Steam is updating it's GUI

The Game Room
1

Check it out along with some screenshots:

http://boards.ign.com/pc_general_board/b5027/189660099/p1/?73

Some highlights:

-Complete overhaul of Steam client UI design to improve discoverability of features and to better expose all the information related to games in your library
-Complete overhaul of in-game overlay UI design to create a richer in-game experience exposing context sensitive information related to the game you are currently playing
-New game details view, presenting a detailed view of all the information for a single game in your library
-New grid view, presenting a graphical view of your game library
-New news page in the store/client/overlay which aggregates from Valve related news sites, official community groups, and third-party gaming news feeds
-New downloads view in the client, making it easier to track your progress downloading new games or game updates
-New Steam store design, including more integrated community features, improved recommendations, and improved video and screenshots viewing (and much more!)

What to do you guys think? Looks sweet, IMHO, and long overdue.

2

The only thing I feel really needs changing is the in-game browser. It’s incredibly primitive. At a bare minimum they could do with adding tabs and bookmarks.

I can’t see any of those mentioned though.

3

The only good change was switching to webkit. Everything else is meh or straight up worse than before. For example, you’ve no choice but to have a huge game list.

4

I agree. Looks like they’re trying out a more Team Fortressy 2 polished futurecute kind of aesthetic here. I like the bleak ugly Half Life-style functionality of the current interface.

My games list is 30 titles long - and about an equal number remain purchased but undownloaded. It’ll take me years to navigate this huge-fonted monstrosity.

5

The web browser is way better and I like the GUI much more. However, I do have a pretty small games list. I do wish they made some of the fonts smaller, though.

6

I think it means they’re going to waste more valuable game-playing time downloading updates to a program I didn’t want in the first place.

7

This may appear to be a stupid question (and it probably is) but can Steam be turned off while maintaining the ability to play the games you purchased through them? I only have bought a few, most notably Bioshock and L4D2, but it would kind of be nice to just not have their stuff open in the background while playing these games.

I don’t think its possible as I believe the Steam software is attached somehow to the games that you buy from them.

8

Well, it can’t get any uglier.

Depends on the game. I’ve been able to shut it down using the Task Manager in some cases without shutting the game down with it, but not in most.

9

If you have too big a games list, just makes the ones you want to see ‘favorites’ and show only favorites.

10

The In-Game Interface is awesome! It’s a major improvement. I can now tell the time, see how long the current session is and have multiple web browser windows. I wish their web browser had tabs though. If they can have Chrome or Firefox integrated into the In-Game Interface, it would be even better. Outside of the game, though, it looks kind of shitty.

11

Steam is a content distribution service, AND drm. Not all games utilize steam drm, though. Those that do not can be played without steam running. There is no easy way to tell which is which, as far as I know.