Valve has announced Steam Families, a new Steam feature that wraps up the pre-existing Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, as well as some brand-new family features. The new feature allows Steam users to create a family of up to 6 household members in order to share games and implement content controls.
Users can create a family and invite up to 5 other members, who can be assigned as either an adult or a child. All users in the family will have their games shared in a family library, which works similarly to Steam’s old Family Sharing feature.
Anyone in the family will be able to play any game in the library provided someone else isn’t playing it already. If two people want to play the same game at the same time, then two members of the family have to own a copy of the game. When playing shared games, each member will have their own save games, unlock Steam achievements for their own account, and have access to workshop files.
Hello! We are excited to announce the launch of Steam Families, now accessible in the Steam Beta Client. This feature introduces significant updates and improvements to family sharing, parental controls, and child purchase requests.
See all the details at the announcement blog… pic.twitter.com/qL8iUtJKOr
— Steam (@Steam) March 18, 2024
If someone in your family is banned from a game while playing your version of the game, your account will be banned too–so be careful who you’re sharing with.
Steam Families also includes an option for parental controls, where adult family members can manage access to games, Steam community features, and monitor screentime for child accounts. Children also have the option to request more playtime or games that are otherwise restricted, and can also request adult accounts to purchase new games for them by sending a cart directly to the adult’s account.
The new feature is currently in beta, and getting access now requires all potential members of a family to opt into the beta version.
