Steam now lets you mark games as private

If you’ve opted in to the Steam client beta, you can now mark games in your Steam library as private so that they’re invisible to other users. That means that if you’re – as a hypothetical – a games journalist who once had to buy and install some games with questionable names and subject matter for an article you were writing, you can now hide that so it’s no longer visible to your friends or – hypothetically – your child.

Hypothetically!

“Steam has long supported multiple levels of privacy for your Steam profile and your entire games list. However, there are times when you might want to keep a few of the games you own off those lists,” says the announcement.

“Starting today you’ll be able to mark specific games as private and they’ll disappear from anywhere they’d be viewed by someone other than you. That includes: your ownership, in-game status, playtime, and activity in that game. This additional control allows you to keep most of your Steam Library visible to your friends, so they can see what you are playing and join in, yet also keep a few of those games just to yourself.”

To mark a game as private, you can head to its game page, hit Settings, and then “Manage…”. Steam uses more ellipses than a visual novel protagonist.

The same beta update also brings some additional shopping cart features. That includes being able to private games before you make the purchase, your shopping cart being synced across all devices, and “inline gifting”, which lets you purchase gifts for multiple friends in a single order. Those all seem useful just in time for the Steam winter sale.

To opt-in to the beta, head to your Steam settings and then look under “Interface”. There will be an option called “Cleint Beta Participation” with a dropdown where you can select the “Steam Beta Update”.