Gameplay sharing is all the rage these days, and while capture and subsequent internet upload has been fairly easy on PC for years, simply sharing what you’re currently playing with specific people hasn’t always been so simple. Valve’s “Steam Broadcasting” aims to solve that, and the best part is, it’s available to try right now.
You’ll need the Steam Client Beta if you want access to the feature, which can easily be easily enabled by navigating to Settings, clicking Account, and changing your “Beta Participation” to “Steam Beta Update.” From there your client will take care of some business, and you should have access within minutes.
Managing privacy when it comes to who can view your gameplay is relatively simple, and is almost reminiscent of Facebook. The options for privacy are as follows.
Who can watch my games?
- Only friends that I invite
- Friends can request to watch my games
- Friends can watch my games
- Anyone can watch my games
The last option is particularly interesting, because it essentially transforms a person’s Steam account into something more reminiscent of a Twitch stream. Whether or not public gameplay sharing via Steam will become popular is anyone’s guess, but given Steam Broadcasting’s extreme simplicity, it’s certainly possible.
Valve has additional details on its site if you want to learn more, so head to the Steam Broadcasting community page here to check it out. It will be interesting to see how the feature performs in its beta stage; if all goes well, free streaming on Steam may reach the masses in the very near future. We’ll soon know if that’s actually a good thing.
