Steam limiting auto-updates due to extreme demand

Those of you who rely on auto-updates for your games should make sure to update them manually moving forward, as Steam has now limited the automated feature.
Text: Kim Olsen
Published 2020-03-31

Valve announced yesterday that it has been forced to take steps to manage the bandwidth as a result of increased traffic due to COVID 19. It is, therefore, scaling back auto-updates to "spread out" the load on their servers, which is Valve talk for disabling it. This means that only very recent games, played within the last three days will update by itself, anything else you will have to update manually like some caveman, as other updates will be done over the course of several days instead of immediate.

Valve is very direct about the fact that even they are facing high loads on their servers in these times, and that this is for the greater good.

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