It seems that Valve is implementing a way to play beta games, or a specially designed way to do it in any case. A new button to request access to a game trial has appeared on the store page for the card game Total War: Elysium that looks like Hearthstone. It appears to be the first so far, although more may follow.
The change was seen and published by SteamDB creator “xPaw”. Total War: The Elysium Store page now has a “Request Access” button for game testing. “Request access and you will be notified when the developer is ready for more participants,” says the new section of the store. You must be logged into your Steam account to request access.
Playtest versions have been added as a new type of app for Steam, according to xPaw. In addition to being a game, a demo, or a DLC, it appears that developers will now be able to mark store elements as “beta.” Don’t start early jokes right now.
So far, the button has only been seen on the Total War: Elysium store page. It doesn’t appear that Valve has removed an official line on the addition, so it’s unclear exactly how the system will work for gamers or developers.
I have requested access to Total War: Elysium just to see what happens, but it seems that xPaw has already received a proper invitation.
Valve has been adding all sorts of tweaks and features to its store through the Steam Labs experiments they’ve been cooking. Most recently, they added community recommendations to the home page, and now they recommend which game to play after your library. Interestingly, they didn’t mention the test button in their great blog post about the first year and future Steam Labs features.
