Some kind of customizable Steam avatar frames appear to be in development. Steam offers up plenty of ways for users to customize their profiles, and we may soon be getting yet another one to spruce up our profile pages.
The avatar frames were spotted on Twitter by Pavel Djundik, a developer who's also quite enamored with data mining. His other projects include Steam DB, a service that digs through the digital game retailer's backend for all sorts of interesting information.
Here's the relevant bit of Steam Avatar Frames code from the Steam Database GitHub page:
$J.post( strActionURL, rgAJAXParams).done( function( data ) {
if ( enabled )
ShowAlertDialog( 'Enabled Avatar Profile Frame', 'This item has been set as your avatar frame on your profile and mini profile.' );
else
ShowAlertDialog( 'Disabled Avatar Profile Frame', 'This item has been removed as your avatar frame on your profile and mini profile.' );
Based on the code, it looks like avatar frames can be added or removed at will. Furthermore, they will apply to both your main profile page and your mini profile, providing players with a unified look.
How Do You Get Steam Avatar Frames?
Mr. Djundik adds that these Steam avatar frames appear to be somehow related to Steam badges and cards, hinting that this may be something we get via drops. If that's the case, it would also be possible for gamers to purchaser them via the Steam Marketplace. It's unknown if they would be sold separately somehow, but I think it's unlikely as Valve doesn't tend to sell their profile microtransactions in that fashion. They prefer to let people sell them on the market as microtransactions.
As for when you could get these avatar frames, I would remind people of Valve Time. Valve, as a company, are notorious perfectionists, and we may not get this new feature anytime soon — if at all.
Would you use Steam avatar frames? What kind of frames would you like to see? Let us know in the comments below!
