The Steam Community

What is the Steam Community?

The Steam Community is comprised of people who play all sorts of PC games. Through the Steam Community, you may find someone to play with, meet up with friends, connect with groups with similar interests, and host and join chats, matches, and tournaments completely free of charge.

Through the Steam Community, you can:

• Create your own individual user profile.
• See your friends online, chat or join servers where they are playing.
• Create and join groups of players with similar interests.
• Track gameplay statistics.
• Schedule group events.
• Access Steam from within any game using the Game Overlay system.
• Voice chat in-game or out.

Steam Community Features

The Steam Community Control Panel (the default page under the Community tab) offers you a central overview of your personalized Steam Community. You can see invitations, events, group membership, gameplay stats, and a list of your friends, all at a glance from the Control Panel.

• View my SteamID - This link will take you to your SteamID page. Your SteamID page shows how you appear to everyone else in the Steam Community, and includes your Profile, Groups, Gameplay stats, Friends, and Favorite Game.
• Edit my SteamID - Not surprisingly, this link takes you to the page where you can edit how you appear to the Steam Community at large. You may also select a primary group, choose your favorite game, and soon will be able to add your own CSS scripts to customize the look and layout of your profile.
• My Invites - A quick view of any pending friends or group invitations you may have.
• My Events - A list of upcoming events set in your group calendars.
• My Groups - Quickly jump to any of your groups to see what’s happening in the community.
• Gameplay Stats - Review statistics from games which you have played.
• Friends - See which of your friends are online, what games they are currently playing, and join them or start chatting, among other things.

Privacy and Security Recommendations

As with any large assembly of people, there are those who will attempt to trick you and take advantage of your decent and trusting nature.

Observe the recommendations listed in the Account Security Recommendations topic and do not give anyone your information under any circumstances.

Game Overlay and Notification System

The Game Overlay System lets you jump into the Steam Community directly while still in game and keeps you informed when your friends come online, join a game, or send you a message. The default shortcut to open the Steam Community while in game is Shift + Tab. You can change the shortcut from Steam’s File > Settings menu > In-Game tab. Customizing and Disabling Game Overlay

You may customize what types of notifications you receive using Game Overlay.

1. Select File and then Settings
   • Disable notifications for some events
     1. Select the Friends tab
     2. Under Notifications & Sounds uncheck Display a notification for events which you would prefer not to see a notice regarding
   • Disable notifications for all events
     1. Select the In-Game tab
     2. Uncheck the Enable Steam Community In-Game checkbox

Reporting Offensive Content

The link to report offensive content is in the upper right-hand corner of each profile and group page. You can send a report on any group and any profile except your own profile.