Indie developers mixed on Steam redesign over visibility concerns

Valve's latest Steam store redesign has prompted debate among indie developers, who warn the new "Popular Upcoming" page now favors titles with more pre-release buzz. A viral post on X from RegisKillbin, publisher of Skyshard, said the page used to list games in release order "as long as you had enough wishlists to make the cut (~6k to 7k)," but now "favors far more large games from major companies … the lowest wishlist count on there right now is 80k." You can still select "release date" from a drop-down, yet the default relevance sort currently surfaces several big-name entries.

The Adventures of Elliot, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, and NBA The Run all rank in the top 10 by relevance, and none appear when the list is sorted by release date. Valve said the section was "updated in response to player feedback in order to better capture the most anticipated releases of the coming month." Developers worry the change could funnel attention toward a smaller set of games.

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