The game invites on Steam do exactly what you would expect them to do just by hearing the name that they are given. They can be sent to other players or be received from them, mainly if you’re friends with said other players. After a game invite for a specific game is sent, you and all other players you sent an invite to can play a multiplayer game together if all parties involved accept the invite and own the game.
While the feature is quite simple, it isn’t without its many issues and errors. Here are some solutions you can try if Steam’s game invites aren’t working as they should for you.
Fixing Steam Game Invites Not Working
- Resend Invite
Whether you’re the one sending the invite or receiving it, it is recommended that you once again try to make the process work without starting any complicated troubleshooting. Ask your friend to send you the invite again or send them the invite yourself. Try this solution a few minutes after you sent or received your most recent invite and it didn’t work.
Sometimes it can just be the initial invite that expired or was faulty, so resending or receiving a new one is all that you need to do in order to fix the issue. If the second one didn’t work either and there is a long-lasting problem with your game invites on Steam, move on to the following solutions.
- Switch to Public
One thing that is known to cause a lot of issues with Steam game invites is switching your profile to private. Even if the person you are trying to play together with is a friend of yours on Steam, you might not be able to play together with them if either party involved has a private profile.
That’s why it is recommended that you try the whole invite procedure again after you and your friends have all made sure that you have public profiles rather than private ones. The process of switching from private to public and vice versa is quite easy, so you can try it whenever you want without any drawbacks. You should now be able to get the Steam game invites to work once you’ve made the change.
- Specific Game Issue
Another fix that’s recommended is that you go ahead and try to invite your friend to another multiplayer game you mutually own and have installed on your devices. If the game invite worked great for this game but not for the one that you were initially trying for, then the problem is with the specific game rather than Steam’s game invite system.
You’ll have to wait for the error out until Steam or the developers do something about it. After a few hours pass, you should be able to get the invites for the one specific game working again so that you and all your friends can play multiplayer together.