Valve has announced a new feature for Steam titled ‘Steam Families.’ The feature is a new way for players to share games with their families. More details are available via a new Steam blog post.
Steam is a beloved PC/Mac marketplace where fans can enjoy tens of thousands of critically acclaimed games, including the recently released Counter-Strike 2. The new ‘Steam Families’ feature will be replacing the 2013 ‘Steam Family View’ feature. Steam Families will not just create a new way for family members to share games, but will also introduce new parental controls and a new way for children to request that a family member purchase a game for them.
Steam Families Announced, Available Now in Beta Client
Valve has announced the new ‘Steam Families’ feature, a replacement for Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, via a new post on their official news blog. The feature will overhaul how players can register family members and the features available to them. The main thing available to members of a family is “family sharing.” Family members can have access to select games within a family at no additional cost.
According to Steam, “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.”
New parental controls will be available as well, allowing parents to do the following:
- 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
- Approve purchases requested by child.
Lastly, the ‘Steam Families’ feature is available now in the Steam beta client. The release date for its public release is currently unknown.
