Steam announces adjustment of game update strategy to reduce Internet bandwidth usage during the coronavirus outbreak

Affected by the coronavirus epidemic, the surge in Internet traffic in Europe and North America has put pressure on network facilities. At present, many companies have adjusted to reduce Internet occupation.

Earlier, Google and Netflix announced that Europe would reduce the video clarity and bit rate, and then Sony also announced that it would limit the network transmission speed when players download and update games.

Now Steam, a PC-side game platform, has to start similar measures, but Steam does not directly limit the download speed but adjusts the game update frequency.

According to the official announcement, Steam will adjust the game update frequency through the server from now on. In principle, only the games that users have recently played will be automatically updated. Because many players download many games but there are very few games that are often played.

Therefore, in order to reduce the waste of Internet bandwidth resources, Steam decided to delay the update of these games and only help users to automatically update those games that are often played.

At the same time, these automatic updates will also schedule updates at night according to the time of the user’s location to avoid downloading update game installation packages during daytime network peaks. Finally, if users need it, they can still schedule manual updates at any time.