There are three ways to add a game to your Steam library:

• through the built-in store;
• through the “Add a third-party game” button;
• by entering a digital key.

When purchased through the store, games are added automatically; the other two methods require simple manipulations through the program interface. We'll tell you more about them.

Note: The screenshots for this instruction were taken on Windows 10. On other versions of the OS, as well as on Mac OS and Linux, the procedure is the same.

Adding a third-party game (previously downloaded)

This function is useful when the game has already been downloaded and installed on your computer without using Steam, and there is a need to add it to the program library for your own convenience. To do this you need to follow a few simple steps.

Open Steam, in the lower left corner we find the inscription “Add”, click on it with the left mouse button. In the menu that opens, select “Add a third-party game” and click on it.

All applications installed on the computer will be displayed in a new window.

Find the game you want in this list, and click on the checkbox (arrow No. 1) next to its name so that a checkmark appears there.

If you need to add several games, then select them with checkmarks sequentially. After finishing, click the “Add selected” button (arrow No. 2).

If the game you want is not in the list, but you are sure that it is installed on your computer, you can specify the path to it manually. Click the “Browse” button, an Explorer window will open in which you need to find its executable file. This file is easily recognized by its icon and EXE extension. We find it, select it with the mouse, and click the “Open” button.

After clicking the “Add Selected” button, the specified file is added to the Steam library and appears in the general list on the left. Now it can be launched directly from the application using the “Play” button.

Adding a game using a key

You can add a game to Steam using a digital key previously purchased from another store or received as a gift from friends.

Launch the program and open the "Library" tab. Here, in the lower left corner, find the “Add” button, click on it and select “Activate on Steam”.

Will appear in a new window brief description activation process. Here we click “Continue”.

A standard subscriber agreement will appear, you need to read it (or at least view it), and then click “I Agree.”

In the next window, a field will appear for adding a key (arrow No. 1), after entering which click “Next” (arrow No. 2).

If the key is entered correctly, it is valid and not activated, the following window will appear:

Click the “Finish” button. After this, the game will be activated and will appear in the general list of games in the Steam library.

To open it, you need to click on the name with the mouse and click the “Install” button.

The game will be downloaded, installed on your computer, and will then be available for launch.

With many questions remaining to be answered as we move to Steam Direct, rumors and speculation are swirling among consumers and developers. As a developer who has been very familiar with the Greenlight process since 2015 and has successfully completed it twice with Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion and HD Renovation (these games together have over a million users), I would like to talk about Direct and my first impressions of it There's a lot to talk about, including changes to protect against abuse of Steam Trading Cards, pricing, and what the new system will mean for developers and consumers.

The old way: Steam Greenlight

Let's start the conversation with Steam Greenlight. This will be just background information, I will try to keep it short. Steam Greenlight is a Steam feature implemented by Valve to help indie developers sell their games on Steam. How the process worked: The developer paid Valve $100 to participate in Greenlight. The developer only had to pay this fee once, and then could upload any number of games to Steam Greenlight. The money was not returned.

After payment, the developer was given access to the Steam Greenlight portal, in which he could create a Greenlight page with information about the game (title and description), upload videos, trailers and screenshots, useful links (for example to game demos) and links to pages on social networks . In addition, you had to add everyone involved in the creation to the page (if there was anyone else besides you), after which everything was ready to publish the page in Greenlight.

Now for how the approval process worked - once your page was published, your game would end up in Steam Greenlight, where users would vote "Yes", "No" or "Maybe" to express their interest. They could also follow and share links to the page, leave comments, and read blog posts and announcements from the page's creator. All games in Greenlight were ranked by the number of "Yes" votes, and if your game was in the top 100 on Steam Greenlight, then you could count on eventual success. If your game made it to the very top of the popularity contest (one of the top five places), your game was approved by the community and given the green light. Congratulations! What happened after is not very important for this article, so we'll leave it at that.

