If you've logged into Steam today like me you probably got a bit of a shock.
What the F are they thinking, it looks like a Windows 8 Metro clone now and makes my eyes bleed if I look at it for more than a few seconds.
The Steam dissusions forums are going mental about this and IMO rightly so.

SO what do you guys think of it, dont hold back, be brutaly honest
And get on over to the Steam dissuion forums and add to some of the hundreds of threads on the subject to make sure Valve know your oppinion.

I noticed the new look last night and I don’t like it. Everything is just too big. Does Valve think all of its users are 80 years old or something?

I think it's horrible too and was going to come on here and complain myself. *shakes fist*

I wonder if Valve did any kind of market research on this before they made the change or did they just assume that most Steam users would love the changes to the layout?

I tried the new look beta a few weeks ago and quickly switched back.

I'm just looking at this. Says it reverts back to the old version.

I think Valve may soon be experiencing its own "New Coke" phenomenon very soon.

I dont know if I want to trust that or not, downloading some randoms files, could be risky, anyone want to try it and report back

I'm currently using this method
Right click the Steam shortcut and in the target box leave a space after what there and paste the following
+open steam://open/minigameslist
This gets you a simple list without the gaudy tiles.

Showed up a week or so ago for me. Can’t say I like it, seems inefficient, like it’s made for children. Harder to navigate my groups. I suspect they want it to look like the big picture mode steam link uses, maybe they’ll be combining the two modes in the future.

Yeah I did notice that Mark. Luckily I have Steam on my laptop that hasn't been updated yet so I'll grab the files off that.

I tried that shortcut but all I got was a tiny window with my games list. Didn't like it at all.

Good idea, my second PC hasnt been updated yet so I'l grab them off that. Should be simple enough to work out what files are needed from the video.

Which Steam Library?

Good luck, hope they fix it in a way that is okay to use for you guys. Sadly a lot of websites and applications these days are going for the super inefficient, "touchscreen large buttons/pictures" look.

My opinion is meh. I never used the Library's large right hand window for any purpose other than clicking PLAY. That still works, at least.

The main issue with the new design would appear to be that the shiny new big icon displays are nothing more than duplicates of what's already shown on the left hand column. The icon tiles in the new right hand window have zero added functionality, either. Clicking or hovering doesn't show a menu with options for that game... It just opens the same game window that clicking on the left hand column opens. From what I've seen so far, only one game, the very most recent, gets a PLAY button on the icon page.

Duplicated information and function means that I'll still be using the left hand column to choose a game, and then clicking the only meaningful thing on the main right hand window... PLAY

A few painful design choices too.. Such as displaying the huge EMPTY "Favorites" section on the main Library display, when I have no games favored. I'm forced to scroll past it to reach any icons. With no favorites chosen, IMO they'd do better to simply remove that blank wasted space, and move relevant content above the fold.

Another weird design choice, is I can see no way to set a created "Collection" as the default to display when the Library is opened. I have to click a bunch of times to make a Collection appear. Again, all while the left hand column already contains exactly what I'm looking for.... with zero clicks.

My Steam library has been destroyed. It looks like Netflix now, and I hate it.

While I do use the favorites and custom categories, favorites being anything I still have interest in playing, 90% of the time I'm playing the same games and I launch by right clicking the steam icon on the taskbar.

I'm very curious to know what motivated this change by Valve. Did they feel the need to "liven things up" due to the increased competition from other services like Epic, Uplay and Origin?

Well I got the old library UI back with the help of that video but thats only really a temporary fix.
What I would like to see is for Steam to at least give us the option on which UI we use.

This change is definatly very unpoular. The Steam Disscusion Forums have been compleatly taken over with complains about it so hopefully they'll fix it soon.

I just keep the launch icons in a separate folder on my desktop and don't go onto steam directly...

+1

I never go into Steam to start a game so this change is a non-issue for me.

I do not like the new interface. These days I use steam for software more than games. Under the old UI you could select to show 'installed', and that would then show two seperate lists for software and games.

Now the new UI you have to tick a box for software or games, and if you tick both it mixes the two lists together alphabetically. I know its only a few clicks extra to select between the two and this is completely a first world problem but I really don't understand what was so bad about the old UI it needed this ugly messy change for.

Is it just me, or are UI's of all kinds getting worse lately?

It's not just you.

I just saw it on my way to Civ V, and don't like the change. Certainly no improvement.

I blame smart phones. High tech so dumbed down people only know how to operate tiles. Keeps them from having to read so much. Picture books for adults.

+1

I just checked and I still seem to have the normal left hand column of games under their favorites or custom tabs.

-edit-

Never mind. Steam just requested a restart for an update and after that I now see what you all are talking about. Yep this is crap. This change makes me want to puke. Not only does the library look like a vending machine now, they are advertising crap at the top of the library page too. Not acceptable. What is Steam thinking? Leave the layout alone dabnabit! They should never ramrod something like this on the customer and at the very least they should give us the option to keep the original UI. As it stands this is garbage and is quite suffocating.

