Steam makes changes to auto-updating to manage bandwidth during COVID-19 pandemic

Steam will be introducing some alterations to the priority of auto-updating games to help manage bandwidth during the coronavirus pandemic, Valve announced today.

“We know a lot of you (like us here at Valve) are stuck at home right now trying to work or attend school remotely,” Valve said in a Steam blog post. “Or maybe you’re just playing a bunch of great games on Steam. Whatever the case may be, we know that with so many people at home trying to get things done at the same time, it can put a stress on your home’s internet bandwidth.”

Steam games that are installed on the user’s hard drive will auto-update and begin to use bandwidth automatically. Valve said it’s already made changes to how this works, but it’s being tweaked again this week

“For games that haven’t been played recently, Steam has already been scheduling updates for the next off-peak local time period,” Valve said. “Beginning this week, we are now spreading these updates out over several more days. Only games played within the last three days will be updated immediately. As always, the game will begin updating immediately if you request to play it, and you can always initiate an update (or pause it indefinitely) through the Download Manager. We’re also looking into additional solutions to help on our side.”

Valve joins Sony and the PlayStation Network in helping out with limiting bandwidth during the pandemic, which has seen a huge increase in internet usage since people are unable to leave their homes.

Valve also offered a few options that users can control themselves, like scheduling auto-update windows at off-peak times, throttle your own connection to Steam, or choose to no longer download automatic updates for certain installed games.