New method: Steam Direct

Now let's talk about Steam Direct and what we know about the process. Remember the $100 pledge to Steam Greenlight? By paying it, you could publish any number of games. Well, now you have to pay $100 per game. The payment is no longer a one-time payment. The bright side, so to speak, is that if your game itself earns more than $1,000 on Steam, then that $100 will be returned to you.

After payment, you need to fill out information about yourself: name, social security number, etc., so that you can verify that you are who you say you are. Valve also requires you to fill out a tax form and banking information. During the filling process, you will be required to sign several non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). After all this bureaucratic work is completed and when the company is satisfied that you are a real person, you will be allowed to enter commercial information - game name, description, cost, etc. During the Greenlight process, this was not required until your page was greenlit.

Once you have all this sorted out, you will be invited to the Steam Developer Portal. Here you can download your game: files, achievements, Steam trading cards, and the like. It is necessary to submit a nearly finished version of the game to Valve for testing so that the company makes sure that you are not trying to publish malware or anything similar on the platform. This usually takes several days. The same applies to Steam trading cards and other additional files for the game. Valve recommends doing all of this at least 30 days before the game's scheduled release so that all files are approved within a reasonable amount of time and no one has to panic. The term "game" doesn't have strict definitions, but Valve will spend a few days checking whether your game matches the description on the page. Once Valve approves, you can release the game on Steam. Congratulations!

The price of fame

Yes, there are problems with this. The most important thing is that previously your game should have gained some interest in Steam Greenlight. In Steam Direct you just need to pay, and that's it - you're already in business. The problem is that Steam is practically turning into the PC version of the Google Play Store.

This is a very questionable move for me as a developer and consumer, because there will be even more games on the platform. Doesn't seem so bad, right? But in fact this is so, because on Steam it’s already difficult to find worthwhile games in the general pile - 40% of games on Steam were released in 2016. Steam Direct makes it even more difficult to find new games that will catch your interest. As a developer, you'll have to compete with a bunch of not-so-quality games taking up the front page that you should have taken up.

Steam Direct adds a new continuous stream of games, but finding games is also difficult due to tags added by users. Anyone, troll or not, can go to the game's Steam page and add tags to it. People often add the "horror" or "scary" tag to very low quality games, even if it is not horror. It could be a 2D side-scroller about a unicorn collecting cakes, but if the game isn't good enough, trolls will label it "horror." If you search for new games with the "horror" tag, you will probably find horror games or scary games, but there will also be games that are definitely not related to this genre. This problem already exists, but the more low-quality games that appear on Steam due to the constant addition of new ones, the more users will abuse the tagging system.

Another opinion of mine may be unpopular. I spoke with several developers and they, like me, think that the price publishing a game on Steam Direct should be slightly higher than $100. In my opinion, it should be at least $500, especially since you will get money back if you sell over $1,000. Thanks to Patreon, developer streaming channels on Twitch, and simply donations collected on the site, a good developer and good game They can easily collect the required amount of money.

Speaking of payment, what about those developers who sell games for 99 cents or even for free? They won't get their money back, and if they do, 99 cents will have to generate a significant amount of sales. The situation with free games is even worse, because in-game transactions are not taken into account when refunding funds. Someone may say: “Why return the money? You get ADVERTISING!” Or: “Why do you want your money back? Are you making games just to make money?!” To both of these statements, I can answer that game development is not always cheap. It's good when you get a return on your work, it helps create new games.

The situation with developers releasing free games is interesting (to say the least). I sympathize with those who want to put the game on Steam, make it free and at the same time will not receive new system nothing - it's not very fair to them. Developers who make little profit may receive no money at all. My first game on Steam was free. I understood that I couldn’t get the money back because: 1.) It’s impossible and 2.) None of the developers would get their money back. If Steam Direct had been introduced back then, I would have been jealous of those who got their money back because I wouldn't have been able to do it. I hope there will be some kind of system to help such free game developers. It might be worth giving the money back if they get X number of downloads, as if it were a paid game that earned $1000.