I'm also irritated to find that our screenshots are now somewhat obfuscated and tossed aside. Clicking on a game image, in an effort to figure out what the heck is going on and to find my screenshots, it takes me to a page where the screenshots are off to the side and in a small area because they are being pushed aside from what is almost a full page usage of community activity which is absolute trash. I don't want community invasion of my game library. Now all I see is community posted videos, comments, huge pictures and so on. Looks like utter insanity. Where do we go to lodge complaints? This is ridiculous. Steam needs to snap out of it asap.

you guya are a bunch of old geezers,its fine, i like it. there is even a button to go to the top if your library is huge as mine, also i can set up the games box ilustration, finally.......and to whoever complained about advertising , where did you see that, i have none on my library page,what i have is friend activity, useless for me, but i guess its trendy to see what people are playing and if they are playing something you can join.

K brochacho, however no one aside from Millennials who have nothing better to do seem to like the trend towards tedious and counterintuitive interfaces.

Curses you for making me google that. but seriously,its just because you all got used to the old one,the ui is not counter intuitive.

So I'm an old geezer... it's still a load of bollox... Hate it, end of!

This is it right here. And we can't forget that Microsoft tried the same thing with Windows 8 but they quickly realized their colossal mistake and made changes.

IMO, still not enough changes. But yea.

Hmmm are you sure,is It not games you own and forgot?
Because i checked Mine and It was all my games and their updates.or perhaps i needed more self Control lol.
Also you can hide or delete the tiles If they bother you só much.

I honest dont see the issue of being loaded Into comunity when click the game,there is a much bigger play button Above ALL and you ccan right click to play from the list still.
What i dislike are those streams being shown.

Looks like something optimized for console users, users with controllers, and televisions more than a few feet from the user. If a rising number of users are making use of Steam on wall mounted TV sets from their sofas, then a change that makes their lives easier while only causing a few curmudgeonly grumbles among the usual PC master race before we forget about it might make sense.

Totally unnecessary change for me as a traditional Steam user, but nothing to get worked up about. I find that the interface is perfectly intuitive, and I am sure that I will not really miss the old interface after a week. Also, as a frequent VR gamer, I suppose that I am already used to different Steam interfaces.

I'll have to check on Steam and see if those stats are available but I am very curious now to find out what percentage of Steam users are on PC and how many are on the Steam Machine + TV.

Fantastic post man

I mostly agree except for the last bit and the thing is the've already had that option for years called Big Picture so why they needed to pull this BS I dont know

tip for you all

goto settings, Library

set Low Bandwidth Mode to On
set Low Performance Mode to On

it'll cut a lot of the clutter out from the library menu (like the useless news)

also you can delete shelves (just found it)

the down arrow next to the shelf name, click there, you get a list of your collections to add as shelves. delete is at the bottom...

slowly getting this mess sorted out...

Mine is showing tiles and the traditional list on the left as of ten minutes ago, closed, restarted, no more update and still the same. Maybe it's because i have my games sorted as a custom list? Flight sims, Run and Gun, WW2, Modern War, Horror etc?

Edit- Same with my daughters pc.

Does anyone know how to disable the invasion of community content? This right now more than anything is really upsetting me. I don't want to see community/stranger activity in my private library. Adding to this mess is the fact that it just auto plays movies and gifs or what have you. I don't like this intrusion and its also making me dizzy. I don't want Steam forcing my personal library to be facebookified.

I don't like the shelves and tiles business but what I really can't tolerate is the above.

Thanks Khai for the tip on the shelves. What we really need though is to be able to TURN OFF the community crap within our libraries and also delete the "What's New" shelf. If its a game we own, its easy enough finding out what's new about it by oneself if we so choose to do so.

Coot, to disable Community Content, try this:

Click: Steam > Settings
Click on Library in the left hand column.
Click on Disable Community Content.

Not sure if this will do what you want, but worth a try. I also clicked Low Bandwidth Mode, to cut out as much other stuff as possible.

It's also possible to set the tiles to "small". Not perfect, but another step to be less intrusive.
All in all, I can't say that I'm emotionally traumatized. I don't necessarily like this, especially not that more advertisement is creeping into non-shop pages, but then again I knew from the day that understood what Steam would be, that it would eventually lead to this. Just like there is stupid advertisement on YouTube, or even Amazon Prime now. I'd love to lead an ads-free life, but I've accepted that won't be having one.

I used to leave steam on all the time, not anymore... it kills framerate in non-steam games. must be constantly loading in the background

Before this update when I was starting IL2 BOX in VR I would start SteamVR and the "Play" button for IL2 would change to "Play in VR". Now It remains "Play" and when I click on it it the asks if I want to start desktop or VR, defaulting to desktop.

So although I have Oculus and SteamVR running someone thought that defaulting to desktop, in such circumstances was the thing to do thus forcing me to find the little "Play in VR" checkbox while peeking out from my Oculus Rift. Stupid.

