The Steam Store is getting wider
Valve has realized that very few users are still using CRT monitors in a 4:3 format – and is adapting the Steam Store for wider monitors.
(Image: Valve)
A touch of the future is blowing through the Steam Store: Valve is adapting the desktop game pages to a wider image format. Previously, the shop pages only used a small part of the screen for the actual display of content. The new design fits better on widescreen monitors. Participants in the Steam beta already knew about these changes, and they have now been released for everyone.
Specifically, Valve is changing the width of the shop pages from 940 pixels to 1200 pixels. This means, among other things, that screenshots and videos can be displayed larger. For the video and image gallery, there are also two new display modes: In cinema mode, the gallery grows a bit further to display the images even larger. In full-screen mode, the images take up the entire screen, but the controls for switching between screenshots are retained.
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In addition, Valve presents in the blog entry some features for the new Steam pages, which are primarily aimed at developers. The new room layout is intended to allow for more detailed game descriptions to be published. The background image of a store page will also be more prominent in the future.
(Image:Â Valve)
Why 1200 pixels?
In an FAQ, Valve explains why it took so long to switch the store pages to a wider format in the first place. In fact, the decision was made difficult because most people do not use the browser window in which they open Steam in full-screen mode.
"We therefore experimented with various dimensions and found that a width of 1200 pixels is a good compromise to display more content on the screen without overloading the page and making navigation more difficult," writes Valve. If the shop page is accessed in a smaller browser window, it will be scaled down accordingly. The Steam homepage is also scheduled to be switched to the wider format soon.
(dahe)
