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The TcNo Mass Steam Idler was created for a simple reason: The Steam Next Fest, June 2022. During this Steam Sale, there was a badge that gives you XP, and the thing collectors love: a higher number (level) on the badge, with unique icons for each higher level.
Over 4,600 downloads on GitHub.
The Problem
The badge was leveled up by installing and running Steam game demos. This is great; however, to’max’ the badge, you would need to install and run many demos. Not everyone has time, internet speed, or interest in downloading and playing many Steam games, but they may share interest in wanting a higher-level badge.
The Solution
A simple C# .NET 6 app that works with the Steamworks.NET DLL. Steam games are identified with a simple number code. Any code can be used on any application. This code is sent to Steam to check ownership, and do things like count playtime.
This C# program started processes with many Steam App IDs from a user-created file. It iterates through the file and “runs” each game for a few seconds. The game demos need to be activated on the account as well. As they are free, using Steam’s CLI with a command like steam://install/730 would bring up the installation window for Counter-Strike 2. If a free game installation attempt is made, and it’s not currently in a user’s library - it will be added.
Issues
There were 2 issues that arose during and after the creation of this project:
- Not being able to add the hundreds of game demos at once. The Steam API has a limit of 50 activations per hour. The project was adjusted to reflect info to the user on errors, and most importantly, after 50 activations.
- Activating hundreds of Steam demos sounds like a good idea, until you’re unable to scroll through games you actually want to play. The solution was another project, and guide, that allows users to mass-remove Steam demos from their account.
Mass removing demos from account
I put together a guide and script that users can run in their browser’s console that:
Finds all the game demo IDs from the user’s Steam License page and uses the Steam API through Steam’s own RemoveFreeLicense, using authorization from this page (Users can click Remove and confirm manually).
The script iterates through all the games on the page, until the rate limit is exceeded (180-second wait), or a network issue happens (retries in 60 seconds).
