Steam’s Game Recording tool wants to make recording your highlights an easy experience

Steam Game Recording, Valve’s new addition to the platform, is a native recording feature that means now you don’t have to rely on third-party software to capture those highlights your friends wouldn’t believe without evidence.  It is only available in beta for now, but it is available for sampling in both desktops and the Steam Deck.

Earlier this year the online video game retailer launched Steam Families, an overhaul of their old sharing UI, in a bid to enhance the sharing experience on the game hosting platform. Taking a page from music streaming services’ various family-sharing payment features, Family Sharing subscribers on the same account can play more than one game at the same time.

Unrolling Steam Game Recording

With Steam Game Recording you can record continuously in the background, as well as at will with a hotkey. Recording your clip of choice will show you the Steam Timeline, where you can mark memorable moments to revisit later. Game developers can also mark notable moments for you on the timeline, like timestamps for video games. Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 have already begun toying around with this feature. To share, export your clips to MP4, which can be downloaded on the Steam mobile app; or send a temporary link.

Not a performance glutton

It’s solely a Steam feature, meaning it won’t be recording your desktop, and you can select which audio channels are recorded. Beyond that, the Valve company promises that this tool will be relatively lightweight on performance. Taking advantage of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards instead of the CPU, Steam Game Recording reduces the performance cost of recording in comparison to external recording apps.

Blowing up Steam

Valve intends to add more features to Steam Game Recording, like settings individualised to each game. Making Steam a platform friendlier to sharing fosters loyal communities for both the games and the platform through which they access them. Steam continues to be proactive in enhancing its user experience, and with it, its share of the gaming market.