Finding and sharing Free Stuff is one of the time-honoured duties of the video game journalist or SEO-monger. Back when I was OXM's online editor, "free Xbox games" was one of our golden Google pillars, the other two being "Minecraft Xbox 360 update" and "Skyrim something something". Well, uncle Valve has just rudely torpedoed that ancient investigative initiative by adding a Trending Free tab to the Steam frontpage, encompassing prologues, demos, free-to-play games and that most treasured of jewels, a full free game with no monetisation elements, such as Grimhook .
Do not cry for us pitiful electronic scribblers, crowded on our melting internet icebergs. Play free games instead! Thanks to that new tab, I've just discovered a demo for neato wide-format tower defender Frontline Crisis . Hah, that'll keep the awareness of steady livelihood erosion at bay.
The addition of the tab follows a series of changes to how demos work on Steam in July. You might have noticed that you can now add them to your library without immediately installing them, and that you can install them even if you own the full game ("primarily, this will make it easier for developers to test demos," say Valve). Developers can now give demos their own store pages, though adding a demo button to the full game's store page is still an option.
This means that players can leave user reviews for them, as with full free or free-to-play games. Valve have also made changes to the Steam homepage so that demos appear in the New & Trending and New on Steam charts, together with tag and category pages. Going by forum chatter, this latter move has created a logjam of demos and free-to-play games in amongst the full-priced releases, which may be why popular free games now have their own tab.
Given that these are free games, of course, it's likely the tab will have a quality control problem, with grifty experiences such as that Banana game hogging the feed. Still, it's a convenient addition for people who have not yet learned the mighty ways of SteamDB . Or bookmarked our free games page .
In more businessy news, Valve have also announced that they're cracking down on links to other websites on Steam store pages . As Brendy observed when he handed me this particular news gobbet, Valve seem irked that lots of game pages basically exist to redirect to and promote other games by the same developer or publisher. With one hand they giveth, etc.
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