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Steam has lengthy sought to strike the appropriate stability between comfort, neighborhood, and personal refuge. Till just lately, sharing your gaming historical past was both public, unique to your mates, or turned off solely. A screenshot from a famous Steam watcher suggests {that a} “Mark as Personal” possibility may very well be coming for particular person video games that you just’re not eager on anybody, together with mates, figuring out you have put a while into.
Posting on X (previously Twitter), Pavel Djundik, creator of the Steam insight tool SteamDB, reveals choices on the three-dot menu to the appropriate of a sport, with the final being “Mark as Personal.” A tooltip on the choice reads, “Mark this sport as non-public and conceal it from my mates.” Djundik’s instance is Counter-Strike 2, which, maybe in some circles, is a sport price hiding.
Tweet (Xeet?) from the SteamDB founder, pointing to a not-yet-public function in Steam for hiding sure video games from public or mates’ profiles.
Some people could also be involved to point out the large hour counts they’ve put into sure video games. Others is likely to be involved about sure obsessive or ignoble achievements in video games standing out of their timeline. Extra seemingly, in fact, are the sorts of grownup and fetish video games with which Steam has a highly complicated relationship. The replies to Djundik’s tweet counsel that folks get this, although additionally they have some strategies about different refinements, like finer-grained pal administration instruments.
For the time being, the “Privateness Settings” for Steam profiles allow you to select between three ranges that have an effect on all of the video games you play: Public, Mates Solely, and Personal. You’ll be able to set your profile, sport particulars, mates checklist, “stock” (these unusual enjoying playing cards), feedback, and screenshots to every of those settings. However quickly, it appears, you possibly can share most of your gaming life with friends, or the entire internet, whereas sure video games are only for you. It could be useful when you may set the privateness in place straight from the acquisition web page, as including a sport to your stock is one other factor Steam typically broadcasts.
“Personal” settings on Steam have beforehand had some issues, as Ars reported in 2013. Over time, Valve shifted to a “non-public by default” stance, by the way eliminating sales and playtime data tools like Steam Spy. It is unclear whether or not a personal setting for video games will have an effect on statistics-keeping instruments like SteamDB or gross sales of adult-minded video games, typically.