OCTOBER 2019 PCWorld 29expanding, and I can’t imagine this latest
experiment will keep that designation for long.
Valve’s built a new Search page, which should
be live by now.
If you use or have used the Enhanced
Steam add-on, then a lot of these tools will be
familiar. Valve’s finally adding price and sale
filters to Steam though, which should make
hunting down deals a bit easier. You also have
the ability to hide games you already own
from view, and search results are being
reconfigured to support infinite scrolling
instead of being broken up in 25-game batches.
Given it’s ostensibly experimental, new-
Search will be accessed through the Steam
Labs portal for the time being. That might not
last though, provided feedback is positive.
You might see new-Search replace the
existing system in just a few months.BOTTOM LINE
The Steam Library redesign has been a long
time coming, but the demo sold me. I’ll be
opting into the beta, which is admittedly
risky. It’s still a beta, and hopefully I don’t
come to regret that decision. I can’t wait to
ditch the existing library interface though,
which is woefully underpowered and...well,
old. The Steam storefront has expanded
dramatically in the past decade, and the
library view hasn’t
changed to
accommodate Valve’s
new hands-off
philosophy.
Until now, that is.
The new library, while
there’s still certainly
room for
improvement, should
make it a lot easier to
deal with digital
hoarding and the “I’d
buy that for a dollar”
mentality of the Steam
sales. Valve’s enabling
my own worst
tendencies, but hey,
isn’t that the point?Valve has added an Event feature, which should allow live games to push
one-off events like tournaments.