One more topic: abuse of Steam trading cards

A major problem with Steam Greenlight was the abuse of Steam trading cards. The developers generated thousands of keys and passed them on to bots that launched Steam games to farm cards. Then they put a high price on the cards and received a percentage of their sales.

This problem exists on several levels, including two of our favorite words: the Steam algorithm. If you didn't know: the more time a game is played, the more Steam considers it popular, so it advertises it more on the main page, recommends it to users, etc. It is clear that this is a serious problem. Steam shows us unpopular and low-quality games because card-farming bots break the entire system.

With the introduction of Steam Direct, Valve changed its approach: now a card game needs to reach a certain number of hours of gameplay for all players, plus it must meet some other indicators that Valve hides from us. As soon as the game reaches these indicators, cards begin to fall out. After this, all players who have played time in this game will receive cards. Sounds cool, right? Well, not really. Especially considering that we don't know the metrics the game should achieve. Not to mention, Steam Trading Cards are a big reason for abandonment - if users can't get the cards right away, that could be a problem. Even with the current system, consumers complain that cards don't drop out. This hurts the store, achievement hunters and collectors, all to combat the small number of people farming cards for a living. But I am sure that even with such changes, card farmers will still find ways to continue their scams.

Hey! This is my game!

The last problem that came to my mind is probably the most important of all those listed. This is a problem with stolen works and DMCA bans. During the Steam Greenlight process, attackers sometimes completely copied an existing Greenlight page and published it in Greenlight. Why I call them "malicious": the link to the game demo actually led to malware. Greenlight contained fake pages that tricked unsuspecting users into downloading malware.

This happened at least once with the original Spooky's Jump Scare Mansion in Greenlight. What should a developer do when he sees this? In Steam Greenlight, the developer and the community could complain about a page with a copy of their game, in addition, they could ask for a DMCA block, and if the game received enough complaints, it was blocked. The same applies to fan games and games with replaced resources. What about Steam Direct? How carefully will the search be carried out to ensure that no one steals your work or replaces resources in it? Direct, you won't be able to request a DMCA ban again until the game is released and starts making money, and that's pretty scary to me.

In the worst case scenario, a malicious developer could take someone's game, make money from it, and disappear. These people may even take games from free sources (like itch.io or gamejolt) and claim them as their own. I hope Valve is very careful to ensure that the solution to the problem is not too difficult for the developer, otherwise we will be inundated with such content.

Where to go next?

This is all the information we have so far, plus my thoughts. We'll just have to wait for more details to do a more precise analysis to decide whether this is a good idea or not. I understand where Valve is coming from with these changes. It aims to reduce obstacles in the way of developers, but I'm not sure that such a system is well protected from people trying to exploit it to make easy money.

Steam allows you not only to add all the games purchased in the store of this service, but also to attach any game that is on your computer. Of course, third-party games will not contain the various dynasties that are present in Steam, such as achievements or receiving cards for playing the game, but still a number of Steam functions will work for third-party games. To learn how to add any game from your computer to Steam, read on.

Adding third-party games to your Steam library is essential for everyone to see what you're playing. In addition, you will be able to broadcast gameplay through the Steam service, as a result, your friends will be able to watch you play even something that is not in the store. In addition, this feature allows you to launch any game that is on your computer via Steam. You don't have to look for shortcuts on your desktop; you just need to click on the start button in Steam. Thus, you will make this application a universal gaming system.

Solving possible problems

Sometimes the procedure does not go as expected - the user encounters certain problems. Let's look at the most common ones.

The game is not added
Quite a rare problem, actually. In most cases, this means that the game being added is already present on the account in one form or another. If the game is definitely not and cannot be on your account, problems with the client itself cannot be ruled out. The optimal solution in the latter case would be to completely reinstall the Steam application.

