Valve’s rolled out a new discoverability-helping feature on Steam and, based on a few moments with it, it’s already a big help.
The idea is a Steam Personal Calendar which shows you, at a glance, and in calendar form, a selection of games coming out that you might be interested in. To determine which games these are, Steam looks at what you’ve already played, a lot, and makes suggestions based upon it.
The top blocks in the Personal Calendar show presumed-interesting games released in the last month and then in the last seven days. Then below, and this is the bit I like, you see games yet to come out presented in a calendar view – as though you drew them in the day-blocks of your Tolkien calendar that’s pinned to your noticeboard. (It’s a nice Tolkien calendar I’ll have you know.)
I find this layout really useful for getting a quick and clear dose of information about what’s on its way, and it’s easy to mouse-over a game’s art and watch a video of it if you don’t already know what a game’s about. You can also customise the page using a few filtering options if you like.
A quick word on the algorithm powering it: “The system is more focused on games that you play the most (relative to other players), and spend most of your playtime in. So, a few minutes trying out a couple of new games or demos won’t have much impact on your recommendations, but sinking a bunch of time into a new favorite will,” Valve explained in an announcement post.