8 changes coming to Steam in 2019
The annual Steam summary has brought a list of changes to be implemented to the service in 2019.
The last few months have not been very nice for Steam. Above all, the platform has made some rather serious competition in the form of Epic Games Store, which tempted several developers to move away from Steam, including Ubisoft with its Tom Clancy's The Division 2. However, Valve does not intend to just stand and watch the situation; the company’s annual summary announced eight changes, which are to appear in 2019 on this popular digital distribution platform.
Upcoming novelties include changes to the selection algorithms of recommended content in the store, the library, the recently-refurbished chat, and SteamTV - the streaming platform run by Gabe Newell’s corporation. Multiplayer fun enthusiasts will certainly be interested in plans related to the Steam Trust technology, responsible for matchmaking in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It is to be developed and made available to all titles present on the Valve platform.
Other important things include the fact that Steam will officially enter the Chinese market in the next twelve months. It will happen through Valve's partnership with Beijing's Perfect World. The said corporation is primarily engaged in the production of MMORPGs, its portfolio including such titles as Heroes of Three Kingdoms, Forsaken World and Jade Dynasty.
- Store Discoverability: We’re working on a new recommendation engine powered by machine-learning, that can match players to games based on their individual tastes. Algorithms are only a part of our discoverability solution, however, so we're building more broadcasting and curating features and are constantly assessing the overall design of the store.
- Steam China: We've partnered with Perfect World to bring Steam onshore into China. We'll reveal more details about this in the coming months.
- Steam Library Update: Some long awaited changes to the Steam Client will ship, including a reworked Steam Library, built on top of the technology we shipped in Steam Chat.
- New Events System: We're upgrading the events system in the Steam Community, enabling you to highlight interesting activities in your games like tournaments, streams, or weekly challenges.
- Steam TV: We're working on expanding Steam TV beyond just broadcasting specific tournaments and special events, in order to support all games.
- Steam Chat: We're going to ship a new Steam Chat mobile app, so you can share your favorite GIFs with your friends while on the go.
- Steam Trust: The technology behind Trusted Matchmaking on CS:GO is getting an upgrade and will become a full Steam feature that will be available to all games. This means you'll have more information that you can use to help determine how likely a player is a cheater or not.
- Steam PC Cafe Program: We are going to officially ship a new PC Cafe Program so that players can have a good experience using Steam in hundreds of thousands of PC Cafes Worldwide.
Recently, Valve boasted that there are more than 30,000 games available on Steam. The giant of Bellevue is also doing an excellent job of banning dishonest users. In December alone, the service blocked 609,373 accounts, mainly for cheating in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This is the highest result in the history of the corporation.
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Author: Milosz Szubert
A film expert by education. Has been working at Gamepressure.com since January 2017. A fan of tennis, basketball, comics, good books, history, and strategic games by Paradox. Recently a self-taught Game Master (apparently he's quite good at it). For several years, he edited films on the Notatnik Kinomana channel on YouTube.
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