Steam is an online game store and game platform by Valve for gaming on Mac, Windows, and Linux used by over 6.6 million concurrent players (as of January) and has a large library of downloadable PC games. Nearly every PC game you can imagine can be downloaded from Steam - but Minecraft is not one of them.Notch said back in 2011 why he didn't want Minecraft to go on Steam. "Being on Steam limits a lot of what we’re allowed to do with the game, and how we’re allowed to talk to our users," he said on his Tumblr. But Steam, being the fantastic software that it is, allows you to import non-Steam games into your library that have some advantages of being a native Steam game, such as the Steam Overlay and showing that you are playing the game (shown in the screenshot on the right). But how do you do it? It's easy!
- Make sure Minecraft is already installed on your computer, then log into Steam and go to your Library.
- Click the "Add A Game" button on the bottom left corner and select "Add a non-Steam game."
- Find Minecraft on the list and click Add.
Congratulations, you now have Minecraft in your Steam library! Now when you launch Minecraft from Steam, you can type SHIFT-TAB on your keyboard in-game to bring up the Steam Overlay, and Steam will say you are playing Minecraft on your profile. You can also take screenshots with your Steam screenshot key and share them to the Steam Cloud.