Steam does not work correctly with the added game
You can find reports online that some client features work with a third-party game added to Steam: Overlay, Steam Link, you can use the Steam Controller in it, and the like. Alas, this information is outdated - Valve, as part of the fight against piracy, has disabled such functionality for games that are not available in the service and were added by a third-party method. There is no solution to this problem, and most likely there will not be, so all that remains is to come to terms with it.

Conclusion

Now you know how to add a third-party game to Steam. Use this feature so that all your games can be played through Steam, and also so that you can watch your friends' gameplay.

Today the number of Steam users exceeds 150 million and all of them have at least one game on their account. However, immediately after installation, the client is delivered blank, that is, the owner of the personal computer must independently add suitable applications. You can select a game from an existing library or add a program that is installed on your computer. The service also supports the installation of third-party applications that are not available on Steam. Details on how to add a game from Steam are further in the article.

The steps required to add a game depend on the user's goals. All 5 known methods settings are described below.

Adding a Third Party Game

The method is intended for cases when the game is downloaded from the Internet and installed on the system, but without using Steam. In order for it to be displayed in the library, and also to be able to take advantage of your own account, you need to add the application to the Steam catalog.

How to add a third party game toSteam:

1. Launch the Steam client.
2. In the bottom left corner, click on the plus icon with the caption “Add game”.
3. From the drop-down list, select “Add a third-party game.”
4. The next window displays a list of all applications that are installed on your personal computer. Check the box next to one or more games.
5. Click "Add Selected".

Healthy! Sometimes the game does not appear in the list of applications. In this case, you can click on the “Browse” button and specify the path to the application directly. Through Explorer, you need to select the exe file of the game, not its folder, then press the “Open” button.

After completing the procedure, all added applications are displayed in a list in the “Library” tab. To start the program, select it from the list and click on the “Play” button.

Adding a game using a key

If you have a digital key, then it is possible to add games to Steam using it. The code can be received as a gift from a friend, won, or purchased in a store.

How to add a game to your librarySteam:

1. Open the Steam client and click on the “Add Game” button (a little above Start in Windows).
2. Select the “Activate on Steam” option.
3. In the new window, click “Next”.
4. When the “Steam Subscriber Agreement” appears, click “I Agree.”
5. Enter the key and click on the “Next” element.
6. If the code is specified correctly and it is current, a window will be displayed indicating the successful completion of the procedure. All that remains is to close it with the “Done” button.
7. Open the “Library” tab and go to the game page.
8. Click “Install”.

After downloading and installing, the game becomes available for use.

Add a game through Explorer

Steam always adds all installed games in one place. By default, available applications are stored at the path: Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common on the system drive. If the user manually changed the storage directory, the appearance of the link may differ. If you create a folder with the correct name in the target directory and place the files of a previously installed game in it, it may appear in Steam. After launching the platform, the service will automatically find the application and begin updating or fixing it if some user files are missing.

In a similar way, you can add free Steam games or previously purchased ones. But paid applications will still not work without a key. In this way you cannot add programs and games that are not supported by the service.

Installation from another computer

If Internet speed or limited traffic does not allow you to download the game directly via the Internet, then you can take it from another personal computer. As already mentioned, all games are saved in one place, you only need a flash drive with enough memory and you can copy the installation files. For this method to work, you definitely need another computer with the current version of the game.

Instructions:

1. Open Steam\steamapps\common on the computer with the game and find the folder with its name.
2. Copy the entire directory and transfer it to a flash drive.
3. Connect the drive to the target personal computer, move the files to a similar location.
4. Go to the Steam “Library” tab, select a game and click “Install”.
5. Specify the path to the transferred game.
6. After checking and updating the game, it will be available for launch.

Adding previously installed games to the Steam library

The method is useful when reinstalling operating system. It allows you to save games even after installing another version of Windows. By default, all data would be deleted from the system drive. To secure applications and eliminate the need to download them again, just move the desired directory to another logical drive.

