Valve Redesigns Steam Game Library, Adding Steam Events

Valve is making some big changes to Steam in the coming months with the addition of new features like Steam Events and a redesigned look for your game library. At the 2019 Game Developers Conference on Thursday, Valve’s Alden Kroll revealed a new, information-dense design for Steam libraries that will emphasize recently played and recently updated games.

Each user’s Steam library will now have its own homepage. Kroll showed an example page that displayed a user’s most recently played games at the top of that homepage, with the intention that a Steam user would be able to easily jump into one of their most played games. The redesign also made it clearer which Steam games a user’s friends were playing at the time, and which games had recently been updated.

Game updates — things like new characters or game modes — will be highlighted as well. Just below the section of the Steam library page that listed recently played games was a section titled “Your game updates.” As examples, Valve showed a new character update for Don’t Starve Together, a new hero for Dota 2, and the new Danger Zone game mode for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The rest of the redesigned Steam library page listed friends activity and a user’s complete collection of games, with filters to help sort and display them.

Individual game pages are also getting a visual overhaul. An example page for CS:GO elevated information like recent events and updates, friend activity, and available downloadable content for the game.

Steam’s new game page. Valve

Valve’s redesign of the Steam library is coming in beta form sometime this summer.

Prior to that, Valve plans to release a new feature called Steam Events. Kroll said Valve is adding Steam Events so that developers will be able to communicate to customers “when there’s something interesting happening in a game.” Examples of Steam Events include in-game events tied to holidays, developer livestreams, bonus weekends that offer double XP, and tournaments.

Events will be shown throughout Steam, Kroll said, including current events that players can join now and future events that they can receive reminders for. Players will be able to opt in to reminders for upcoming events via external calendars (iCal, Google Calendar, etc.), email, mobile app notifications, text messages, and Steam itself.

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Steam Events will enter open beta in the coming months.

Check out the gallery below for a look at more mockups of Steam Events and Steam’s updated game and library pages.

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Steam's Redesigned Library Will Show What's Happening With Your Games

Steam's ages-old game library screen is getting a much-needed overhaul. Valve has previewed a redesign that keeps the familiar column of games on the left, but shakes up seemingly everything else. You'll see rows for your recently played games and, crucially, game updates -- if there's a new character or an important upgrade, you'll know it right away. Your friends list will also appear directly in the library to help you leap into their multiplayer matches.

The tags you see in the Steam store will also help you find games in the library. You can look for just your open world titles, as an example.

Valve is also teasing an upcoming Events page (below) that will shed even more light on what's happening with your game. You'll see updates, but you'll also see news of tournaments, livestreams and other happenings with the games in your collection. It's an acknowledgment that many games are treated more like services and may need a steady stream of info, not just the occasional patch.

There's no specific time frame for when you can expect to see the redesign, although Valve told PC Gamer that it was hoping for a beta in the summer.

The upgrades might be necessary. The Epic Game Store is rapidly adding features, and might entice more people as it matures. This won't necessarily have gamers or developers flocking to Steam if they were on the fence, but it might make them happier to stay there.

Catch up on all the latest news from GDC 2019 here!

In this article: games, gaming, gdc2019, internet, personal computing, personalcomputing, services, steam, valve, valve software, video games 

Steam Is Adding A New Events Page For Tracking What's Going On In Your Games

At its Game Developers Conference talk today, Valve showed off a redesigned library page that finally adds some modern shine to the grey window that holds most of your games. It also announced and showed off a new feature coming to Steam, called Events. The Events page will round up what's happening in the games you follow and have in your library, organizing occasions like game updates, streams, tournaments, and so on. 

Valve's Alden Kroll called out the fact that the feature is built to support the needs of today's live service games.

"We think of this as the way developers will be able to communicate with players through Steam," Kroll said. "We want to build the foundation for a communication platform where all the interesting things that are happening in games can find their way to the customers. And the customers that are interested in finding out 'what's happening in games in my library, what kind of events are happening, what's been updated recently, what are my friends doing,' making all that much easier for players to be able to find."

You can check out Valve's work-in-progress version of what the Events page will look like above. It will, unsurprisingly, use Steam's recommendation algorithms to highlight events that seem especially interesting to you, but you'll be able to sort by events specific to games in your library or hide ones that don't interest you. Developers will obviously have to support the event system, but Valve highlighted this as an opportunity for developers to get the word out to players about what's coming. Events won't be relegated just to this page, but will be shown in other areas of Steam as well.

A key part of the Events functionality is a set of notification options Valve has added to Steam. If you want to keep track of an event, you can click "Set a reminder" for an event and choose from a variety of notifications:

Calendar support for Google and iCal

Steam client notifications

Email

Text message

Steam mobile app

The Steam Events system has already been in early testing with a small group of developers, and Valve says it plans to begin testing with an open beta within the next couple months.