Valve has announced that their Steam Family Sharing service has now become available to all users throughout the service. Originally released to a select few as a beta feature, Family Sharing can now be accessed and used by anyone as of yesterday.
Steam Family Sharing allows for up to five accounts to share a Steam user's game library. If a person wants to open up their library to family, all they have to do is activate Steam Guard and go into their Steam settings to enable the feature. This will allow for members of a person's family - or friends; who are we kidding? - to play a shared account game with their own personal progress, saves, and achievements.
Shared libraries must be accessed online and once the primary library owner signs into Steam, a notification will appear prompting users to either buy the game themselves or to finish up soon as they're going to shortly lose access to the shared game.
There are a few limitations such as not being able to play a shared multiplayer game at the same time as someone on your family list, and region restrictions depending on the title, but overall, the service is pretty neat.
If you're a cool and hip parent that wants to give you kids access to your games but not your account, because they're still too dumb to be trusted with your saves, then you're set. Or if you're the cool kid on the block that wants to pass over access to Sonic Generations to your most trusted homies, then you're gonna be the baddest BFF in your neighborhood, son.
Check out the full FAQ on Steam for more details on how to share your games.
