Back in March, Valve launched a new feature for Steam Beta users called Steam Families, a collection of features that can come in handy if you aren’t the only gamer in your family. Today, Steam Families is now out of beta and available to all Steam users.
Steam Families combines and replaces both Family Sharing (used to lend games to family members) and Family View (now known as Parental Controls, used to limit a family member’s access to certain Steam features and content), and also makes it possible for restricted family members to make purchase requests for approval.
The big change is that Steam Families now allows up to six people to play games simultaneously from a shared game library. However, if two or more people want to play the exact same game at the same time, multiple copies of that game will be needed. It’s also possible to play games offline as long as the game in question supports Family Sharing.
Note: Not all Steam games support Family Sharing. Developers may opt out on a per-game basis for any reason. Visit the Steam Store listing page for any game to see if it’s eligible to be shared with family members.
To make use of these features, you must either create a Steam Family or join an existing one. If you create one, you can then invite up to five others to join you. Each member of a Steam Family retains their own save files, achievements, and Workshop subscriptions.
Who can join your Steam Family? Right now, anyone can join. However, Valve intends this feature to be for a “household” of “close family members” — even if there aren’t any hard restrictions yet, it’s reasonable to assume that Valve will introduce them if people abuse it.
Also, if someone gets banned for cheating while playing your shared copy of a game, you will ALSO be banned for that game. For this reason, you should only join Steam Families with whom you trust.
