Upcoming changes to the “Discounts and Events” section on Steam

At the beginning of next year, Valve plans to change how the calendar and recommendations work on Steam. Currently, the “Discounts and Events” section features selections curated directly by the Steam team or by the company’s partners in Steamworks.

Instead, automated recommendation features will be used to create personalized selections of suitable games for each user.

Valve believes that the new recommendation system will be much more convenient for both users and developers. Compiling the calendar manually imposes many limitations and does not allow for the full variety of users’ tastes or the huge number of current offers available at any given time to be taken into account.

What this means for developers

In the coming weeks, the Valve team plans to reveal more information about the changes to the recommendation system. For now, they have paused planning curated promotions in this section, including “Weekend Deals,” “Midweek Deals,” and “Daily Deals.” However, promotions that have already been scheduled will go ahead as planned, so developers should not worry.

Valve also promises new and improved tools to help developers manage discounts and sales on Steam more effectively. It seems that automation should eliminate the need to spend time negotiating with Valve about promoting particular games.