Steam's discounts and events tab will soon be fully algorithm-driven

Nicole Carpenter,Contributor,Game Developer

September 29, 2026

schedule2 Min ReadImage via Valve

Valve announced Tuesday that it's changing the way its "Discounts and Events" tab will work on the Steam platform. Valve said it will "move away from a manual calendar-based approach and into something more dynamic and personalized for each customer."

In practice, that means that instead of the curated page, the selection of games will be determined by Steam's algorithms. Valve expects more games to get on this page, it said in the announcement. Currently—and until the 2027 change—Valve schedules games to rotate in and out of the section itself or "scheduled directly by partners via Steamworks."

"Our goal with Steam’s discovery features is to show the right game to the right customer, so we spent the last few months experimenting with replacing some curated spots with dynamic and personalized recommendations," it wrote. "By featuring games in a more personalized way in the Discounts & Events section, we were able to show 10x more games to customers in a given day in that section. As a result, we saw meaningful increases in store page visits, wishlists, and cart additions."

The change will, seemingly, put developers at the behest of Steam's algorithm. Valve said it has "paused scheduling curated placements" on the page, but developers who already have something scheduled will keep that slot. More information about the timing of this change will come in "upcoming weeks," Valve said. Early next year is the rough estimate for the total stoppage of the curated calendar.

"As part of these changes, we will have new and updated tools to help developers better manage their discounts and sale events on Steam," Valve wrote. "Our goal is to let developers focus on crafting the most compelling games and deals for customers, and not spend time trying to convince someone at Valve to feature their products."

As Valve wrote, it's been testing out this feature for a bit. Earlier in September, GameDiscoverCo founder (and former Game Developer publisher) Simon Carless observed that the featured games on the Discounts and Events page were more personalized, something he described as "a good move to help the little guys, done quietly." Responding to Carless' post, Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender said on LinkedIn he's seen an improvement in visits to one of Hooded Horse's games' Steam page because of the change.

He posted screenshots of an unnamed game's data and said the Discounts and Events page drove more than 7,000 visits to the game's page in one month, versus 7,355 in the past six months. ("So only 14 visits from the prior 5 months," he wrote)

"This change took a source of traffic that was non-existent for niche indies, and suddenly made it the best source of traffic in the entire store," Bender said.

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About the Author

Nicole Carpenter

Contributor, Game Developer

Nicole Carpenter is a veteran reporter who has been covering the video game industry for over a decade.

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