Steam always seemed to be user-friendly and easy to manage. Valve doesn’t believe this to be true, and as a consequence, it’s increasing the usability of its platform by adding Steam Tags, a new way to sort and search for games. Steam Tags are generated by the community. Users tag their favorite titles, and the most popular tags make it to the game’s Steam page. Games come with pre-defined tags (set by the developers or publishers), but these tags could easily be replaced by the most popular user choices. Of course, the tags have to remain somewhat relevant and civilized (swearing and raging through tags will be moderated and filtered), but it wouldn’t surprise us to see tags like “Running Simulator” associated to DayZ, or “King of MOBAs” associated to Dota 2.
The Steam Store received an update, allowing people to browse for games based on tags. Because Steam is multi-lingual, the tags will adapt to the language of the Steam client and its user base. For instance, English tags will only be displayed for the English client, other languages will each get their own tags. While still in beta, Steam Tags are already live and can be used. Steam has been seeing increased growth, reaching more than 75 million users, and the numbers are likely to grow, considering this year’s hype around Steam OS and the Steam Machines.
According to Al Farnsworth, developer at Valve, Steam Tags are aimed to make browsing and finding things you are looking for even easier. “We want to ensure that it is easy for customers to find the particular types of games or software they are looking for. With this new feature, we are providing another powerful tool to help organize and browse products on Steam.” We’ve already tested the Steam Tags system, and it seems to do just that. Even though it’s in a beta stage, its functionality cannot be denied. It is smooth and practical. The only question is – how relevant the tags will remain once the community fully takes over?