Valve is updating Steam’s Discount & Events section, shifting from manual, calendar-based listings to a more “dynamic and personalised” system to improve discoverability.
The Discount & Events section, featured on Steam’s homepage and throughout the storefront, currently displays curated placements scheduled by partners or the Steam team.
Valve stated that moving away from manual curation allowed it to display ten times more games daily, resulting in “meaningful increases in store page visits, wishlists, and cart additions.”
As part of this change, developers will receive new and updated tools to better manage discounts and sale events.
“We have confidence this approach is better aligned with our goal, and results in a better experience for customers and developers,” said Valve.
“The constraint of a manually managed calendar doesn’t make as much sense with such diverse customer tastes and so many relevant deals for customers available at any given time.”
“Our goal is to let developers focus on crafting the most compelling games and deals for customers, and not spend time trying to convince someone at Valve to feature their products.”
The new system will be fully implemented in early 2027, though some developers have already noticed changes.
Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender noticed that the Discount & Events section, which was once “heavily weighted to best-selling games”, is now showing “indie gems with less than a hundred to a few thousand reviews as well.”
“A few friends with smaller games confirmed the same; essentially zero visits became a few thousand. I then checked some of our slightly larger games that previously got some traffic from this spot, and the change was softer though still great – one saw 14,000 visits from this store placement in the last month vs 6,000 visits in the prior five months, and another was 16k in the last month vs 35,000 in the prior five months”
Bender continued: “This is great for everyone – players are getting more relevant recommendations, and publishers/developers are having their games shown to the right players – but it’s most transformative for smaller indies that previously weren’t seeing placement in this section.”
Earlier this year, Valve updated its tagging system on Steam to improve discoverability, introducing 17 new classifications, eliminating 28, and merging or renaming several others.
Valve said the changes were made “with the goal of helping players identify the games that best fit their interests, and helping Steam generate more appropriate recommendations.”