AUGUST 2019 PCWorld 21I’m not sure.
It sounds neat though. Developers have
enlisted similar tactics to great effect on
Twitter and Reddit, using flashy GIFs to sell
games like Clustertruck and Falcon Age. A
good GIF doesn’t always mean a great game,
but it’s an interesting way to window browse
and see what catches your eye.
The Automated Show is also pretty simple
to explain, though I admit that of the three it’s
the one I’m least interested in. Described as a
“half-hour video featuring the latest Steam
launches,” I have to assume it’s automatically
scraping trailers (or parts of trailers) from either
the Popular New Releases or New Releases
tabs on the store, then playing them back for
you in order.
Given the heaping piles of shovelware
released on Steam these days, sitting through
half an hour of even the Popular New Releases
sounds pretty tedious. And if it’s just a firehoseThe Peabody Recommender and Organize
Your Steam Library Using Morse Code. For
the first time, we’re giving these works-in-
progress a home called Steam Labs, where
you can interact with them, tell us whether
you think they’re worth pursuing further, and
if so, share your thoughts on how they
should evolve.”
That’s how the announcement starts, and
no, that Morse Code sorting technique isn’t
real—or at least, it’s not part of this initial batch
of experiments. The three debuting alongside
Steam Labs are dubbed “Micro Trailers” (go.
pcworld.com/mcro), “The Automated Show”
(go.pcworld.com/ashw), and “The Interactive
Recommender” (go.pcworld.com/rcom).
Keep in mind that I haven’t seen any of these
in action yet, and am relying on Valve’s (fairly
perfunctory) descriptions.
So, Micro Trailers. Of the three Steam Labs
experiments, this is probably the most self-
explanatory. Valve has scraped a bunch of
trailers for six-second clips, the titular Micro
Trailers, and “arranged [the trailers] on a page
so you can digest them all at a glance.”
What’s unclear from this description is
how large the pool of Micro Trailers is, and
how automated the process is. Micro Trailers
are broken down by genre—“adventure
games, RPGs, builders, and more” according
to the description—but whether Valve
reached out to specific high-profile games
and developers for highlight clips, snipped
clips internally, or let an algorithm handle it,
Micro Trailers.