Steam Has a Visual Flaw You Can Never Unsee

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Key Takeaways

  • Avid Steam users have picked up on a rather annoying design flaw with the platform’s UI.
  • Steam’s text and icons appear to be slightly unaligned in some instances, frustrating users.
  • Reddit users speculate on how the company missed this visual flaw.

As a long-time Steam user with over a thousand games in my library, I have to admit that I’ve become increasingly irritated by a seemingly minor design flaw that has been staring me in the face for years. The misalignment of text and icons on Steam’s UI might not be a game-breaking issue, but it’s one of those things that once noticed, can never be unseen.

Users of Steam have spotted a visual alignment issue between text and icons in their interface that stands out noticeably once detected. Since its launch in 2003, the user interface (UI) of Steam has undergone significant changes with numerous updates, yet its latest design seems to incorporate an oversight that, while not critical, is undeniably irritating.

2023 marked the 20th anniversary of Steam, a platform launched by Valve in 2003. Initially, it served as a means to distribute updates for their own games, but the aim was always to provide a way for any game developer to connect with their players and grow their audience. Within just two years, Rag Doll Kung Fu made history as the first non-Valve game to debut on Steam. Today, it stands as one of the most frequented digital marketplaces globally.

On Reddit, a user from Steam has pointed out an inconsistency in the UI design that might be easy to overlook but will always stand out. On Steam, each game displays its release date, a Windows logo indicating compatibility, and genre tags corresponding to the type of game. However, this user found that none of these three elements are vertically aligned with each other. Using Dark Souls: Remastered and Dark Souls 2 as examples, it’s clear that this misalignment is present in every game on Steam. Fans aren’t satisfied with this issue.

This Steam Visual Flaw Is Irritating Gamers

Users on Steam have reacted as anticipated, with some humorously commenting they won’t be able to unsee this, while others are pondering over how Valve might have misaligned things so significantly. Reddit user Kamui_Kan suggests that the text and tags could be vertically aligned, but the Windows icon wasn’t centered during creation. Another possibility is that the way it’s displayed on the webpage includes extra padding, causing a slight offset.

A Redditor known as BlackHazeRus pointed out an inconsistency in the layout: the space between the release date text and the Windows icon is significantly larger than the space between the genre tags and the Windows icon, which some users found annoying. This observation sparked quite a discussion on Reddit, receiving close to 5,000 upvotes. However, it’s not expected that Steam will address this issue promptly due to their current focus on other projects.

Despite the persistent irritation caused by this design issue, Steam consistently introduces fresh features to maintain its status as one of the top digital marketplaces in gaming. The latest upgrade includes Steam Families, a novel function that permits users to share their games with their relatives. Remarkably, even if another family member is engaged in playing a game online, other family members can access and play from the shared library concurrently.

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2024-10-05 14:54