The next Steam update will make it harder to find great PC games

techradar.com:

Valve is changing the rules for developers on Steam, meaning they can no longer add review scores or awards to their game’s main store images.

The new rules will kick into effect on September 1, 2022, from which point on games like The Quarry, Hades and It Takes Two will need to update their imagery to match the clutter-free pics of games like Elden Ring. 

Explaining its reasoning in an official blog post(opens in new tab), Valve said the move is to make finding and buying the best Steam games as “clear and straightforward as possible.” The review scores and award logos clutter up images making it hard for players to get a proper feel for the game, or even see what it’s called. Valve also claimed that some games were using out-of-date or inaccurate review scores adding even more confusion into the mix for customers.

So they’re going away, at least in certain images.

Steam store pages will still have a dedicated space for developers to share their awards and reviews, they’ll just require a bit of scrolling. Plus, the rules don’t seem to affect all images on a store’s page – just the game’s banner images or “Capsules”, which are the first pics you see of the game when you're browsing the store.

If a developer wants to share an update post about how well its game has been received by critics with an image that’s full of scores and quotes, that should still be possible.

Additionally, Steam’s new ban on text won’t impact game logos nor will it stop developers from text highlighting new updates or if the game is on sale – but there are a couple of new restrictions.

As the old adage goes: you can’t judge a book by its cover. But, if it has a bunch of reviews plastered to it, you would imagine you'd be provided with a good sense of