Steam Families just made Valve's digital storefront even better for PC gamers
Steam will let you share your games with up to six family members
👨👩👧👦 Steam Families is now available in the Steam Beta Client
👏 It lets you share your Steam library with up to five family members
📝 A game needs to support Family Sharing and you can’t play the same game at the same time
👩👧👦 Steam has also revamped its parental controls to make it easier for parents
Valve has launched Steam Families, a new streamlined way to share your game library with up to five family members.
When you join a Steam Family, you’ll automatically gain access to shareable games that other family members may own. They’ll also be able to play the best PC games from your library as well as create their own saved games, earn Steam achievements, and have access to workshop files.
It doesn’t matter if the family member is online, either, as you’ll still be able to enjoy their past and future purchases regardless and Steam Families also works offline.
The only caveat is that if you only own one copy of a game, say Portal 2, and wish to play that title at the same time, you’ll need to purchase a second copy.
Family Sharing is also a feature that developers can opt out of for technical reasons or if they choose to at any time. You can see the full list of games that currently support Family Sharing on the Steam Store.
Along with game sharing, Steam Families includes new parental controls that allow you to set limits on what and when children can play games on Steam. You can control access to certain games, set playtime limits, monitor their activity on Steam or through your mobile device, and assign different Steam Family roles: adult or child.
Steam Families is currently in beta, but you can join by clicking the ‘Settings’ menu, then under ‘Interface’ click ‘Client Beta Participation and select the dropdown menu. Select ‘Steam Family Beta’ from the dropdown list and click ‘OK’. You’ll then be prompted to restart Steam.
When Steam has restarted, go to ‘Account Details’ on the Store page, and click on the Family Management section.