Thanks adlabs6 for the tips. I'll check them out. I sent a message to Steam and put a request in the forums to either have the option to revert to the old ui or to at least be able to disable the intrusive community content. I don't want that in my own library space. They should keep it its own page like it used to be. There still is a community tab at the top and that's where this stuff should remain, not barging into my library. Everything else about steam is already full of shared space from the store front to the community and activity tabs. They should not invade our personal libraries with this stuff in my opinion.

Well, they want this in your library space. It's more advertisement against which you can't shield yourself, with the chance to increase revenue by another percent.

It is important to understand that for Valve, Steam is a software sales platform. From their perspective, every minute that you hang out there without actually buying anything is a failure. It was inevitable that we'd eventually get to this point. Vavle has been giving a #%&*$# about what other software developers want, and paid attention to what the customers want only to the extent that they must to keep it a viable marketplace. Other than that, as with every large corporation in a near-monopolistic position, soulless business management types will rise to the top of these organizations eventually and start dominating the decision-making process. And they will do whatever Excel suggests to them that they should try to increase revenue (and their personal bonuses).
Steam makes an annual turnover of several billion dollars. They aren't a cozy little company run by gamer enthusiasts. They will fake and pretend enthusiasm for games and gamer culture only to the extent that they have to. Their benchmark in customer relations is EA. As long as EA is perceived worse by gamers, "everything's fine" for Valve.

**Shrug** This is business. It's all about maximizing revenue and profit as it should be. Ultimately the marketplace will decide if this approach by Valve will work or not. As it is already, game developers have been flocking more and more to the competitors of Steam like Epic.

+1 for Ssnake's last post.

I really hope people will come to a point where they support non-intrusive platforms (cough, GOG, cough) more. I *do* pay for my games via Steam even though I don't use the client, so I guess I'm guilty as well. But I pay much more on GOG and try to minimize my steam purchases.

It's the same in almost any area of software now. My banking company changed their online banking layout from a clear red numbers/negative cash and black/positive cash to an all grey type, larger fonts, tablet/mobile phone "friendly". Less booking lines per page, less overall information, total waste of desktop display resolution, and they added advertisements for their own products. They just don't care, some beancounter somewhere decided that's their new global appearance and has to be "modern" instead of usable.

On one hand we're expected to update our software for security reasons, and on the other hand companies change workflows/appearance in the wake of those updates, as they see fit. Firefox just broke my password management habits and made the same task much harder than before.

I guess if you are serious about the whole problem, the only option is Linux and free software.

That will depend greatly on what you do computing wise. If you are a gamer then good luck finding games (besides cheap low budget independent titles) that run on Linux.

I hadn't logged in to Steam in weeks, as I've been playing nothing but Combat Mission. But did so last night and actually I prefer the new style. Go figure. Nothing about it bothers me, and there's lots more info available. An improvement as far as I am concerned. No accounting for taste I reckon

Linux is a non-starter for me as far as games are concerned. I wish that wasn't so.

I'm getting used to Steam now. I still don't like it however.

The thing is,I was annoyed when the SimHQ forum changed some while ago. I didn't like it. I don't like change. Now I can't even remember what it was like before, I'm so used to the new layout.

I just need things I can shake my fist at once in a while

I would think just British politics alone would keep you quite busy!

Not so much a shaking of the fist Panzer,more like

oh i found out why i dont have advertisement reported a while back, i have family share or whatever its called, when its on when you open steam the ads don`t show. So if it bothers you so much, try setting that up on configurations.

i will suport GOG when it has games i want to buy, where are the publishers ? that is right,they dont want to risk piracy.

I don't know if I'm seeing the same thing everyone else is seeing, but I don't see that much difference. (I fire up Steam on a Friday & shut down on a Sunday, so it took a week for the new look to get here :))

The Play/Install button looks a little larger to me, but that's about it. I can't seem to drag the left game list column out to accommodate long game titles, that would be my only complaint. I don't see any ads in my library view.

They're not "ads", they're "suggestions".
Maybe Czechia isn't yet a test market. The times where a global audience could expect identical treatment - whether that's prices in web shops or customer support - seem to be long over, if they ever existed.

That being said, and notwithstanding my critical remarks about the monetization of everything in a global contest for our attention, I think this was mostly a typical "internet outrage" from people who don't like change. from a functional perspective there's very little to get worked up, there's even the chance to declutter and better organize large game collections by allowing you to create custom "shelves".

Sure, maybe CZ is not fully updated yet, but it is different. Different enough to assume it was what everyone was talking about, but maybe not. I'd be surprised if there was some little halfway change before moving to a bigger one though.

After scrolling down on each game's page, I do see user generated content in the form of GIFs, videos, memes etc which I didn't see before. I don't see them unless I scroll down though so it doesn't bother me. None of them looked like suggestions though, I still only see them in the store page, which is where I would expect to see them.

tip of the day

opt into the Beta program and get the latest Beta installed the you can set it to List only.... I love it...