Dataminers have recently found code that points toward Valve adding two nifty features to Steam, its uber-popular digital PC gaming store. One feature will show you the lowest price a game has sold for in the last 30 days. Meanwhile, another feature might tell players how well a game will perform on their PC without them having to buy it and try.
As recently spotted by Valve fansite LambdaGeneration, dataminer SigaTbh used SteamDB to dig around Steam’s innards and found something very interesting. Buried in Steam is new code that references “Price History” and “30-Day Low.” This sounds a lot like Valve is planning to implement a feature in Steam that would indicate a game’s lowest recent price, which might help you avoid buying something that’s not been on sale for a bit or which just got off a big $1 sale.
What would this look like in practice? Well, we don’t have to guess. This 30-day lowest price feature already exists for some Steam users in other parts of the world. For example, this has been a feature in the European Union since June 2023. Valve had to add it to comply with new consumer protection guidelines and rules included in the EU’s Omnibus Directive. So, here’s what the 30-day low price feature will probably look like whenever it goes live in the United States.
Steam now shows 30-day low price in some European Union countries to comply with the Omnibus Directive. pic.twitter.com/BbTsNn2Zsp
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) June 3, 2023
Another useful feature Valve seems to be working on for Steam is totally new. As reported by Ars Technica earlier this month, dataminers found lines of code that seem to reference some kind of “framerate estimator” feature that isn’t currently available. Dataminers also found text that states: “Select an App and a PC config to get a chart of estimated framerates, based on the framerates of other Steam users.” So it seems Valve will leverage other players’ experiences with a game and their hardware configuration to help provide FPS estimations to other players with similar rigs.
This is a great idea and expands on Valve’s (flawed) Verified program for Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine. Being uncertain that a game can run decently on your PC can be a big barrier for players who might not be as PC-savvy as others, so offering customers more information and guidance on possible performance before they buy a game is a smart way to help bring more people into the Steam/PC gaming ecosystem.
Now the question is, when will these features turn up in a future Steam update?