Steam Potentially Working on Implementing Peer-to-Peer Downloads; Here Is Why It Could Be a Huge Deal as Users Sets a New Record

New datamine of Steam seems to reveal Valve’s decision to introduce peer-to-peer downloads on the LAN.

On most video game distribution platforms like Epic Games and many others, users are required to download software and the games themselves, which takes up a ton of internet bandwidth.

However, Steam’s new feature will help solve those problems by allowing users to transfer video game files from one device to another over peer-to-peer LAN, which would eliminate the requirement to download titles.

A good example would be downloading games on Steam Deck directly from your PC instead of the internet.

If it will read installed game on disk, that should also avoid the decryption step for each chunk.

— Pavel Djundik (@thexpaw) October 27, 2022

This feature was spotted by SteamDB founder Pavel Djundik, who further explained in his tweets on how this feature will allow players to easily transfer their PC games on Steam to another device featuring the platform like the Steam Deck. Additionally, he also mentioned that players won’t have to go through Steam’s decryption process while installing these games.

This news comes hours after it was revealed on SteamDB that the platform had broken its active players peak record with 30,239,878 concurrent users. Steam had crossed the 30 million mark last week, and judging by the increasing popularity of the Steam Deck that number is sure to increase in the near future.

In the end, it will be interesting to see how the peer-to-peer feature will shape up, as users have questions on how the transfers will take place.