Hi Mr Wonk,
I am not from Laminar Research; just a flight simmer from down under.
The short answer to your question is NO.
Steam is a 3rd party hybrid taking a commercial advantage of the development work by Laminar Research. There is no link between Laminar and steam. Steam installs differently to that recommended by Laminar.
If you access the Laminar site (www.x-plane.com) looking for steam you will be directed away from Laminar Research.
Steam only updates when final releases are made by Laminar Research. The steam version and the official version from Laminar do not mix (Laminar Staff have advised of this issue in earlier postings). If you want to participate in beta trials you need to purchase the genuine version from Laminar Research. When Laminar releases any update, beta or official release, it is immediately available to all official Laminar X-Plane users as there is an automatic prompt asking if you wish to update.
By now you may have "twigged/guessed" that I don't support steam.
Glenn