The long-awaited Steam Library redesign finally gets a specific release date. The open beta of this feature is September 17, available for all Steam account. This feature, however, is not forced on, as only the players who opted in would get the profile updates.
Amongst all the changes, there are two most important ones. The first change is a new coat of paint for the landing page – it has been redesigned with a more modern approach. A few more shortcuts are added for convenient access to key feature such as game updates, recently played games and your game collections. Friend activities have also been incorporated into the library, with all the related details about their game session display clearly on a part of the home page.
The second change is the addition of the Events tab. On that section, relevant patches and in-game events will be displayed – giving the devs the option to deliver the information related to the game directly to the players. The content format can be anything, range from live streams to fan arts. Valve has created an algorithm to sort out the news so that you won’t get bombarded with information.
Developers get access to Event-creating tools prior to the new Steam Library Launch, so the game charts would immediately be updated with news as soon as the update hit. Valve also mentioned that more features would come later, along with the in-depth analysis for this update.
As Steam is currently facing some extreme competition in Epic Game Store, an upgrade to their library would definitely work as a temporary solution. As Epic Games is not afraid to get their hands dirty, grabbing exclusive deals to quite a few games over the past year, and even more will be announced at PAX West, it is probably time for Valve to do something.