Valve are continuing to tweak how Steam store pages are displayed, along with giving developers more tools to show exactly what they want.
This all started from Valve attempting to deal with the publisher spam problem. Where certain publishers would dump game after game in a list on some of their store pages, before you even got to the description of what the game actually is you're currently viewing. Basically they were using some store pages as an advert for another game. It became a real nuisance and Valve banned it.
More tweaks came in late August giving developers extra control over the "more from" and DLC lists, and this latest update adds in additional options along with delaying all the new rules until October 15th to give developers more time to adjust store pages.
The first new feature is bundle pinning, so developers can put bundles on store pages in whatever order they actually want. By default though, Valve has said the order is based on "recent revenue generated by purchases of that bundle" as they see it as a reasonable default. Since games can be in any number of bundles, only 3 are displayed, so this way developers can pin what they want.
Valve also expanded what social media links are allowed in the sidebar on store pages to include:
- VK (VKontakte)
- Bilibili
- Tumblr
- Baidu Tieba
- Tiktok
- Telegram
We're all confused (including Valve) on why LinkedIn is in the list, but developers are using it.
Another change is to the "more from" list at the bottom of store pages. Now developers can choose to include games from any entities listed as a developer or publisher for a game (as there can be multiple in both). On top of that, the more than section can now have a special item pinned bigger to the front of the list taking up the space of two items and have buttons for add to cart / wishlist.
Lastly, there's some tweaks to the DLC list too so developers can list DLC dependencies, where one DLC needs to be owned for another, which according to Valve doesn't happen all that much but purchasers of course need to know this. Developers can also now re-order the DLC list a little easier.
Last edited by pb on 16 September 2024 at 11:25 am UTC
Last edited by Vortex_Acherontic on 16 September 2024 at 11:29 am UTC
I guess LinkedIn might be useful for business contacts. For example, when an indie developer unexpectedly becomes successful,Well, There are also tools like Godot, Krita, substance painter, etc, listed on Steam. I imagine those have more of a presence in the "corporate" world, especially as there can be video tutorials and other content published there.scammersfriendly publishers might want an easy way to contact them.
I don't see mastodon though, which is sad.
Last edited by MayeulC on 16 September 2024 at 12:57 pm UTC
I've seen some Japanese developer are now on instance like misskey.design, misskey.io, or misskey.doujin.games.
I really would like to see a more Steam Deck friendly store front. Maybe it is just me but browsing the Store on Deck feels a bit uncomfortable.
Store and Wishlist both. Although the automatic fullscreen of trailers is nice on the Deck, since it gives you an easy demonstration of what things like text size will look like there.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 16 September 2024 at 5:46 pm UTC
See more from me