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Built-in beta tests coming to Steam

Built-in beta tests coming to Steam

Developers and publishers will soon be able to run beta tests for their games on Steam.

That's according to a new update, as spotted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik on Twitter (below), who noticed that Creative Assembly's upcoming card title Total War: Elysium has a button on the store page that allows users to request access to a playtest.

It would seem that this beta is currently full, but clicking on the button says that you'll be notified via email if you have been granted access. This is the email that Djundik received after clicking.

Valve has also added the 'beta' to the list of app types that developers and publishers can tag their titles as.

This is just the latest change that Valve has brought to Steam. Last year, the platform's library received a complete overhaul, while the company also rolled out the Steam Labs initiative to showcase features that Valve was working on for the marketplace.

We caught up with designer Alden Kroll to discuss Steam's place in the PC games market and what changes Valve needed to make to the platform at Devcom 2019.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.