Steam's New Recommendation System Currently in the Works
Valve is currently working on a new recommendation system for its Steam digital distribution platform. The overhauled system will have only one job: Match the right customers with the right games.
Valve product designer Alden Kroll outlined this new system at the recently held Unite Europe 2017 hosted by Unity. Kroll also talked about other changes to the platform including distribution, the store and the client itself.
According to the company, reworking how the platform recommends games to players could increase the discoverability of many developers. For indie developers whose limited budget offers little in terms of marketing, recommendations are possibly the only viable way to get their games noticed.
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Kroll further said that they want to give customers the tools they need to customize and personalize their Steam store. This will begin by adding new sorting and filtering options that highlight the kinds of games they enjoy.
Valve is also currently rewriting their automatic recommendation system to have a more thorough process when it comes to choosing which games to recommend. This includes examining the games in the players' libraries as well as the accumulated playtimes of each title to individually curate games based on their tastes.
This means that the algorithms that Steam has in place will recommend games that are similar to the ones in each customer's library. This recommendation would, in turn, lead to a sale benefitting both Valve and the developers.
The company is also tweaking the current discoverability features of the platform. This is part of the planned expansion that will incorporate live streams, video reviews and other content to the Steam Curators section.
Valve launched the Discovery Update 2.0 back in November 2016 along with a revamped store. It allowed customers to view a number of different games in succession often with discounts accompanying the recommendations.
