Block a steam game from myself for a period of time

Question

Is there a way  to block a certain game in my Steam lib from myself for a fixed amount of time?

I'm basically looking into a "kitchen safe for Steam games" type of solution.

MattR · Accepted Answer

As you will have access to the account you will pretty much always have easy access to the game, The easiest ways to do it on your own without any third party scripts etc are to:

Delete the game; without local content you won't be able to play it.  You can always download it again at your leisure.  You can then selected Installed from drop down menu under Games to only show your installed games, I actually forget about a lot of games I have because of this (although not on purpose).
Ask Steam Support to permanently delete the game from your library,
however this will mean you will lose it forever unless you
repurchase it (or add it again if it's F2P).  Not an ideal choice for
a temporary measure.
When there is a game update allow it to download a small %, then
pause the download.  Change your settings to stop automatic
updates for that game; the option should be in that game's Properties
on Steam.  You can also set all other games (which is the case to
Default) to not allow background downloads, so that it won't update
that way when you're playing something else.  The benefit here is
that you can't play the game until the update is complete, the
downside is you need to wait for an update.  If it's Payday 2 then
you'll have DLC released every 2 days, so that won't be long (joke!
;) ).
Use Steam Family View - With Family View you can restrict content,
pretty much like a parental lock (which is kind of what it is).  The
only drawback here is that you know the PIN code so could easily
bypass it, and if you forgot the PIN code you'll need to contact
Steam Support to access restricted material!  For details on Family
View see here:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5149-EOPC-9918
Forget, or deliberately don't use, your login details for Steam.  If
you can't access the client then you won't have access to the game. 
The downside here is that means you don't have the client for any
games.

Dave M · Answer

You can right click on a game in your library and select "Set Categories".  When you do this, there is a "Hide this game in my library" check box.

If you then want to see the hidden games (to unhide them), click on the filter next to the search box in your library screen (the one where you can choose "Games"/"Installed"/"Recent" etc)

djsmiley2kStaysInside · Answer

It's silly but you could encrypt the file system of that game, give the encryption key to a friend/your mum and tell them to not give it back to you until 'x'; be that you've done your homework or whatever you're trying to get yourself to do.

A better idea would be to look into how to increase yourself control.

aslum · Answer

Step 1: Uninstall the game.

Step 2: Find out how much free space the game requires.

Step 3: Install other software (or download media) until the free space on you HDD is less then the amount needed to reinstall the game.

This won't work very well if you have a HUGE HDD or if the game is tiny. However you could also uninstall steam, partition your hard drive with a "just big enough" partition and install steam on that partition...

80gm2 · Answer

You could always give your login details to somebody you trust such as a family member, who can then change them and agree a time when you can have them back.

I know somebody who did this and it worked for them, it is the best way to avoid temptation.

user141721 · Answer

Just make it not possible to play a game within X amount of time. If you want to restrict yourself to play, the only possible option is to let it cost time to play a game (like installing in, or install steam, install game) etc. In this time you can rethink more than once to think of your choice and stop the install procedure.
If you really want to stop play a game and make it impossible, just install an old VGA-card in your computer and store it in your closet. Now it takes a lot of time to play your game (Okay, maybe Tetris or SimCity 1.) :)

Block a steam game from myself for a period of time

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