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11mo ago

Introducing Steam Families

steamcommunity.com Steam :: Steam News :: Introducing Steam Families

Hello! We are excited to announce Steam Families, available today in the Steam Beta Client. Steam Families is a collection of new and existing family-related features. It replaces both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, giving you a single location to manage which games your family can acce...

When you join a Steam Family, you automatically gain access to the shareable games that your family members own and they will also be able to access the shareable titles in your library. The next time you log in to Steam, this new 'family library' will appear in the left column as a subsection of your games list. You maintain ownership of your current titles and when you purchase a new game it will still show up in your collection.

Best of all, when you are playing a game from your family library, you will create your own saved games, earn your own Steam achievements, have access to workshop files and more.

Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members' libraries, even if they are online playing another game. If your family library has multiple copies of a game, multiple members of the family can play that game at the same time. For a more detailed look at how Family Sharing works, see the FAQ below.

Also adds parental controls for children's accounts. Parental controls let you:

Allow access to appropriate games
Restrict access to the Steam Store, Community or Friends Chat
Set playtime limits (hourly/daily)
View playtime reports
Approve or deny requests from child accounts for additional playtime or feature access (temporary or permanent)
Recover a child's account if they lost their password

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/11954402

82 comments

Wait, now someone can play a game from my library while Im playing another? That's huge
- Same thoughts. Mainly because it's such a pain to explain how the library access system works in the previous family share.
  
  Now just need to be able to 'hide' some games from sharing and we are good to go!
- Also no need authorize each machine, and games are shared in both directions.
- It also allows you to own multiple copies of the same game, which is another huge step in regards to parental controls. If you and both of your kids enjoy a game, you can buy three copies for your account and set restrictions on when/how long they can use it.
  
  Does it? I assumed it works like this but I could be wrong.
  Three out of five members in the family has the same game. That means three people in the family can play that game at the same time.
  
  I don't think it does. It allows 3 members to play if there are 3 copies in the family, but each account can still only have 1 copy. You can't buy 3 copies for your account.
- WOOHOO
- If your family library has multiple copies of a game, multiple members of the family can play that game at the same time.
  Sounds to me like no, only if you're playing the same game which you both have copies of (which seems kind of pointless).
  
  Think we can play separate games and not lock others accounts while playing.
  Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members’ libraries, even if they are online playing another game.
  
  If two players play the same game and they both have copies, then that wouldn't even be library sharing yet. That's just normal use.
  They're pointing out that for multiple users to play the same game at the same time, you need multiple copies. With just one license for each game, different members can play different games at the same time, but they can't start up a game that someone else is already playing, if there's only one copy to go around.
  Now if more than one member has a game, the number of copies in the family becomes the limit for how many can play that game at the same time. So if two people have a game, but the family has five members, any two members can play the game at the same time, not just the owners.
  And at the same time the remaining three members could also play whatever else, still at the same time.
  
  No, basically all licenses in the family are pooled together. You own game A and B, you can play game A, someone else game B. There are 2 licenses of game A in the family, two people can play it at the same time.

Being able to play game from a single library simultaneously is awesome and how it should've been from a usability perspective.
Sadly this change will make it impossible to simply share games with someone specifically, since it's now required to be in the same Family Share, which is a strong commitment. For sharing games in a single friend group, this change won't change much (unless someone still wants to share with their family). The changes make game sharing work more like intended, in other words family share.
- It was never really meant to be used like that though. They might've tolerated it but in the end they can get rid of it while adding further functionality for actual family sharing.
  
  Agreed. The new restrictions are similar to what Spotify is doing with their family plan and is way more useful for it's intended purpose.

What happens if my brother gets banned for cheating while playing my game?
If a family member gets banned for cheating while playing your copy of a game, you (the game owner) will also be banned in that game. Other family members are not impacted.
Fuck that, yo.
- That's probably to avoid someone buying a game, and then cheating on a child account to avoid bans.
  
  yeah necessary rule fsure
- That's actually nothing new, it's been like that with family sharing for ages. If the family share account gets banned, the owner of the game gets banned as well* so that they can't keep making alt accounts to bypass the ban. Others in your family not being impacted by the ban would actually be an improvement - it used to be that if the owner is banned, anyone family sharing the game would be as well.
  *There are exceptions with a few games, like Dark Souls 3, which doesn't ban your main account so you can use family share to play mods in coop. Elden Ring bans both, however.
  
  I understand why, and it makes sense to me. But I wouldn't want to take that chance.
  It's not so much that I know a family member would knowingly cheat, but who knows if a friend might convince them to try a mod or something, and not know it could potentially get them banned, ya know?
- Is there a non-zero chance you’d add a potential cheater to your Steam family?
  
