Valve began testing a new versions of its aging Family Sharing and other family-related features suite earlier this year, and it has just been shipped to all users. Dubbed Steam Families, the update combines the options that Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View offered in the past while also overhauling their functionality.
Steam users can now create a Steam Family and invite up to five members to join it from a single household. Valve says this number may change in the future as it continues to monitor usage.
Anybody in this Steam Family can then access all the sharable games that members of the family have in their Steam libraries.
"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," says Valve in its blog post regarding the feature. "You maintain ownership of your current titles and when you purchase a new game it will still show up in your collection."
Unlike in the old Steam Family Sharing feature, the overhauled version lets family members play games even if a member is already online and playing another game, even from the same library. To play the same game together at the same time though, multiple members of the family needs to own copies of the title.
Also, Valve will keep the classic Steam Family Sharing option running for existing users for the time being. Though it says this will be discontinued sometime in the future, and urged users to create a Steam Family instead.
Next, parental controls have been updated too, letting users add members as a child straight into the previously-mentioned Steam Families. The feature allows adults to do these actions on their child accounts:
- 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
Moreover, a new payment option is being offered to parents too. Instead of letting the child burrow a credit card or sending as a gift, a child account in Steam Families can now request a game. The adult account can then pay for it via a corresponding email, or the Steam mobile app, to complete the transaction and get the child account the game seamlessly. More information about some new rules Steam Families members will need to follow, like one-year joining restrictions, can be read here.
_small.jpg)
2 Comments - Add comment