If you've ever been stuck for something to play on Steam, Valve have made a small step towards reminding you of games you own that you've not actually played.
Arriving in the Steam Beta Client on May 6, they added a new 'Play Next' Shelf which has a list of games you own that you've not played. It's the same as the recently released Steam Labs experiment of the same name, except this is in the client to remind you each time you load up Steam.
For Linux gamers it might rub a little salt into some wounds, like Destiny 2 showing up there even though I can't play it at all on Steam/Linux. Although I can on Stadia…thankfully if you hide games they won't show up.
Also, since it's using the Shelf system it can be moved around or removed entirely if you don't find it useful. Personally though, I think it's a great feature as more people build up a huge library of games it's easy to forget something you might end up enjoying.
Valve also recently fixed a Linux issue in the Steam Beta with the Cloud Sync and game downloads suffering problems when ipv6 is completely disabled in the OS.
Quoting: BotonoskiKinda fixed that particular issue by catagorizing my games into 3 collections: Finished, Unfinished, and Unfinishable (typically multiplayer games or endless games like Tetris).
Has catagorizing my games like this helped me in anyway towards finishing more games in my Steam library? Absolutely not.
I've got played through, given up upon, unplayed and try again some day.
Last edited by edmondo on 8 May 2020 at 5:01 pm UTC
The new Play Next shelf is pretty cool. I'm curious how it recommends next titles. A Steam event last year had users play their oldest purchased title with no hours on it. I enjoyed that twist.
QuoteIf you've ever been stuck for something to play on Steam…I know the individual words you're saying, but when you put them together in that order they just…I–I can't…I don't understand.
(:P)
Seriously though, this is a pretty neat feature (even if, as humorously hinted above, I've got about eight games I desperately want to play at the moment and time to play maybe two or three of them. :) ) I'm pretty chintzy with my games buying—many a Steam sale has come and gone without me buying a single game—but even I have a few games I've only played a short time of and never gotten back to.
See more from me