Steam 近期完成了一次用戶界面大更新。新版設計主打更現代、更整潔的視覺風格，並在 Steam Deck 等不同設備上保持高度統一。然而，這次改版並未收穫一致好評——爭議的焦點集中在「熱門即將推出」板塊的算法調整上。
表面來看，新版 Steam 採用了更寬的布局和更大的遊戲圖片，對使用大螢幕顯示器的玩家更加友好。但真正讓獨立開發者感到不安的，是「熱門即將推出」板塊規則的變化。
過去，該板塊按遊戲發售時間順序排列。一款獨立遊戲只要積累約六七千次願望單添加，就能在列表頂部停留一段時間，從而獲得寶貴的曝光機會。如今，Steam 改為算法推薦，准入門檻被大幅拉高——進入該列表的最低願望單數量從大約 7000 次飆升至約 80000 次。許多距離發售還有數周的大型作品被算法優先推送，而小型獨立遊戲幾乎從列表中消失。
Steam just made a change that's really gonna hurt future indie games. The Popular Upcoming page used to list games chronologically by release time. As long as you had enough wishlists to make the cut (~6k to 7k), you'd get some time at the top of the list for people to discover your game. Now it's listed algorithmically, with far more large games from major companies and publishers on the list, even those releasing two weeks away. The lowest wishlist count on there right now is 80k, when before it would've been 10 indie games as low as 6k wishlists. Feeling very lucky our game's early access release barely made it out before this changed. It was worth probably 1k wishlists for us, and we had some really unfortunate timing/positioning too. It can be worth thousands of wishlists and sales for smaller games. Steam is more heavily prioritizing larger games, with the budget and time to grow to enormous wishlist totals, or the rare indie viral hit. The small to mid-sized games just lost a way to find players. Steam players lost a tool to discover cool smaller games.
獨立開發者 RegisKillbin 在社交媒體上發文抱怨：「我們的遊戲剛好趕上這次改動，估計損失了上千個願望單。對於小團隊來說，這可能意味著數千次願望單和實際銷量的流失。」他認為，Steam 正越來越偏向那些擁有雄厚預算和營銷能力的大廠作品，或者極少數能病毒式傳播的獨立爆款。「中小型遊戲失去了找到玩家的途徑，玩家也失去了發現有趣小眾作品的工具。」
當然，並非所有人都反對這一改變。一些用戶認為，舊版「熱門即將推出」板塊充斥著大量低質量內容，幾乎毫無參考價值。新版算法能有效過濾掉這些「噪音」，讓真正有熱度的作品浮出水面。
無論如何，Steam 的這次改版已經在開發者社群中激起強烈反響。對於獨立開發者而言，一個曾經靠 7000 次願望單就能撬動流量的時代，似乎已經結束了。
