The new system, which is available in a public beta in the Steam client, allows a user along with five other members to effectively combine their video game libraries when part of a Family. — Valve
Earlier today, Steam launched its new 'Families' feature, which includes a whole suite of parental controls, along with a significantly enhanced system for game library sharing.
The new system, which is available in a public beta in the Steam client, allows a user along with five other members to effectively combine their video game libraries when part of a Family.
Titles belonging to other members of the Family will appear in a separate tab labelled "Steam Family" in a user's Steam client, and can be played freely so long as no other member is currently playing that specific title.
While this would normally leave out the opportunity for members to play multiplayer games with each other, this can still be done if multiple Family members own a copy of the same game.
This differs from the previous Steam Family Sharing feature, which only allowed one user to utilise a shared library at a time.
The old method also only shared games to a single user, with recipients not automatically sharing their own library in return, unless additional steps are taken for authorisation.
The storefront also introduced a number of parental controls, which can be used to designate accounts as belonging to an adult or child.
This allows parents with adult accounts to restrict access to certain video game titles, the Steam store, Community pages, and Friend chats, along with the ability to set a limit to playtime on child accounts.
Adult accounts will also be privy to playtime reports of a child account and recover a child account in case of a lost password.
Another feature of Steam Families are child purchase requests, where child accounts are able to request for an adult in the Family group to pay for the items in their shopping cart.
Users can opt in to the Steam Family beta via the storefront's desktop client by going to the "Interface" tab in the settings menu as below.
Simply select the Steam Family beta option from the dropdown. — Valve
Once opted in, users can create or manage their Steam Family on the account details page in the Family Management tab.
