousel that shows me like 5 games at a time 

 

*edit*

 

Actually that's fine looking, was hard to see on my phone 

[ZacoAttaco]

55 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Because as much as I hate exclusivity, Epic is starting to get Valve's attention, and I hope they respond appropriately.  

 

Just not with more exclusives, because fuck that. EGS third party exclusives are already bad enough. We don't need more.  

My concern with Epic is that I think they will just double-down on exclusives.

 

They've shown zero indication they plan on making a serviceable client.

[D13H4RD]

2 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

My concern with Epic is that I think they will just double-down on exclusives.

 

They've shown zero indication they plan on making a serviceable client.

Epic has claimed that they'll progressively tone done with the exclusives before foregoing them entirely. 

 

I hope they follow their word... 

[Derangel]

2 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

My concern with Epic is that I think they will just double-down on exclusives.

 

They've shown zero indication they plan on making a serviceable client.

 

Epic has stated they expect to slow down buying exclusives when/if Valve responds and moves away from the 30% cut.

 

They released a roadmap of improvements last week (I think). If they keep to it the client will get a lot better over time. They released it far, far, too early.

[D13H4RD]

9 minutes ago, Derangel said:

They released a roadmap of improvements last week (I think). If they keep to it the client will get a lot better over time. They released it far, far, too early.

That combined with the privacy issues alongside the exclusivity and Tencent has made people weary. 

 

All of this could have been handled far, far better. 

[Phentos]

Nice.

 

When is Valve gonna re-evaluate their revenue split? Getting real tired of the Tencent spyware grabbing all the good games like Metro, Satisfactory, and Outer Worlds.

[kilgore_T]

so much software is grey...enough with grey already

[Bouzoo]

How is that EGS effect? Steam occasionally gets an overhaul. 

Furthermore for people that missed it, Mirrors Edge Catalyst was shown on Steam in one picture. 

[Mihle]

We have known this have been in works for a long time, it has nothing to do with EGS.

[Humbug]

This has been in the works for some time.

 

Looks ok, will have to use it in person to get a real feel.

 

1 hour ago, Phentos said:

When is Valve gonna re-evaluate their revenue split? 

I think they should lower it to 20% across the board. 30% seems too much, although I know they maintain a massive infrastructure.

 

But the thing is Epic is offering big payouts to get exclusivity. This is apart from the revenue split. So even if Valve changes their revenue split they will still have the issue of paid exclusivity on Epic.

It's like the console wars, although it has some impact it's not the revenue split that buys exclusivity. It's other incentives that are thrown at the devs to keep the game off a competing platform.

[williamcll]

Yeah but where's Source engine 3?

[Salv8 (sam)]

i like the new one, i hope they keep the old one for those who want to continue using it

[RejZoR]

Epic's client, the garbage it is has no effect on anything...

[Master Delta Chief]

I doubt this has given the effect of pushing Valve for showing their new design on Steam. It was something that was planned for a while now. The only way Valve can actually make an effect upon the market is basically by coming with new games that people are actually interested into. Perhaps then they might make the decision of lowering down their percentage they take from the sales of a certain game so more money goes towards the developers. 

 

Anyways, when it comes to redesigning their overall UI, they should start doing the same thing to the Android and iOS app because that's been out-of-date for a very long time now. Still haven't got any group chat functions or whatever.

[Humbug]

7 minutes ago, Master Delta Chief said:

The only way Valve can actually make an effect upon the market is basically by coming with new games that people are actually interested into.

Modern big game development is difficult, rigorous, multi-year process involving large teams of employees with proper planning and break down milestones, hiring the required people and pushing through all obstacles to create a compelling and polished product both technically and artistically.

 

Doesn't sound like something modern Valve is capable of. They can do smaller projects very well, but they don't have that fire under their asses now.

 

If that Half Life VR game they are making turns out to be good I will concede I was wrong. But for now that's my opinion.

 

They couldn't even finish up their Source 2 engine to a state where they could release the SDK some 7 years after announcing it.