Steam Store Gets A Redesign With Wider Pages, Higher Res Images & More

Steam might be the near default choice for finding and buying games on PC, but Valve isn’t resting on its laurels, as it’s implementing improvements to the user experience. Thanks to the insight the company gets from its user surveys, it knows that gamers have screens with plenty of pixels to spare, and this update takes advantage of that screen real estate.

The most noticeable change will be seen in game store pages, which will now be wider to better accommodate screenshots, game descriptions, trailers and other information buyers rely on to make a purchasing decision. These pages will now have a width of 1200 pixels, which is a big step up from the previous width of 900 pixels.

Why not go even wider, given that 4K displays are out there?

“We know many of you have 4k monitors with lots of pixels to spare (we can tell from the Steam Hardware Survey), our research shows that most players don’t run the Steam client or web browsers full screen. While we experimented with different proportions, we found that 1200 pixels wide felt like a good balance where we can show more content on screen without overwhelming the page and making it hard to navigate,” Valve explains.

The overhaul goes beyond making the pages wider, too. Users will now have access to new view modes for screenshots and trailers. There’s a new theater mode that presents a view that will cover most of a browser or the Steam client, while a full-screen mode is available for those who want to use the entirety of that display. These modes can be enabled using the two buttons that will now be available at the bottom right of a screenshot or trailer.

Additionally, this update brings some improvements for developers, who can now create more in-depth game descriptions. Valve says that developers now have more tools and options to really showcase what makes their game special, including more flexible formatting in the “About the Game” section.

These changes might cause concern for those with older or smaller displays, but Valve has accounted for that by making it a flexible design that adjusts automatically to a display. The company says that it’s also working on bringing the wider design to the homepage in the future.

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