Steam is changing its store to show more personalized game recommendations

Valve is changing how Steam's Discounts & Events section works, replacing its manually managed calendar with a more personalized recommendation system in early 2027. The company says its testing allowed Steam to show customers around 10 times as many games in the section during a single day.

The change will affect which discounted games and sale events appear on Steam's homepage and elsewhere in the store. Valve says the goal is to match individual players with deals they are more likely to find relevant while giving more games a chance to appear.

The Discounts & Events section currently uses curated placements scheduled either by Valve or directly by developers and publishers through Steamworks. That approach limits how many games can be featured because there are only a fixed number of promotional slots available.

Valve has spent the past several months experimenting with replacing some of those placements with dynamic recommendations. Instead of showing every customer the same selection, Steam can choose discounted games and events based on what it believes will interest each user.

The company says those tests produced more than just additional visibility. Valve reported meaningful increases in store-page visits, wishlist additions and games being added to shopping carts after the personalized recommendations were introduced.

According to Valve, the new system was able to show 10 times more games to customers in the Discounts & Events section on a given day. The company believes removing the limits of the manual calendar will make it easier for smaller or more specialized games to reach players interested in them.

Valve argues that a fixed schedule is becoming less useful as Steam's catalog grows and player tastes become more varied. A deal that may have little relevance to one customer could be exactly what another player is looking for.

The change does not mean Steam will determine the prices of games dynamically. Developers and publishers will continue setting discounts, while the new system changes which offers are shown to individual customers.

Valve expects to completely stop using the curated calendar for the Discounts & Events section sometime in early 2027. It has already paused the scheduling of new Weekend Deals, Midweek Deals and Daily Deals while work on the replacement continues.

Promotions that have already been scheduled will still receive their planned placement. Valve is also preparing new and updated Steamworks tools to help developers manage discounts and sale events after the calendar system is retired.

The company has not announced an exact date for the full change and says it is still adjusting the system. Valve also acknowledged that the personalized approach may not be perfect immediately, but believes its testing has produced better results for both customers and developers.