Valve slideshow teases an upcoming Steam UI update

Valve's attendance at Indigo 2017 in the Netherlands last weekend was primarily a business-and-developers type thing. But images of slides displayed during a presentation by Valve's Alden Kroll that were posted in the Valvetime forum reveal some interesting things about Steam, and what Valve has planned for its future.

The promise of an "overall UI refresh and update" hearkens back to images discovered in February depicting a dramatically overhauled Steam interface. The presentation (or at least the slides we can see) didn't reveal any new images, nor was there any mention of when it might be rolled out. The presentation did hint at what's coming, including an option to "quickly launch right back into recent games" from your Library, and indicators of "activity" in games you own including events, updates, and "Friend activity." 

Game launch pages will be updated as well, with some sugar-sweet "rich display of content."   

A separate but also very interesting part of the presentation are the numbers revealed by the "Steam is Big and Growing" slide. It claims 14 million peak concurrent users, with 33 million daily active players and 67 million monthly active players. 

That's a tremendously impressive user count, but also relatively flat for the first half of 2017: Steam passed 14 million concurrent users for the first time ever in early January, and the Steam and Game Stats page indicates that the average continues to fluctuate between high-12 and mid-13 million. 

TOPICS
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Latest in Platforms
A screenshot from game Mudborne of a little humanoid frog in a marsh
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 24, 2025)
midnight murder club
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 17, 2025)
Screenshot of Children of Clay showing a mysterious clay model
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 10, 2025)
discord
Brace yourself for Discord to get worse: Reports swirl that the company is in talks with bankers about opening itself up to shareholders
The Spy from Team Fortress 2 holds up a folder with an accusatory expression.
Steam users react ecstatically to update that lets them access their heaving game notes via the web, also it fixes Monster Hunter Wilds video recording
HasanAbi
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker suspended after saying Republicans would 'kill Rick Scott' if they really cared about Medicare fraud
Latest in News
An Enshrouded player in a recreation of Erebor from The Lord of the Rings
Kings under the Mountain! 33 Enshrouded players spent 10,000 hours to recreate this iconic location from The Lord of the Rings
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened