The Steam store page could soon be drastically changing. That's according to SteamDB , who have been sleuthing out CSS stylesheets and digging through updates to the Steam Translation Server. Their investigations have found references to new content curation options, new frontpage behaviour, and a variety of additional improvements.
Here's a run-down of what's been found:
- Content Curation: this would allow individuals or groups to recommend games to their followers. It sounds a bit like the current reviews feature, but would likely integrate more fully into the store's frontpage. Valve has increasingly stepped away from curating their platform, so it makes sense that they would shift the responsibility onto their users.
- Discovery Queue: seemingly this will work like Greenlight's queue, offering you a selection of games tailored to your preferences and filters.
- Followed Games: this appears to be a replacement for official game groups—letting you instead follow the games themselves.
- Owned Highlighting: an icon that will appear next to games that you own or have in your wishlist—preventing you from being all "oh, that game is cheap, I'm going to buy it", and then later, going "oh, I already own it. Woe is me and my appalling financial decisions". This function is similar to that offered by many third-party apps, like the brilliant Enhanced Steam .
- Two-step Authentication: new methods of authenticating Steam Guard beyond your email address. SteamDB reference the Steam Mobile app and Google Authenticator as alternatives.
- Search Revamp: more options for searching, including tags, features, number of players and operating system.
- Personalised Frontpage: more control over which games appear on the store page, for instance, new releases, popular new releases, games that are not in your account, or DLC for games you already own.
While none of this is officially confirmed, the references were found within Steam's servers—lending credibility to their eventual introduction. It also makes sense given the recent beta overhaul of the Steam library, which is now slightly bluer, and lets people select multiple games as part of a quest to easily categorise everything.
See a full breakdown of what's expected by visiting the SteamDB post , where you'll also find some work-in-progress screenshots.
