Following a beta test earlier this year, Steam Families is now live with a new way for relatives to be connected on the gaming portal. Up to five family members can be invited into a group, which will grant access to a shared family library. Each person can create their own save files and collect their own achievements for games in the family library.
The marquee development with the new family feature is that multiple people within the group will be able to play games from the shared library at the same time. And if you own multiple copies of a game, then multiple people can be playing that title at once. The caveat with family sharing is that a game developer may opt not to support the feature. Steam maintains a list of the titles that currently have family sharing enabled.
Steam Families also folds in the features of the old Steam Family View, where the adults can monitor and limit what the children in the group can do on the platform. Any adult in the family will be able to restrict kids’ access to Steam’s store, communities or chat. They can also set playtime limits, approve extensions to the limits and recover a child’s account if the password is lost.
This type of family sharing plan doesn’t always reflect a person’s home environment, and Steam does have some restrictions on Steam Families’ use. Adults can leave a family group at any time, but have to wait a year before they can join or create another family. Also, the Steam accounts need to be in the same country to join a family group.
Valve has a full FAQ on its Steam support page detailing the limitations of Steam Families and how to restrict the games kids in your family have access to.
Update, September 12, 1:40PM: This story was updated after publish with additional information on Steam’s FAQ for its families feature.
