Filters - Steam Points Shop

[AngryWombat]

This shop has no means as far as I can tell to filter content beyond the existing basic categories (Ie. profile background, mini-profile, etc.) that exist. I never really delved into it because of this until now, it's honestly frustrating a bit because I'd like to use this shop and enhance my profile customization. I just can't find anything without taking a large amount of extra time to endlessly scroll through.
At the very least there ought to be a filter to separate games you have in your library since there is a feature that blocks you from selecting some icons lest you have the related game. Other filters could include: the clustering of all individual packs of icons and customizations related to specific games or other content similar to the 'bundles' category, alphabetical, base color filtering, icon type filtering (such as context related to an emoji, Ie. Happy face vs Sad face, thumbs up or a waving hand etc.).
Some more complex filtering options may require or would benefit from an integrated creator feature in adding tags to each icon to teach the filter.

All in all, my point being, it needs more order. As it stands, to my eyes it just looks like a pile of junk that I have to sift through to find something occasionally nice that resonates with me or fits a style I'm going for. To some that is fine to me it is not, perhaps the existing 'mound of things' style can just be the default without any filters enabled in the future.

Again as I said this is "as far as I can tell" as of time of posting, if there are filters and I just have yet to find them please correct me and guide me to where they are please as it would help greatly in navigation and discovery. Cheers.

[yuu]

Yeah, you are absolutely right honestly. It is not a filter, but you can search keywords that will be checked in the game's title which the item is from, and in the title of the item itself (primarily) with the top bar. But because most items have unique names, you cannot look at keywords to "filter" them usually. So it is a flawed system and needs official filters, at least for profile customization.


The only problem is that classifying such items using these filters soon proves to be quite the undertaking because besides simple color-related filters (let us say, for avatars or frames), there are thousands upon tens of thousands of emoticons, backgrounds and the like that simply do not fall under easy to group categories. That and I am sure developers could not care less about helping you find these items in such an afterthought of an implementation.

So, really, the problem is that steam inherently is not made with "social media" in mind where customizing your profile is a big appeal, even if a lot of users care deeply about it. As such, this feature with the points shop is slapped together pretty hastily just to add another incentive to spend money and get some (often debatable) appealing rewards for customizing your profile. What I believe was envisioned was for you to be a fan of a video-game in mind, and to specifically search for its items for your profile exclusively, because you like that game, not because the items look good to you (even if you know nothing about their origin game). This is a good theory, because currently the shop makes it easy to find something from a specific game or series, but hard based on just aesthetic criteria.


So for this, I agree.

[AngryWombat]

Originally posted by yuu:

The only problem is that classifying such items using these filters soon proves to be quite the undertaking

Thanks for the reply, yeah I haven't been particularly optimistic with much improvement to take place very soon since it is still a relatively new addition. I figured if I just brought it up there's likely a fair amount of other people who might voice similar perspectives and later down the line a better user experience 'might' develop. But yes ultimately it likely comes down to a valuation issue. I mean I do see how people are less likely to be invested in that store on one hand but I also see how if improved they could garner greater user interest. It's difficult to judge larger scale interest without more data. They could run a poll I suppose.
PS: For the record I did find the section that filters the content from the games in your library.

Anyways, cheers. Anyone else want to chime in?

[TGC> The Games Collector]

I'm still a bit annoyed at the mess backgrounds are in the edit profile page.
Also has no sorting, and just jumbles both animated and still backgrounds into one big pile, making it difficult to find certain backgrounds.

It's just a bit overwhelming as one giant pile, instead of being able to split it up in smaller groups.
Animated profiles could use their own stack, for instance.
Sorting by theme could be helpful...
The ability to mark as favorites to easily find them back would be nice.

I know it's not specifically part of the point shop, but the shops there for profile customization items...

I'd agree a few more tweaks in sorting these items out would be desirable.

[Deyzo]

allah allah

[Mailer]

You can use the Steam Cards Exchange for some more convenient browsing of the most recently added Pointshop items:
https://www.steamcardexchange.net/index.php?newitems-filter-frames

That's about the only alternative to the point shop that I know of though.