Valve has announced Steam Families, a new feature that will replace Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View into one feature with new improvements.
Available now in beta, players can create a Steam Family group of up to 6 players as a way to expand the game libraries for everyone to play at the same time online, and each member of the family will have their own saved games, achievements, access to workshop files, and many more. However, multiple family members can not play one game together unless they own multiple copies of said game, and developers can opt their games out if they wish to not partake in the feature for technical or other reasons.
Compared to Steam Family Sharing, it’s quite a big improvement as before; only one member could access one game at a time from the account if sharing, even if they wish to play different games from the same account, which could be a hassle.
As someone who shares games with my siblings and plays from their account through Steam Family Sharing, this is a great improvement as now we do not have to worry about kicking someone out from getting to play their own game if they wish to play something else, and very accessible as we do not need to buy multiple copies just to play a single game if everyone wants to play something entirely different.
Alongside improving the overall game sharing with families, features from Family View will be moved over to Steam Families for parents who have children in the family group. The features that parents can expect to see are Parental Control and Child Purchase Requests.
Parental Control:
- Allow access to appropriate games.
- Restrict access to the Steam store, friends chat, or community.
- Set a playtime limit.
- View the record of their child’s playtime.
- Approve or deny requests if their child wishes to play a game above the playtime hours.
- Recover their child’s account if the password is lost.
Child Purchase Request:
- A new payment option for the child account to request their parent to pay for a game in their cart. The games will be added to the child’s account when approved through their mobile device or email.
If Steam users wish to partake in the Steam Families, players would need to opt into Steam Family Beta. It can be found on the Steam FAQ for the Steam Families if you require more information about the beta.
