Valve to Replace Steam Deal Calendar with Personalized Recommendations in Early 2027
Valve is trading a fixed promotional calendar that reserved storefront space for a handful of scheduled deals for an automated system that can surface far more discounted titles, which may give smaller or older games placement they could not previously get through a scheduled slot.
Key Facts
- Valve announced the Steam "Discounts & Events" overhaul on September 30, 2026, with the change planned for early 2027.
- Valve says the number of games shown per day in the "Discounts & Events" section can increase more than tenfold under the new personalized system.
- Scheduling for manually curated slots such as Weekend Deals, Midweek Deals, and Daily Specials has already been paused, and they are scheduled to end completely in early 2027.
- More than 21,000 games were newly released on Steam in 2025, and about 20,000 have been released in 2026 to date, according to figures attributed to SteamDB.
- Valve says it will provide new and updated tools for developers to manage discounts and sale events on Steam as part of the change.
Reporting from 2 sources: Automaton, Game Spark.
Valve announced on September 30 that it will overhaul the "Discounts & Events" section of the Steam store in early 2027, moving away from manual calendar based curation to a dynamic, personalized system. Currently, that section is a curated slot in which sales partners schedule promotions through Steamworks or the Steam team schedules them independently. Valve says the manual calendar approach is less meaningful now that user tastes have diversified and relevant deals are always available. Over the past few months Valve tested replacing part of the curated slots with dynamic recommendations. The company says the number of games shown per day in that section increased more than tenfold, and store page views, wishlist additions, and cart additions rose significantly. Scheduling for weekly and daily deal slots has already been paused, and existing scheduled curation will end completely in early 2027. Valve will provide updated tools for developers to manage discounts and events on Steam.
Game Spark identifies the specific slots being retired: Weekend Deals, Midweek Deals, and Daily Specials. Valve has not set a date or time for the switch and says it will announce details once they are settled.
Valve's own reasoning, quoted by Game Spark: "Given that user tastes have diversified and there are always many deals highly relevant to users available, the constraint of manually managing a calendar has become less meaningful."
Valve told developers the timing will be communicated within the next few weeks. The change sits alongside existing discovery features, including the "Personal Calendar" tool that left beta in June.
The volume argument behind the decision is concrete. More than 21,000 games launched on Steam in 2025, and about 20,000 have released so far in 2026, figures Game Spark credits to SteamDB. The same outlet notes that titles reaching 100 or more reviews are on a declining trend even as release counts climb.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.