You might already know that Steam offers many games that aren’t suitable for a family audience, and often, you’d prefer not to let your friends see you playing such games. Currently, the options are to maintain a private profile or create a separate, secret account for these “games.” However, it appears that Steam is exploring a potential new solution for this issue.
According to information from Pavel Djundik, the individual behind SteamDB, Valve appears to be developing a feature that would enable users to mark a game as private and keep it hidden from their friends. In the accompanying image, you can observe CS2 with the dropdown menu expanded, and “Mark as Private” located at the bottom of the list.
According to Djundik’s update, when a user marks a game as private, it will be kept out of view from their friends, granting them the freedom to fully enjoy games like Koikatsu Party without unwanted scrutiny. It’s worth noting that this option isn’t exclusive to games of a more mature nature. For those who feel a tad embarrassed about the extensive hours invested in games like Dota 2 or Baldur’s Gate 3, the ability to conceal their playtime will soon be just a few clicks away.
The speculated update represents a significant enhancement to Steam’s existing privacy settings, which currently offer only public, friends-only, or private options for profiles. Djundik also mentioned that Valve is actively developing new parental controls. These forthcoming features are expected to enable users to establish playtime limits for children and prevent unapproved purchases by children, introducing more comprehensive parental oversight.
It’s unclear when Valve will release this update and whether it will bring any additional features or improvements. This development follows shortly after Valve implemented a new two-factor verification system on Steam in response to a significant malware attack.