Steam's new Personal Calendar aims to solve game discovery without trapping you in a bubble

Steam is packed to the brim with games big and small, and while it's an absolute treasure trove of delights that could include your next favorite game, actually trying to find it can feel difficult. With more new releases each week than ever before, a little help trying to navigate it all is welcome, and Valve's latest solution is the Steam Personal Calendar. You might have spotted this handy tool around recently, because it's been in testing via Steam Labs, but now it's been declared officially complete for all.

Valve explains that it takes a few different approaches to how Steam recommends games across the store. "Some sections of the front page trend towards showing more popular games, and some sections trend towards showing games similar to those you play regardless of how long ago they were released." The Personal Calendar aims to "fill a gap in between," by giving you a way to catch "popular and niche games that may be of interest and are new or soon to release." You'll get a small view on your front page, but can click to expand it to a bigger perspective that includes additional filtering tools.

The Personal Calendar focuses first on your playtime for the games you play most. "A few minutes trying out a new game or two won't have much impact on your recommendations," Valve notes, "but sinking a bunch of time into a new favorite will." The algorithm gets tweaked daily to accommodate this data, although "in reality you aren't likely to see your recommendations change all that much from day to day." Look further down the line, however, and you'll see upcoming PC games slot in as their dates are confirmed.

There's one obvious concern here: will focusing on the games you already love catch you in a feedback loop of only seeing the same things? It was a concern raised by Evil Empire when I recently spoke to them. Playing a ton of Slay the Spire 2 might mean you want even more deckbuilders, or it could mean that Mega Crit is scratching that itch and you'd rather be shown completely different genres. "We're also concerned about the potential for getting stuck in a filter bubble," Valve remarks, "so we work hard on keeping things varied."

It explains that, in the Personal Calendar, it's "unlikely that every day has a new game launching that is the same genre/theme as games you've been playing and is also a good recommendation for you." This means its suggestions, which are all handled by the algorithm with no manual curation or influence, "end up drawing from a wider pool of titles across all kinds of genres that are releasing each day."

Valve also stresses: "We don't sell placement on the Steam Personal Calendar, or anywhere else on Steam." It adds that the development of the Personal Calendar helped to bring about features such as the ability for developers to list the date their game will be released out of early access as version 1.0.

You can start using the Steam Personal Calendar right away, in case you weren't already giving it a try during its testing phase. Click the 'explore more' button in the top-right corner to visit the full page, where you can apply specific tag filters, choose to show or hide games on your Steam Wishlist. There's also the ability to turn off games you already own, or those that are currently in early access, to further hone your search.

As for what else is coming to the platform, Valve notes that its other ongoing Steam Labs experiments include "new ideas around discoverability, video, machine learning, and more." Keep your eyes on the Steam Labs hub if you're curious about what's ahead, or want to offer feedback on what the Steam store might look like in the months and years to come.