How to add an installed game toSteam:

1. Open Steam and activate and update available games.
2. Create a “Games” folder on the drive (not the system drive).
3. Inside, create a directory “Games1” and “steamapps”.
4. Transfer data from the original “steamapps” folder on drive C to the one you created yourself.
5. Open the Steam client, go to the “Library” and click on the “Install” button.
6. Manually specify the installation location in D:\Games\Games1.
7. After the installation begins, close the platform application, including from the tray.
8. Move the "steamapps" folder to Games1.

Now reinstalling the operating system will not harm, the games will remain in the system. The exception is full disk formatting.

Solving possible problems

There are situations in which everything does not go according to plan. The good news is that startup problems can be solved.

Known issues when adding games to Steam:

• The game is not added. Failure is rare. The most likely source of the problem is that the game is already on your account. Reinstalling should help. If the application is probably not in the profile, then the source of the problem is the Steam client itself. Reinstalling the application should help.
• Steam does not work correctly with the installed game. Users often complain that third party applications do not have access to Overlay, Steam Link, Controller, etc. The thing is that the company deliberately disabled such features to combat piracy. There is no way to fix the problem.

Found a typo? Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter

Today we will talk to you about how to add a game to Steam. It's very simple, especially if you know where to click and in what order. So let's try to quickly understand this topic.

Direct purchase

Well, let's start with the simplest and most banal scenario. If you are wondering how to add a game you just purchased to Steam, then don’t worry - after downloading it will appear on the system automatically.

This is a fairly common option for toys to appear in the client. Typically, when a user purchases an application, it starts downloading to the computer automatically. After this, the system will prompt for installation. If the answer is positive, you will not need to think about how to add the game to Steam. Otherwise, you will be able to implement your idea after you install the toy on the computer.

Not the only option for the development of events. Let's try to figure out how else we can answer our question today.

With your own hands

Now it’s worth thinking about how to add games to Steam, downloaded, for example, from torrents. Especially if they are hacked. Nobody wants to get banned for using unlicensed content, right?

First of all, we need to find the folder in which all the toys are stored. It's called: Steamsteamappscommon. Did you find her? Then install the game in this location. After this, launch the program client. Now you know how to add games to Steam. True, this technique does not always work. Often it just creates a lot of problems that can be quite difficult to solve. Thus, we will have to come up with new workarounds. And, what’s most interesting, they exist. Let's quickly try to find the answer to the following question: "How to add a game to Steam?"

Breaking the system

Now we have come to our question as close as possible. Now let’s quickly figure out how to add a third-party game to Steam, and then play it normally.

The first thing to consider is that not all applications can be launched through this client. You will not be able to “put” content into Steam that is not supported by the program, no matter how hard you try. So make sure that the toy is supported by the client. Otherwise, as already mentioned, you can leave the idea.

If you know for sure that you have made the right choice, then you can try to figure out our question. First, install the toy on your computer. It doesn't matter where exactly. Where all your installed programs are usually stored. After this, you can open the application client and log in to it.

Thinking about how to add a game? With Steam it will be quite easy and simple. Go to the "Games" section, which is located in the top panel of the program. Now you should pay attention to the very last line - “Add a third-party program”. Click on the text and then see what happens.

A window will open in which all applications available on the computer will be displayed. Check the boxes for the games you want to see in the client, and then click “Add to Favorites.” That's it. Now you know how to add a game to Steam. Everything is easy and simple. You can remove the toy in the same way, using the library. Remember that when you clear the client, the application itself remains on the system.

Conclusion

So we have learned how to download new applications to the Steam client. As you can see, there is nothing complicated here. True, if you don’t want to think about this topic for a long time, you can always buy the application in the program, go through activation and enjoy the process.

In addition, you can always receive one or another toy as a gift. After accepting it, you will still not have to rack your brains about adding content to the system. It is activated in the same way as in the case of independent purchase. Wait for the download to finish and then simply run the program. That's it. The game will automatically appear in your game library.

After this, you will be able to play normally and also receive special trading cards and achievements. In addition, users who play on Steam from time to time participate in various competitions and sweepstakes. This way you can win some official and interesting add-on for your applications.