Valve just launched Steam Families in public beta, a new household game-sharing tool that simplifies the process of sharing games in players' libraries.
The new feature combines and replaces others that were previously available through Valve's Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View tools. It also allows for up to six family members to share a combined games library, which consists of titles from across each member's individual library.
New Steam Families Tool
(Photo : Steam, Valve Corporation / Screenshot taken from official website)
Any of these games, including owned DLC, will become accessible at any time albeit with a few exceptions. The biggest caveat to this new feature is that games would only be eligible for sharing between family members if their developer has not chosen to opt out of the Steam Families scheme.
However, after that particular problem has been cleared, the only other key restriction that players will have to look out for is that a single-owned copy of one game can only be played by a single person at any time. This means that if players want to play together with someone else in their family, they need to buy another copy of the game, according to Eurogamer.
The new Steam Families would also give users the ability to play games in a shared library while offline. This was previously not allowed as family sharing required an active online connection. Furthermore, Steam will no longer block access to a family member's entire library of games if they are online and are playing a particular game.
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Additionally, Valve noted that individual accounts that were using Steam Families will now have their own saved games, earn their own Steam achievements, and have individual access to Steam Workshop files.
The latest tool offers new parental control tools that would enable members who are assigned as "adults" to monitor and manage game access to accounts that are registered under the "child" category. Furthermore, adults can restrict access to the Steam Store, community features, and chat. They can also view playtime reports, and set playtime limits, among others.
Sharing Games With Family Members
The new Steam Families tool would allow accounts to share a library with five other family members but Valve did not mention anything about limits to the number of devices that can be authorized to access the games, which previously had a cap of 10, said The Verge.
One thing to note about the new feature is that it is region-locked, which means that you would most likely not be able to share games with someone from another country. Furthermore, if someone leaves your family, they cannot join or start another one for at least a year.
Steam said that the new tool would require developers to approve their titles for family sharing for players to be able to make use of the feature. On the other hand, others, such as free-to-play games or those that require third-party keys, accounts, or subscriptions, cannot be shared.
On top of sharing games between adults and kids, children will also be able to request the purchase of a game from their parents. This would remove the need to hand over a credit card or use gift cards for purchases, according to ArsTechnica.
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