Steam Streamlines Family Sharing Features

Steam has released Steam Families , a revamped version of the family sharing system . The new system eliminates limits on how many people can play games from a library, makes it easier to purchase games for your children, and adds new parental controls and sharing options.

Previously, if you wanted to share your library but limit the games your kids could play, you had to use two different systems (Family Sharing and Family View). Also, under the old approach, only one person could play games from someone else's library at a time. Now, if you're playing Portal 2 and someone else wants to play Half-Life from your library, that's okay. They will only launch if you launch Portal 2 while they are playing from your library.

Set Up Steam Family Sharing

Set up Steam Family Sharing under Family Management. You need to be in the beta program to try this; You can do this by going to Settings > Interface > Client Beta Participation and selecting “Steam Family Beta.” Then to create a family, go to the Store page, click your account, then click Account details > Family Management > Create Family.

Accounts can share a library with up to five other family members as before , but there's no limit on the number of devices you can authorize. (Previously, this number was limited to 10.) Offline play is now supported, but the previous sharing scheme required you to be online to play games in someone else's library.

It's also easier to do parental work, and that's not because you can now manage kids' access to certain games, monitor playtime, and set time-based restrictions. You'll no longer have to go through the nonsense of buying a gift card or handing over your credit card to buy your child a game; You just approve the game requests and the fee is deducted from your account.

But a word of caution: The new system is region-locked, so if you're sharing with someone in another country you may not be able to continue doing so. And if someone leaves your family, they can't join or start a new family for a year.

Steam says developers must approve their games for family sharing, while free-to-play games or games that require third-party keys, accounts or subscriptions cannot be shared.