Steam Now Less Unbearable; Anticipated Change on Product Cards
Trailers on Steam will no longer impede browsing through game cards. Valve responds to player complaints with new guidelines and trailer categories.
Since the creation of professional game trailers has become easier than ever, many developers have started sharing several or even a dozen cinematic previews for each of their titles. This led to a peculiar situation on Steam, which, after time, began to annoy gamers. Eventually, Valve decided to react.
Changes to the trailer system on Steam
If, until recently, you went to the tab of a game on Steam(although this primarily applied to titles in the AAA category), there was a good chance that the first row of attached materials included at most one static graphic showcasing the product.
Coupled with the tendency of publishers to show games in a dynamic, almost cinematic way, often without even using gameplay footage or cutscenes made on the game engine, after reviewing the first materials, you might still not have known how a given title presents itself in action.
If skipping trailers time after time annoyed you, we bring good news - Steam has made changes to remedy this.
- From now on, the thumbnail bar shows a maximum of two trailers to the left of the screenshots.
- The rest of the trailers that the developers want to share will be placed behind screenshots or graphics.
- Developers will decide on the priority of specific videos themselves, manually selecting two of them to display first.
- The leading trailers will be selected by country - so that materials with the right dubbing or subtitles will be displayed in the right order for specific audiences.
- In addition to the change in the order in which materials are presented, Steam will feature headers containing the name and category of individual trailers.
- The category of trailers will be chosen by developers from four available: general/film, trailer, gameplay and interview/creator's memoirs.
All of these changes have already gone into effect and do not require any action on the part of Steam users.
First reactions of Internet users
The introduced system has already managed to provoke a discussion that, in addition to the very operation of Steam, covered the current trends that developers follow when creating trailers and screenshots.
"Good. Trailers have been in a sorry state for years now so I had to just turn their autoplay off, so it defaults to the first screenshot instead. Opening the first trailer and seeing "Update 7" with a bunch of logos and then like a minute of pre-rendered not gameplay footage is a stupid experience.
Another thing that annoys me about that part of steam is developers who, for some baffling reason, turn off all UI to take screenshots of their game. Great, I see this is a guy attacking another guy, but it's telling me nothing about what the game is actually about. I've taken to scrolling down into the description instead because that's the place where developers usually put gameplay relevant things in," states user CaspianRoach
Most of the opinions published on the Internet seem to support Valve's decision. However, some people suggest that without the introduction of more detailed guidelines, the new system will not significantly affect the affordability of materials on Steam:
"This is a very small step in the right direction. It looks like they are trying to make it easier to see what the game you are checking is actually like, but I think it's still not enough. For starters, these new trailer categories are optional. And then, I'm not sure they are targeting the biggest issue:
With these categories, very few publishers will tag the trailers as "gameplay". As they say, most trailers are a mix of cinematic stuff and some gameplay. The problem is that if most trailers are going to be tagged as "general / cinematic", it will still not be possible to know if the trailer has some gameplay at all or if it's just an useless cinematic or promotion for a random update / GOTY edition.
Purely cinematic trailers with no gameplay should be tagged as such and maybe even be relegated to another section in the store page, or placed after the screenshots at the very least. Any trailers with actual gameplay should be easily identifiable and prioritized over the other stuff and artistic, curated screenshots," writes user Shorkan
Still other users seem to hove given up on game cards on Steam altogether in their attempts to inform the players:
"Really? I don't even look at screenshots. I only watch videos of games before making a judgement. It also has to include actual gameplay else I feel like they are trying to hide their actual game and be manipulating.
I'll just go to YouTube and look up some gameplay videos instead. Screenshot don't tell me a thing about a game, of no video included at all that's an extremely red flag for me," comments user WatchNev.
Did you notice this problem at all? Is this a good start in dealing with it, or just an attempt at fighting windmills?
