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New Steam Store, Lots Of New Stuff

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The new Steam store homepage has been launched and it's a massive change. We are also now curators to help you find games to buy.

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First of all make sure you join our GamingOnLinux Steam Group. We will recommend games for you to buy that have good Linux support, so be sure to keep an eye on it.

The main aim of the new store-front is to stop Steam being so static, so to be more personal to you it's all based on what your friends recommend, what you have looked at and purchased before, and what groups you follow recommend.

This is far, far better than just seeing a flooded new releases section full of whatever games Steam decides to greenlight or for publishers to mass-push old games onto the store.

A new major feature is the Steam Discovery Queue which is made up of titles recommended for you to browse through, and it works much like how greenlight does. You can skip titles, add to your wishlist, follow a game to see information pop up in your activity feed or mark something as not being interesting for you. I look forward to seeing what it picks up for me after a while.

The search function has also been through a major revamp (finally) with more detailed options to really find what you want and it's actually quite useful now.

The best part about it is the fact that games on your wishlist in the games lists are highlighted, and games you already own are faded out, so it again highlights games you don't already own to help you track down new titles to play.

Games pages also no longer list Windows, Mac & Linux system requirements together. They are now in tabs at the bottom of the games page, and it seems to automatically go to Linux first if you are on Linux and the game supports it. So that's pretty handy, but I doubt many people actually ever look at system requirements unless they are on low powered computers.

What are your thoughts on it? It's very blue, so good job blue is my favourite colour! I am surprised a couple items from your activity page aren't on the home-page to make it easier to follow updates for games and people you are following.

The only problem is that it again hides lesser-known and less popular games, so that gives them even less of a chance. This is what the curators system is there for and makes it quite important.

The only thing that has bothered me is this:
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Come on Valve, "PC" is not an operating system. Although trying to fight that argument is pretty much a dead horse now. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial, Steam
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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24 comments
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km3k Sep 23, 2014
"Mac" isn't really an OS either. Ideally they'd use something like:
  • Windows

  • Mac OS X

  • Linux / SteamOS



I thought I saw it say "Linux / SteamOS" somewhere last night, but I don't see that anymore. At least they went to just "Linux" instead of just "SteamOS".
Hyeron Sep 23, 2014
The curator thing, in its current state, is a farce. Zeboyd recommend Zeboyd games? Devolver recommend Devolver games? Chucklefish recommend Starbound? Yea. Big surprise there.
Crowdsourcing never works. When will they learn? -_-
HadBabits Sep 23, 2014
Quoting: HyeronThe curator thing, in its current state, is a farce. Zeboyd recommend Zeboyd games? Devolver recommend Devolver games? Chucklefish recommend Starbound? Yea. Big surprise there.
Crowdsourcing never works. When will they learn? -_-

I wouldn't say it's that bad. Sure it's silly to have developers recommend their own games, but who's gonna follow them? In the mean time you've got people like TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling; as well as GOL ;)
Fate Sep 23, 2014
the new home page is great but damn dont scroll down i bought a crap load after they made the change its like the store page knows you its scary lol
FergleFergleson Sep 23, 2014
I'm on the fence. There are definitely things I like (being able to filter out certain kinds of games for example), but other things I hate. I loathe the "curators" non-sense. None of those people are people I whose opinions I want.
Crazy Penguin Sep 23, 2014
Most important feature has been implemented.
Finally I can see what Games & DLCs I own already. So thanks for that.
But why the hell took it so long to implement such a mandatory feature? :D

Also I like the new look, but would like to opt-out of this recommendation crap.

Quoting: DrMcCoyAnd yes, it would be really nice if I could remove all that crap from the frontpage and just move updates from followed games and followed greenlight games there.

Yup, that would be a very nice feature :)
sev Sep 23, 2014
I neither like or hate the new store. Just not that invested in it. As long as they keep providing me with good Linux games, I'm happy.
Hyeron Sep 23, 2014
Quoting: HadBabitsI wouldn't say it's that bad. Sure it's silly to have developers recommend their own games, but who's gonna follow them? In the mean time you've got people like TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling; as well as GOL ;)
Their followers are in the thousands. So there ARE people who follow them. Hopeless.
The least they could have done is disable self-promotion and the like.
And indeed, there are more... commendable options. The thing's still filled to the brim with abuse. Day one.
pb Sep 23, 2014
I don't really like the change, old Steam + Enhanced Steam extension did the job better for me. Sure, there are nice things, like marking the games that you have on your wishlist, but at the same time they don't mark the games you own everywhere, only on some very specific lists. Enhanced Steam did it so much better. I'm not much concerned about the main page, even though it *is* crappy, because my starting page has long been http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=DESC&category1=998 and they didn't break that with the update. ;-)
ElectricPrism Sep 23, 2014
We as humans sometimes hate change when a thing works perfectly well already.

I've been used to the Grey Steam layout for 3 years, I hope this change is worth the disturbance to the users.

I can't stand scrolling down forever but I guess that's in line with community hub and keeping you on their page & site.

A friend has commented that Steam now looks like Battle.net from the blue, I laughed.

On the other hand, the change will get them a lot of publicity and is in line with their new look & Steam Machines & probably works great in Big Picture Mode.
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