We've just released new features designed to make Search more powerful and easier to use. With new filtering capabilities and quality of life improvements, Steam Search is now even better at helping you browse for new games, or narrow in on exactly what you're looking for.

Today's changes to Search were made as part of Steam Labs, an initiative where we try out upcoming changes and gather feedback on their usefulness.

By developing new features in Labs we're able to experiment more, without impacting everyone who uses Steam. This means we can try things which might not work out, and can receive user feedback much earlier in the development process. Not everyone uses Steam the same way, so the feedback we receive in Steam Labs helps us serve a wider audience.

Our Search experiment started as an exploration of new ranking algorithms, but based upon user feedback it expanded to include the many quality of life improvements in today's release. While large features often get the most attention, smaller changes are essential for a smoother user experience.

Steam Search does more than just looking up games; it's a powerful tool that drives many of our discoverability features, including Top Sellers and Specials pages. Today's features are available anywhere the Search tool is used across the store.



Search now supports setting a maximum price, and a filter to only see special offers. If you're looking for a game in your budget, or hoping to discover just the right thing during a sale, this control will help you find the games you want.



We've introduced new ways to leverage tags to find the games you'll love. Tags now show a preview of how many results will be returned, making it easier to see which are most relevant to your search. By popular demand, it's also possible to exclude tags from your search. If you're a fan of survival games, but not horror or zombies, you can now search to your exact taste.

Our 'sort by relevance' algorithm will also place heavier weight on tags you've requested, meaning you'll see more relevant results up front, making it easier to find compelling titles, independent of whether they're popular.



We've heard from you that it can be frustrating to browse through search results that include a lot of games you already know about. Our new filters allow you to hide games that are ignored, wishlisted, or already in your library. These controls can be enabled or disabled without reloading your search, and their settings are preserved between searches.



Search is all about finding games that are relevant to you. If you don't own a VR headset, then seeing VR-only titles may not interest you. It's now possible to exclude these titles from your search, while still seeing VR-supported titles you can play without a headset.



Rather than having to manually click through pages, we now automatically load more results when you scroll. Your search, and the position in it, will be remembered if you click on any result, and then return to the search page using your browser's back button.

For those who prefer the older paginated view, infinite scroll can be configured via your Store Preferences.


If you're using Search in a language other than English, then your language will be shown first in the language filter control, and that control will be moved to near the top of the search page.

We've received a lot of amazing feedback during Search's time in Steam Labs, so this isn't the end of our Search improvements. If you would like to help us design and refine new features, head over to our Steam Labs page and try out the experiments that catch your interest. We'd love to hear from you!

Try the updated Search now!

The first month of the new decade is in the books, and with that we'll be looking at the top 20 games released in January 2020. As a reminder, we measure monthly top releases by looking at revenue generated during the first two weeks after launch. We'll also be featuring the top 5 free-to-play releases, measured by the total number of unique players acquired during their two-week launch windows. Scroll down to view the lists or check out this handy sale page.

If you've followed our previous posts, you know that we like to highlight the developers who are creating these awesome products. Every month, it's remarkable to see how diverse the representation of developers is from around the world. In the past six months alone, top releases were developed in more than 30 different countries across six continents. This diversity ensures that no matter where players live, it's easy to find games with familiar language use, regional pop culture references, local themes & settings and all sorts of other variety that simply wouldn't exist if developers were all from one region. January's new releases brought a surprising amount of content from one region in particular. More than half of January's top releases were developed in Asia, with eight titles coming from Japanese development teams.

The prevalence of Asian products in January likely comes from a huge variety of factors: change in geographical spending, impact of the Lunar New Year holiday, differences in developer release schedules, and certainly a bit of coincidence. The most exciting part of this surge comes when looking at the products themselves. Anime themes and JRPG elements often perform well with players on Steam, and January included six products from classic anime franchises - Dragon Ball Z, Atelier (3), Utawarerumono and Super Robot Wars. Another exciting thing about these top titles was that almost half of them launched without English localization for either audio or text. Not too long ago, including English support at launch was a requirement for success on Steam. English-speakers are still a huge part of Steam's audience, but the success of January's top releases reinforces the fact that now, more than ever, Steam players come from all over the world and will support a huge variety of language options.

One trend that didn't change this month is that of new developers finding success when bringing their first product to Steam. We're excited to welcome 10 development teams on this month's list who are launching their very first product on Steam. Some of these teams have worked together for years, bringing games to other devices or platforms, while others are working together for the first time. Congratulations go out to AQUAPLUS, Fantastic Passion, Ghostpie Studio, 汉家松鼠 Han-Squirrel Studio, Pyro Studios, Scavengers Studio, Skookum Arts, Soccer Manager Ltd., Steel Sky Productions, Studio 8 & Yippee! Entertainment. 

Finally, it's not very often that we get the opportunity to take a look back at an entire decade and reflect on how much has changed. For those who are nostalgic, curious or even looking for a classic game to explore, we thought we'd look at the top games debuting in January 2010 (sorted by release date). The list for January 2010 is quite different from our normal format, as it contains just 11 games, which happens to be every single game that released on Steam that month. Of these 11 games, only three of them would have charted on today’s Top 20.

Wings of Prey
Zero Gear
Gothic II: Gold Edition
Greed: Black Border
Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy
Aliens versus Predator Classic 2000
Dark Void
Bob Came in Pieces
Hotel Giant 2
Mass Effect 2
Toki Tori


Here is the list of January's top releases ordered by release date (we've organized this list on a sale page too):


部落与弯刀 / Sands of Salzaar
汉家松鼠 Han-Squirrel Studio (China)


港詭實錄 / Paranormal HK
Ghostpie Studio (China)


SUPER ROBOT WARS X
B.B.STUDIO CO.,LTD. (Japan)


GemCraft - Frostborn Wrath
Game in a Bottle (Hungary)


Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk DX
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky DX
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea DX
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


some some convenience store 썸썸 편의점
TALESSHOP Co., Ltd. (Republic of Korea)


DRAGON BALL Z: KAKAROT
CyberConnect2 Co. Ltd. (Japan)


ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIV
KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. (Japan)


DEEEER Simulator: Your Average Everyday Deer Game
NASPAPA GAMES (Japan)


Temtem
Crema (Spain)


Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception
AQUAPLUS (Japan)


The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
Skydance Interactive (US)


Commandos 2 - HD Remaster
Yippee! Entertainment (UK) Pyro Studios (Spain)


Warhammer Underworlds: Online
Steel Sky Productions (Australia)


Coffee Talk
Toge Productions (Indonesia)


The Pedestrian
Skookum Arts (US)


Astellia
Studio 8 (Republic of Korea)


Not For Broadcast
NotGames (UK)

--



Darwin Project
Scavengers Studio (Canada)


Coloring Game 2
L. Stotch (Russia)


Soviet Jump Game
Fantastic Passion (US)


Grim Clicker
EvilCharm Games (Russia)


Soccer Manager 2020
Soccer Manager Ltd. (UK)

--

If you're curious about previous months, here are more Top Release lists:

• The Top Releases of May
  
• The Top Releases of June
  
• The Top Releases of July
  
• The Top Releases of August
  
• The Top Releases of September
  
• The Top Releases of October
  
• The Top Releases of November
  
• The Top Releases of December

Cheers!
-The Steam Team