Steam :: Steam News :: Introducing Steam Families
steamcommunity.com
Hello! We are excited to announce Steam Families, available today in the Steam Beta Client. Steam Families is a collection of new and existing family-related features. It replaces both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, giving you a single location to manage which games your family can access and when they can play. Create a Steam Family To get started, you can create a Steam Family and then invite up to 5 family members.

When you join a Steam Family, you automatically gain access to the shareable games that your family members own and they will also be able to access the shareable titles in your library. The next time you log in to Steam, this new ‘family library’ will appear in the left column as a subsection of your games list. You maintain ownership of your current titles and when you purchase a new game it will still show up in your collection.

Best of all, when you are playing a game from your family library, you will create your own saved games, earn your own Steam achievements, have access to workshop files and more.

Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members’ libraries, even if they are online playing another game. If your family library has multiple copies of a game, multiple members of the family can play that game at the same time. For a more detailed look at how Family Sharing works, see the FAQ below.

Also adds parental controls for children’s accounts. Parental controls let you:

  • Allow access to appropriate games
  • Restrict access to the Steam Store, Community or Friends Chat
  • Set playtime limits (hourly/daily)
  • View playtime reports
  • Approve or deny requests from child accounts for additional playtime or feature access (temporary or permanent)
  • Recover a child’s account if they lost their password

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/11954402

  • Dagnet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    8 months ago

    Wait, now someone can play a game from my library while Im playing another? That’s huge

    • Drusas@kbin.run
      0·
      8 months ago

      If your family library has multiple copies of a game, multiple members of the family can play that game at the same time.

      Sounds to me like no, only if you’re playing the same game which you both have copies of (which seems kind of pointless).

      • blue_struct@feddit.de
        0·
        8 months ago

        No, basically all licenses in the family are pooled together. You own game A and B, you can play game A, someone else game B. There are 2 licenses of game A in the family, two people can play it at the same time.

      • Losboy@lemmy.world
        0·
        8 months ago

        Think we can play separate games and not lock others accounts while playing.

        Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members’ libraries, even if they are online playing another game.

      • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
        0·
        8 months ago

        If two players play the same game and they both have copies, then that wouldn’t even be library sharing yet. That’s just normal use.

        They’re pointing out that for multiple users to play the same game at the same time, you need multiple copies. With just one license for each game, different members can play different games at the same time, but they can’t start up a game that someone else is already playing, if there’s only one copy to go around.

        Now if more than one member has a game, the number of copies in the family becomes the limit for how many can play that game at the same time. So if two people have a game, but the family has five members, any two members can play the game at the same time, not just the owners.

        And at the same time the remaining three members could also play whatever else, still at the same time.

    • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 months ago

      Same thoughts. Mainly because it’s such a pain to explain how the library access system works in the previous family share.

      • Dagnet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        8 months ago

        Now just need to be able to ‘hide’ some games from sharing and we are good to go!

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
            0·
            8 months ago

            It’s not clear if that hides games from being shared. The info page explicitly states that ALL eligible games are shared.

            To get control of what an account can and cannot see/play, the account has to be configured as a child.

            • Polysics@lemmy.world
              0·
              8 months ago

              I marked some games as private and they indeed do NOT show up on the other families users library. Seems to work like a charm!

            • Dagnet@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0·
              8 months ago

              Gonna be complicated to explain to my brother why he has to be a child account lol

                • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
                  0·
                  8 months ago

                  Virgin embarrassed H-game enthusiast:

                  “Haha they’re just jokes bro”

                  Chad owns-up-to-it H-game enjoyer:

                  “Yes, I do have 137 hentai games, what about it?”

                • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  8 months ago

                  Yes I have 2500+ hours of playtime for Femboy Adventures: The Catboi Chronicles, but that’s just a joke, bro

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 months ago

      It also allows you to own multiple copies of the same game, which is another huge step in regards to parental controls. If you and both of your kids enjoy a game, you can buy three copies for your account and set restrictions on when/how long they can use it.

      • DaTingGoBrrr@lemmy.ml
        0·
        8 months ago

        Does it? I assumed it works like this but I could be wrong.

        Three out of five members in the family has the same game. That means three people in the family can play that game at the same time.