Valve dropped a one-two punch of Steam updates today, adding new details and functions to the store's wishlist while also simplifying the process of gifting games.
Let's start with Steam wishlists. In today's update, Valve added custom wishlist categories, letting users assign tags for "games you saw featured in a cool event, games best played with a controller, or even games you have in mind for someone else."
By searching for or selecting for a specific category, you can narrow your wishlist down to games of that type. If you're hankering for a JRPG but can't be asked to comb the 500 wishlisted games that you'll definitely get to one day, just search for JRPGs. Or if I filter by the Metroidvania tag, for instance, I am now forced to reckon with the fact that I have 112 Metroidvanias wishlisted. Thanks, Valve.
If I want to, I can even fill an obvious gap in the Steam tag system myself: grappling hook.
When you add a game to your wishlist through a store page, you can immediately assign tags to it via a new dropdown. Three default recommended tags were shown to me when I ducked my head into roguelike deckbuilder Forsaken Lands: "Birthday List," "Recommended by Friends," and "Waiting For a Sale."
Additionally, notifications for wishlisted games can now be tailored to different platforms and categories. So if you want to wishlist a game but don't want to be emailed about it, you can tune it out of your list.
Another nice touch is the big, green "Demo Available" button that now appears beside wishlisted games. "You can also be notified when a demo is released for a game in your wishlist," Valve explains. In an added boost to visibility, wishlisted games now display the "microtrailers" seen in some other parts of Steam when you hover over them.
The biggest news may be that your Steam wishlist can now be shared by category or through a multi-filtered view. "You can already share a link to your wishlist, now you can share a link to a specific category on your wishlist, or even a filtered view of your wishlist," Valve says.
"For example: you might want to share 'My Birthday List' with your family," Valve reckons. "From that shared link, your family can gift games directly to you, even if they don't have a Steam account..."
This leads us to the Steam gifting changes, which have seen Valve erode a few barriers. Here's the big one: "Now guest checkout can be used to buy any game on Steam," not just digital gift cards and Steam hardware.
And lo, the skies did part at these heavenly words: "You no longer need to be friends on Steam to send gifts."
Similar streamlining has come to cross-region gifting, which no longer requires digital gift cards perfectly calculated to regional pricing. Instead, "now you can gift games directly to your friend. Steam will calculate the cost in your friend's region at checkout. Your friend needs to be on your Steam friends list to send this type of gift."
"You can send a wishlist share link to a friend or family member and they can purchase gifts directly from that list without needing a Steam account themselves," Valve adds. "If a guest wants to send a gift as a surprise they can send it to any email address instead."
Gifting to email will send recipients a link that they can use to log in and claim a game (within 30 days) to their Steam account, and Valve says that if someone gifts directly from your shared wishlist, "the gift recipient in the cart will be pre-populated with your information."
Amusingly, Valve demonstrates these changes with two screenshots showing someone buying Hollow Knight: Silksong, developer Team Cherry's hit Metroidvania sequel, for a non-Steam friend and signing the gift, "Happy Birthday! This game rules." It's true, that game rules.
