Steam has finally got rid of those goddamn clown awards

Steam has announced a big change to its community awards system that means they no longer confer Steam points to awardees and, thank god, has freed us all from that one jester icon that people would unthinkingly hand out to any content they found offensive or idiotic.

If you've ever dipped into a game's Steam forums, or its guides, or its reviews, you've probably noticed something: a whole lot of the stuff posted there absolutely blows. On the one hand, hey, it's the internet, right? But even among the slurry you can find anywhere online, Steam's community hubs have long stood out for being especially tedious and filled with rage-baiting content.

A not-insignificant reason for this is the Steam community awards system. Introduced in 2020, community awards let Steam users give tips of their hat to other Steam users in the form of small animated emojis that appeared on awarded content. You've seen these before: things like the fistbump, little glowing heart, or the dreaded jester icon.

In theory, a fine idea—a way for the community to interact with each other and to give little shows of recognition to stuff they like. In practice? A nightmare. Each community award also came with a small number of Steam points that awarded users could spend in, well, the Steam Points Shop, and users would often award a particular icon—the jester, which looked like a clown—to content they thought was offensive or stupid. You see where this is going: a vicious cycle where trolls were directly incentivised to post trash-tier content to soak up the jester awards and resulting Steam points.

The new change to the system feels tailored specifically to avoid this problem in future. First up, there are now only 12 awards you can hand out: a gold badge, a flower, a heart, a spicy pepper, a laughing reaction, a 100 symbol, a lifering (for some reason), a bullseye, a +1, a lightbulb, a treasure chest, and a cup of tea (or other hot beverage; I guess it's not made clear). Crucially: no clown. The clown is gone, along with many other Steam awards that have been present since 2020.

But even more meaningful is that community awards no longer award points. "We found that [awarding points] encouraged and rewarded a narrow set of attention-grabbing content and didn't allow the focus to be as much on a broader pool of thoughtful, well-considered creative content," says Valve. So even if one of the new awards does become a byword for 'get a load of this idiot,' trolls won't be incentivised with Steam points to post useless content. Also, Steam no longer hands out profile badges for giving or receiving these new awards.

The new awards all cost the same amount—500 Steam points—and any you accrue can be displayed in a new showcase you can stick in your Steam profile. "The Second Edition set of Community Awards is intentionally a smaller set of awards, each one meaning something distinct from the others. This set is designed to make it quicker and easier to choose and keep the vibes positive. The First Edition awards cannot be granted anymore."

Thank goodness for that. I don't think this will suddenly turn Steam's community into a hub of erudite discourse, but at least it means there's no longer a direct incentive to post garbage.