“Bigger,” Gabe Newell constantly sings to the Valve UI and Steam UX team at Valve. “Bigger! More! Never stop making it bigger!” He shouts. At least that’s what I imagine has happened over the past year, given the number of size-related changes (mostly widening) that have taken place in stores. Today, another UI change is underway, this time for the Steam Community Marketplace.
As explained in a blog postThe Community Marketplace is a platform that allows Steam users to buy and sell items from the game and the Steam community with each other. “Over the past few years, the number of games participating in the market has increased significantly,” the post reads. “More than 13,000 games now offer Steam community items in the marketplace, and more than 700 have in-game items. These in-game economies have outpaced the marketplace’s existing navigation and discovery tools, so it’s time for an upgrade.”
The upgrade comes in several versions. First of all, registrations will now be larger. They can now feature “more images, item descriptions, and captions to list specific information such as wear/float, pattern model, accessories applied, and more.” » In particular, those of you who are deeply involved in the Counter-Strike economy will find unique images for every item listed on the market. “No more launching the game to make your purchasing decision. (Not just new ads! As part of our internal testing, we generated over 27,000,000 unique images to populate existing Counter-Strike ads.)” That’s a lot of images!
What else? Unique details can be displayed more clearly, such as with Counter-Strike skins showing more clearly what the designs look like. Listings that are essentially just variations of the same item can also be grouped together for easier navigation. And what is it? Article pages now also have a wider layout! Hurray, the enlargement continues!
Economic statistics enthusiasts may be happy to see that the charts have been revamped (“In addition to many general usability and performance fixes, the charts now display volume data alongside price and can display multiple data sets for grouped items”), and you should also notice some dynamic filters when browsing the market.
Pretty thorough update for something I’ve used exactly zero times in my entire Steam life! And yet, I’m sure enough of you will find it useful somewhere.
