Can People on Steam See Your Hidden Games?

No. Hiding a game on Steam makes it completely invisible to all other users on the platform.

When you mark a game as hidden in your Steam library, it will no longer show up or be visible to anyone else – including friends, followers, developers/publishers, and even Valve themselves.

What Happens When You Hide a Game on Steam

Here is exactly what happens when you hide a game on Steam:

• The game no longer appears in your Steam library or account details at all. Other users will not see the hidden game in any part of your Steam profile.
• Along with the game itself being hidden, all gameplay activity and achievements related to that game also become invisible. Others cannot see that you ever played or owned the game.
• VAC bans related to a hidden game will still be visible. However, the hidden banned game itself will not be shown.
• Hours played counters on your Steam profile will exclude any play time accrued in hidden games.
• Hiding a game only affects visibility on Steam. Locally installed hidden games will still be present on your computer‘s hard drive and file system as normal.

So in summary, hiding a game obscures it completely from visibility on the Steam platform specifically. Locally, that hidden game‘s presence remains unchanged.

Why Would You Want to Hide Games on Steam?

There‘s a handful of reasons why you may want to utilize Steam‘s hidden games feature:

• Privacy – You may wish to hide certain singleplayer games for personal privacy reasons. For example, adult-only 18+ titles that you‘d rather not be public knowledge to all your gaming buddies.
• Embarrassing Games – We all have some regretful Steam library additions. Hide away that Hannah Montana game gathering virtual dust in your backlog so friends don‘t tease you about it!
• Reduce Clutter – If your Steam library has ballooned out of control, hiding some of your old completed or multiplayer-only games can clean up your game list.
• Save Bandwidth – Having fewer installed games consuming auto-updates in the background means more bandwidth for actually playing online games.

As you can see, there are plenty of perfectly valid and practical reasons to take advantage of Steam‘s hidden games feature.

Next, let‘s go over exactly how to hide and unhide games on Steam.

How to Hide Games on Steam

Hiding games in your Steam library only takes a few seconds:

1. In your Steam library, right-click on the game you want to hide
2. Select Manage > Hide this game
3. Confirm that you want to hide the selected game

Repeat steps 1-3 for any other games you‘d like to hide.

Unhiding Hidden Games

Bringing a hidden game back out of secrecy is similarly straightforward:

1. Click View at the very top of the Steam client
2. Select Hidden Games
3. Right-click the game and choose Manage > Unhide this game

The game will now be visible again in your regular Steam library!

Hiding Multiple Games at Once

You can also select multiple games using Shift/Ctrl+click and hide them all simultaneously:

1. Choose multiple games (screenshot)
2. Click the Hide selected games button at the bottom

This lets you rapidly hide a bulk batch of games you want out of sight.

Steam Privacy Settings

In addition to hiding games, Steam also allows fine-tuning privacy settings that determine what other users can see regarding your game details and activity.

Access the privacy options by:

1. Clicking your username in the top-right of the Steam client
2. Selecting View my profile
3. Clicking Edit my profile
4. Choosing the Privacy settings tab

From here, you can tweak profile visibility and gaming information sharing with others:

Game Details Privacy Settings

The Game details setting dictates what others can see about games in your Steam account.

There are 3 options:

• Public – All users can see all games in your library and account details
• Friends only – Only friends can see your owned games & activity
• Private – No one else beside you can see games & activity

Game Playtime Privacy Settings

The Game playtime setting makes it possible to show, hide, or obfuscate your tracked playtime for games.

There are 4 options:

• Public – All users can see your playtime per game
• Friends only – Only friends can see your playtime per game
• Private – No one else can see your playtime per game
• Visible to me only – Shows you your playtime, but displays zero for all other users

Profile Comments + Details Visibility

Further down, you can fine-tune privacy around:

• Comment posting permissions
• Inventory/wallet visibility
• Owned gifts & wishlists
• Badges, levels, and steam points

Set each category to your desired privacy level.

Recommended Basic Privacy Settings

For basic privacy protection without going completely invisible, I recommend the following 2 baseline settings:

• Game details visibility: Friends only
• Game playtime visibility: Visible to me only

This prevents random strangers from snooping your gaming activity, while still allowing online buddies to see your games owned & recently played.

Can Friends See When You Play Hidden Games?

A common misconception is that hiding games only obscures them visually in your Steam library, while friends can still see when you actually launch and play those hidden games.

This is fortunately not true.

When you fire up a hidden Steam game:

• Friends will NOT see the hidden game appear as your "Currently Playing" status
• Recently played game statuses will NOT display the hidden game
• Playtime tracked on your profile remains hidden/obfuscated per the privacy settings

In other words, hiding a game obscures it fully – friends get no indication if you are actively playing the hidden game or not.

What About Achievement Visibility?

An important related question is whether achievements earned in hidden games remain visible to friends or stay private.

The current behavior is that achievements earned in hidden games stay COMPLETELY private. Friends cannot see that you unlocked any achievements in games marked invisible/hidden.

However, this does mean hidden game achievements also do not contribute to your overall achievement totals. So hiding all your games would make it appear to others that you have zero Steam achievements.

For that reason, it‘s best to only hide certain games you wish to keep extra-private, while leaving your other games world-visible to properly showcase achievement progress.

Can Other Users See Hidden Games When Family Sharing?

Steam‘s Family Sharing feature lets you share your library with trusted friends & family.

When it comes to hidden games, the game-hider‘s privacy trumps the borrower‘s access.

This means members accessing your shared Steam library CANNOT see or play any games you have hidden, even though they may see & access all other shared games.

So hiding serves as a way to selectively exclude certain titles from being accessible under Family Library Sharing.

Does Hiding Games Affect Steam Store Recommendations?

An area of confusion is whether hiding certain games manipulates the recommendation algorithm for suggestions on the Steam store.

The official word from Valve is that hidden games DO influence your store recommendations the same as any other title.

So if you play a boatload of Fortnite but hide it away out of embarrassment, Steam‘s suggestion engine will still profile that hidden play activity and push more battle royale games your way.

Can Developers See Stats for Hidden Games?

For developers offering products on Steam, one statistic of interest is how many owners/players their game has.

Hiding obscures an individual user‘s game ownership from friends.

But developers themselves CAN still see hidden games in aggregated owner statistics, playtime tracking, and other analytics.

So from a developer perspective, hiding games only blocks social visibility, without actually subtracting from their global ownership metrics. Valve provides developers appropriately anonymized analytics.

Steam Hidden Games: Summary & Best Practices

In summary:

• Hiding games in Steam makes them fully invisible in terms of library presence, play activity, and achievements.
• Friends & public visitors get no indication if you play or own hidden games.
• Privacy settings provide additional control over gaming details visibility.
• Recommendations ARE influenced by hidden games. Developers CAN see hidden game metrics.
• Family Sharing members cannot access hidden titles.

Given the granular privacy management options above, here are some best practices I recommend for Steam users:

• Don‘t hesitate to hide irrelevant singleplayer games cluttering up your library
• Hide embarrassing guilty-pleasure games friends may tease you about!
• For private data, hide adult-only 18+ titles completely
• Hide idle multiplayer games wasting bandwidth on updates
• Set game details visibility to Friends-Only to prevent stalkers
• Obfuscate playtimes with private or hidden settings
• Periodically review and clean up hidden games you may want visible again

Following the guidelines above helps present a tidy Steam profile while still fully preserving your privacy.

I hope this deep dive helps explain exactly what hiding your Steam games does along with actionable recommendations for tailoring visibility. Game on!