We keep talking about Steam, and it’s been several times this week. But it is that the game store Valve, when not celebrating something, will introduce a change that is interesting to know, because it is not only the most popular gaming platform for PC: everything it does has its response in the competition before the afternoon. .

So the 30 million concurrent user milestone announced earlier in the week was followed by a much less promising update like the suggested price increase that we’re sure to start suffering soon. With nuances as discussed in the news, although given the situation that half the world is going through, it is not even a surprise.

And these “date formats and upcoming release lists”… is it positive or negative? Well, there’s no need to worry, but… Just kidding: it’s positive. It is a change that refers to Overwriting game release datesand it is that, although the developers cannot be forced to set release dates that may not be met in the end, picturesque news abounds.

In other words, developers won’t have to set a launch date for their games, but they won’t be able to leave any message they want, which often only serves to create confusion among users. Either put a date on it or leave a “coming soon” hint. watch out for change it doesn’t target early access games, but all of them games in general.

“To make it easier for customers to explore upcoming releases, we’re standardizing the format of future data,” they explain on the Steam forums. Standardization that will also serve to clarify launch dates regardless of where the user is or what language they are using: “For example, the date 08/05/2023: is it May 8 or August 5? It depends where you live!” they add.

New date format options include:

• Exact date: «24.8. 2023″.
• Month and year: “August 2023.”
• Quarter of the year: «3.ᵉʳ quarter of 2023».
• Year: “2023”.
• No specific date: “Coming soon”.

With the exception of “coming soon”, the date formats shown are for both developers and users, although the former will still be able to hide the exact data from the latter if they wish, and will only show approximate data. Details are given in the Steam article above, which is generally well received.

In any case, you just have to wait for the launch of the game, which may or may not be delayed, because that’s the way things are, let alone pre-purchase, so you sometimes get dizzy with incomprehensible messages from the publishers. So or date or soon and that everyone decides whether to invest their money in it or not.