Valve is following suit with the likes of Netflix and Amazon, and adjusting the way its downloads and streams work amidst unprecedented demand for its services while the Coronavirus pandemic rocks the globe. In its latest update, Valve has pushed non-essential updates (for games you haven't played in a while) to off-peak times only. It's also encouraging users to take a look at their update scheduling to better control their updating experience.
Typically, Steam updates your games as and when they need to be updated. They usually tick along in the background and only become obvious if you want to play a game right then and there, in which case the game updates straight away. That's still the case after this latest update, but for games that you haven't played in the past three days, they won't automatically update until the next off-peak download time appears.
"Beginning this week, we are now spreading these updates out over several more days," Valve said in a statement. "Only games played within the last 3 days will be updated immediately. As always, the game will begin updating immediately if you request to play it, and you can always initiate an update (or pause it indefinitely) through the Download Manager. We’re also looking into additional solutions to help on our side."
Steam does have a number of options that you can adjust to take better control of your update schedule. You can schedule your auto updates to take place during a certain time while you're working or otherwise not playing.; You can tell games to not automatically update anymore, saving you disk space and download limits. Infrequently played games can also be moved to older and larger storage devices to save more space for the games you want to play right now.