Is Steam's New Home Page Update Actually Better for Finding Games?

Steam refreshed its home page on June 5 after months in beta. It's a major UI overhaul that puts games and events front and center, making them pretty much impossible to miss. The update revamps the entire main Store layout, with bigger game banners in carousel format, a larger discount section, more space for game events, and a more visually focused design overall. 

For players, this is huge: discovering your next favorite game just got a lot easier, especially during major events like the ones in Summer Game Fest! This is also great for developers, since their games are now easily accessible to their audience. The event banner is displayed up top, so anyone curious can click it and browse through all the participating games.  

But, not everyone's happy about the changes, which is understandable (it is a change, after all!). On the players’ side, some think the larger visuals mean more scrolling. Meanwhile, some indie developers are raising concerns about game visibility as well because of the change in the Popular Upcoming section (more on this below). 

Many users on the forum have complained that the bigger image sizes mean more scrolling to get through the store. It's a fair point: while bigger key art looks better and captures attention more easily, it also means you have to scroll more to see the same number of games. The trade-off is real: prettier visuals, but less content on screen. That extra effort can add up, especially if you're just browsing casually.  

Valve mentioned this is part of a continuous rollout of updates coming to the Steam store. The update aims to make the store feel more connected and visually consistent while still allowing each section to keep its own distinct personality. The new wishlist and DLC sections are getting permanent changes, and you'll also get a new personalized calendar where you can find upcoming games based on what you already play. For Big Picture Mode and Steam Deck users, the navigation is also noticeably smoother.  

The personalized calendar is arguably the most useful feature in this update, as it benefits both players and developers. For players, it shows games you're actually interested in, complete with release dates for upcoming titles in that month. However, as of today, I don't think it's perfect yet. Some of the recommended games don't quite match what you actually play, so the algorithm still has room for improvement.  

As for the concerns from indie developers, they're 100% valid. Some worry that this update changes the algorithm in a way that makes it harder for their games to show up on players' Steam stores. Indie games rely heavily on wishlist numbers to get featured, and here's where it gets rough: the minimum wishlists needed to appear in the Popular Upcoming section jumped from 7,000 to 80,000 after this update. So yeah, it's totally understandable why indie devs are worried their games won't reach their audience like they used to. 
 

However, we know that Steam isn’t the type to ignore games made by small studios. In his article on Twitter, Indie Game Joe mentioned that some games actually received a nice bump on their Store page visits and wishlists after this update! It can be assumed that it was the result of the new algorithm, so hope is not lost, our dear indie devs (if you’re reading this). 

Of course, since the update has only been out for a few days now, it's still too early to tell. Hopefully, it'll help new and unreleased games reach the right audience, and developers can find players much more easily! 

What do you think of this update?