  I could imagine someone’s kid doing it
- Not for me.
  My kiddo is kinda an butthead and I know he will absolutely figure out how to get banned.
- If you have a Steam family with 4 members each owning a copy of a game, and the 5th member that doesn't gets banned. Which of the 4 accounts gets banned?
  Since the game copies are "pooled" in the family, you are not sharing from anyone in particular, you have all games in the family available. So who gets banned?

Being able to play a game simultaenously is insane news!
- Yeah. Not being able to play a shared game because the other person is playing something else has been sooooo fucking annoying.
- Only 1 concurrent player per copy in the family library. So to play together you'd still have to both buy the game.
  
  Yea, fair enough trade off though!

This looks great! It would be even better if they improve the handling of multiple accounts on the steam deck.

This is incredible news, I've been using the deck as a console, and when the kids were playing something I'd be logged out, so this really is a game changer.

With cooldowns for abuse prevention now on the table, I wish Valve will consider adding something like a "day pass" for Steam friends where they can share their libraries—or perhaps specific games—for a short duration to someone they know without having to adopt them.
With cooldowns they would find appropriate, of course. And I hope that isn't a whole year...

Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members’ libraries, even if they are online playing another game
That's a great first step, but I would also like to be able to play another game from my own library on another device (e.g. steam deck and pc) at the same time
- You could make a second account, add it to your family, and use one account for your PC and one for your deck.
  
  That's one possible workaround, but that will, obviously, break stuff like cloud saving and achievement progress. So, not ideal, but probably viable for some situations.
- I 100% agree. I sometimes have a game going downstairs and then start a game on my steam deck upstairs and have to put it I to offline mode first. It works, but it's a slight hassle that need not be.

Amazing!! My kid is going to love this.

I could've sworn this was already a feature
Am I getting the Mandela effect?
- The previous 'family sharing' feature allowed for you to share your games with someone else, provided you were not playing any games at the moment.
  This new family sharing seems to allow you to share your library even if you're playing another game.

I'm curious how aggressive it will be at limiting families who live in different houses from sharing games.
The article specifically states that it is meant for "same household" families. But will it actively prevent that?
- Hopefully, they're not as aggressive as Netflix - can't even share a login with the in-laws across the street...
- I don't think so, at least not yet. They might try to prevent it later if it starts getting widely abused.
  
  Narrator: "It did get widely abused."
- Time to install tailscale.

Too bad that if my kid cheats I will be banned too. :(
- If your kid cheats, you failed as a parent :)
  
  It is possible to commit no mistakes in raising a child and they still be little shits. That is not a weakness; that is life.

Really awesome news!
The previous system was rather arcane - this bodes much better for the father in law that doesn't know how texting works but does know how RTSes work...

Nice! Now, all I need to do is make the babies.
- For sure, all of us who have been waiting to fall in love, get married, and have kids, are now free to do so now that we have better steam library sharing. I know it was the main thing most people have been waiting for.

I set family sharing up a while ago. It's been great. Only issue is I made my own account a child account and don't mnow how to undo that. Not a huge deal since I know the pin, just sucks to have to put it in to look at the store or appear online to play with friends. Probably not a steam problem, just user error, and if I put enough effort into fixing it as I did writing this comment I probably would have already fixed it. The answer just doesn't seem apparent...
- I would say the answer is typically a-parent haha
  Not very helpful but I hope a dumb joke makes you smile!
  
  I.... honestly did not intend to make that pun. Your dumb joke very much made me smile. Thank you.
- It's definitely possible, I recently turned off child mode for my kid now that he's older. Unfortunately I don't remember the process well enough to accurately tell you what to do.

Maybe now I'll finally be able to share my library with my partner
- You could before, but any games with steam DRM (which is most of them) would lock your library if your spouse was using it.
  
  It would not lock your library if someone was playing one of your games. You could start any game in your library and the family member would be given a 15 minute period to wrap up their session before being booted. It had nothing to do with steam drm either.
  Source: I actually used family sharing a few times.
  
  *Most people could. My library has some kind of fucked issue. Had to reach out to steam support who were absolutely useless.

I hope it will work better than current family. There is so much friction to share one game with your kid that I almost gave up.

Anybody know if I set that up and decide to buy the game myself if my played time, achievements, and saved games will transfer over?
- I would assume it will.
  
  I would assume so too, jw. Cause I know if you buy a game and play it and refund it, if you buy it again the saved data and achievements and stuff is still there.

Apparently you need to be in the same country to do family sharing now, and the 5 minute get off my game bro button doesn't replace the play button anymore. It's simply just greyed out.
- No more sharing with your loved partner abroad... This sucks. Cannot always afford two copies in this state of the world. Let alone a roof to live together.

I was so hopeful... pretty much useless for me as I live in a different country to my family.

Only complaint is that it makes it harder to share with siblings that occasionally play games while also sharing with friends that more regularly do. Makes it less a venn diagram and more segregated boxes.

82 comments