Steam Looks to Make your Game Suggestions More Varied

I don’t whether this is just me, for for the various apps I use or subscribe to, despite them all offering a ‘recommended’ section, there is usually very little in there that I actually have even the remotest interest about. I guess it shows just how little they actually know me. Be it on Steam, Netflix, or YouTube, however, often the ‘recommended’ list is either entirely irrelevant to me or continually just keeps danging the same bait in front of me in the apparent hope that I might change my mind.

Following an official post on Steam, however, that might (at least in part) be set to get a little better. Following an update to their algorithm, Steam is going to look to make their recommendations to you a little more varied.

Steam Looks To Improve Your Recommended List

In the post, which can be read in full via the link here, Steam has said:

Today’s Steam Store update features several algorithmic changes and bug fixes in an effort to be more precise and more diverse in how Steam presents games via tags in the Recommendation Feed, as well as the “More Like This” and the “Recommended for You” sections of the store.

Previously, when customers would look for games by browsing the recommendation feed at the bottom of the homepage or the “More Like This” sections, they weren’t seeing as many different games as we would’ve liked. Furthermore, we were receiving lots of feedback that “Recommended for You,” felt too biased towards only the most popular games and didn’t feel very personalized. We wanted to determine how to respond to this feedback. So we went in search of bugs and decided to run an experiment.

We found some bugs, such as the “Similar by Tags” section of the Recommendation Feed, which had a bug that top-rated games. (A category that doesn’t change very often) were driving too much of what players saw. We changed that. We also found that in some places our timescale used to calculate popularity was too narrow, resulting in unpredictable visibility for some games. So we expanded the time period we use in those calculations.

What Do We Think?

In fairness, I’ve wanted something like this to happen for a while and, as such, am at least pleased to see that Steam (or more accurately, Valve) has listened to the community. Whether it will actually work, however, remains to be seen.

On the plus side, however, you might start seeing some hidden gems popping up in your recommended list. That surely can’t be a bad thing, right?

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!