Valve Adds Steam 'Personal Calendar' With Daily-Updated Game Recommendations
Valve launched Personal Calendar on Steam, a feature that suggests recently released games based on a player's play history and refreshes daily. It follows months of testing in Steam Labs.
According to Engadget, Valve builds the suggestions by comparing the titles a user has recently played with those of players who have similar gaming profiles, then weighing their logged hours and wishlists. Valve said that trying a new game for only a few minutes will not shift a user's recommendations much, because the algorithm mostly factors in games played for long stretches.
The calendar is refreshed daily, and Valve said its user-specific algorithms are retrained regularly to include the latest data. It said this will not produce many day-to-day changes, and that players are more likely to see new suggestions over an eight-week window or as developers confirm release dates for upcoming games.
Valve said Personal Calendar went through several months of testing and feedback in Steam Labs, its program for trying out experimental changes to store and discovery features. Since then, the company said, players click on more than 2,000 different games within the calendar during an average 24-hour period.
The feature is part of Valve's response to player feedback that the Steam store is too cluttered or hard to navigate. Earlier this year, Steam introduced a new storefront with a search menu and a "Categories" system intended to make it easier for players to find new games.