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+--- Thread: News - Steam Labs is Valve’s new home for experimental Steam features (/thread-91347.html)
News - Steam Labs is Valve’s new home for experimental Steam features - xSicKxBot - 07-13-2019
Steam Labs is Valve’s new home for experimental Steam features
<div style="margin: 5px 5% 10px 5%;"><img src="http://www.sickgaming.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/steam-labs-is-valves-new-home-for-experimental-steam-features.jpg" width="200" height="200" title="" alt="" /></div><div><p>Valve is rolling out a handful of new experimental features for Steam, but those additions won’t be headed right to the storefront’s homepage.</p>
<p>Instead, the company has launched a home for toying with new and potentially interesting features called <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/labs">Steam Labs</a>, and opened up access to the first three additions to the general public.</p>
<p>The tools and tests found within range in size and scope, but each is a potential peek at solutions Valve has pitched and mulled over internally to address some of the shortcomings of its massively popular game platform.</p>
<p><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/recommender/76561198013085986">The Interactive Recommender</a> is among these, and has been <a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/346495/Devs_express_optimism_caution_over_Steam_interactive_recommender.php">gathering no small amount of buzz</a> from developers curious about the neural net-powered game recommendation tool. More about that specific experiment can be found <a href="https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/346485/Steam_embraces_machine_learning_with_new_interactive_recommendation_tool.php">here</a>, but, in short, the tool uses play data, machine learning, and other interactive criteria to create compelling and personalized game recommendations for Steam users. </p>
<p>Aside from that, Valve has also launched two video-focused creations in Steam Labs that each highlight new games on the platform in their own ways.</p>
<p><a href="https://store.steampowered.com/labs/microtrailers">Micro Trailers</a> generates short, six-second long trailers for games on Steam, an experimental feature Valve says attempts to give Steam users a way to quickly get their eyes on titles they might be interested in. Valve has generated a handful of these already, broken down in slightly different presentation styles over ono its Steam Labs page.</p>
<p>The other video-focused creation, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/labs/automaticshow">The Automated Show</a>, aims to act as a sort of daily digest for new Steam releases. That experiment features a half hour long show (generated by a bot) that quickly runs through new additions for the day across categories like ‘new and popular’ and individual genres.</p>
<p>“Right now, the automated show bot is a black obelisk that sits in Boston, Massachusetts, and will only generate an episode when someone speaks a complex series of prime numbers into its electronic ears,” explains Valve. “It’s mostly-automated, but requires a human to kick it off. Should we continue with this experiment, we’ll want to make it something that runs daily or weekly without human intervention.”</p>
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