Steam gets personalized news hub for updates and game announcements

Valve has expanded Steam with a feature that allows users to see updates, announcements or events about their games. The news hub is personalized and focuses on games that users play or are interested in.

Valve says players can browse the News Hub for news around the games and to keep up to date with activity happening in players’ games. There is also an option to see when an event is live, such as a live stream. Interested parties can also receive notifications via e-mail or their mobile phone.

In the user’s feed, messages and notifications are personalized based on five conditions. First of all, events and announcements may appear if a game belongs to the player’s Steam library or if a game is on their wishlist. In addition, following a game via the store page plays a role, but also the types of games that the player plays. Finally, notifications can end up in the personal feed based on the Steam blog or Steamwork blog.

Players can opt out of unwanted categories and further personalize the display. Valve writes that the news hub has been deliberately developed for mobile devices and that it will add more options to the news hub in the coming weeks.

Incidentally, the feature for providing information about events and announcements was already released in September last year, with the aim of making it easier for developers to inform players about activities in or around their games. The events and announcements will appear in players’ Steam library, as well as in the games’ store pages.