You might have noticed that Valve updated Steam, and it now looks a little different. Well, some features, previously available in beta and now made public, will almost certainly affect indie developers.

Popular Upcoming is now "more popular": before, the list was sorted chronologically, and games with about 7,000 wishlists would appear there. Now, it relies on algorithms, so expect to see better-known games there. 

"The lowest wishlist count on there right now is 80k, when before it would've been 10 indie games as low as 6k wishlists," noted developer RegisKillbin. "Steam is more heavily prioritizing larger games, with the budget and time to grow to enormous wishlist totals, or the rare indie viral hit. The small to mid-sized games just lost a way to find players. Steam players lost a tool to discover cool smaller games."

The new system is good for players, perhaps, as they will see less slop, but small creators without big budgets might suffer.

On the other hand, Steam introduced a personal calendar that recommends games right on the home page. This could be a boost for indies as long as players are interested in their genres. The idea is to provide visibility from target audiences, so while views could drop overall, purchases might multiply.

Will it be enough to balance out the new Popular Upcoming system? Time will tell.

Other than that, the new update added more detailed information for recommendations, wishlisted games and DLCs on sale, the ability to check the Discovery Queue without leaving the home page, and several visual changes. 

How do you think they will affect developers?

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