In an effort to take on live steaming giant Twitch.tv, Valve is venturing into online streaming itself by offering a broadcasting feature for Steam client users.

Twitch, which is a popular online video game streaming platform for players who want to share their game play with the rest of the world, is now about to face some fierce competition from Valve.

For those that may not know, Valve is responsible for their game client distributor, Steam, which in turn brought about 'Dota 2' and many other super popular PC and Mac based titles.

Steam streaming was initially designed to let friends see each other's game play, as the Valve stated on its advertisement "watch friends play, with the click of a button." However, there's also an option that allows the public to stream the game.

It is not only compatible with the Steam client browser, but also to Safari and Chrome, giving it a possibility to be an even bigger streaming platform than Twitch.

Steam Broadcasting is only available live at the moment. When a person from your friends list goes online and starts playing, a "Watch Game" button will pop-up next to the friend's name. After clicking on the button, a new window will appear which will show the friend's gameplay, along with a chat box.

While the broadcasting feature is a part of Steam's beta program, anyone can still access it for free by clicking Steam, and choosing the "Steam beta update" button under account options.

However, for those who are already using the beta option and do not want anyone to watch them play, the function can be turned off by going to the "Broadcasting" option or setting up restrictions on those who are allowed to watch.

At present, Stream Broadcasting can only be accessed in devices running on Windows 7 and 8, as well as in Linux and Mac OS.