Best Steam Features You Didn’t Know Existed

Before you can start broadcasting with Steam, you need to tweak a few things in the Settings menu. While there, scroll down to “Broadcasting,” and you will be able to change your stream’s bitrate, resolution, privacy settings (i.e. whether anyone can watch or just friends), and where chat is located on the screen. Once you have everything set up, just start the game, alt-tab out of it, and go back into the Settings menu. Click on the link next to “Broadcast Status,” and you should be able to start broadcasting. If you’ve done everything correctly, when you alt-tab back into the game, you should see the words “LIVE” at the top of your screen next to a counter of how many people are watching. 

Tricks to organize your library

If you’re like me, you have way too many games in your Steam library, and it’s grown increasingly difficult to keep track of which games I own. Fortunately, there are several options built into Steam designed to organize your collection.

While Steam automatically sorts games alphabetically and lets users search for titles using filters, gamers can organize their libraries using Collections. Simply highlight a game, right click it, highlight “ADD TO,” and finally select “+New Collection.” Create a name for your new game organization folder and then decide what kind of collection it will become. Do you want the game to be part of a standard collection that only includes games you manually add to it, or do you want it in a dynamic collection that uses filters to populate itself with future purchases? Regardless of your choice, the game will appear at the top of your library in a folder separate from the other games.

Sorting games into different folders can certainly help you decide what to play next, but what should you do with all the games you’ve already played? It’s not like you can trim your digital collection by selling it at your local GameStop or other retail game reseller. You can, however, hide games from your general Steam library. Just right click the game, highlight “Manage,” and then click “Hide this game.” Steam will then shuffle the title off to a special “Hidden” folder so it no longer clutters up your library. Out of sight, out of mind. But, if you are in the mood for replaying a game you’ve already completed, just open the “View” menu at the top of the Steam app and select “Hidden Games” to see this reclusive folder.

Sell items and trading cards for extra cash

If you’re looking for a good deal on games, it doesn’t get much better than a Steam sale. Every so often, Valve sells games on its platform for pennies on the dollar. Why spend $60 on Cyberpunk 2077 at a retailer when you can buy it for $20 during a Steam sale? Given Steam’s penchant for sales, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it offers more than one way to save money.

Every so often after playing a game on Steam, you might notice a pop-up that says you received an item or gift. If you click on this notice, more often than not these gifts turn out to be digital trading cards related to the game you just played. On their own, these cards do nothing aside from leveling up your Steam account; you need a full set to craft badges that unlock profile backgrounds and other rewards. But if you don’t care about badges, you can always sell cards for cash.