Steam Families now available, lets you game share

Rejoice!

Steam Families is now available, allowing up to five family members to game share.

“Steam Families is a collection of new and existing family-related features,” Valve explained. “It replaces both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, giving you a single location to manage which games your family can access and when they can play.”

Up to five players can join a Steam Family, and each member “automatically gain[s] access to the shareable games that your family members own”. You can leave a Family at any time, though you’ll need to wait a full year until you join another.

“Best of all, 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,” Valve continued.

To set up a Steam Family, head to Account Details from your Store page, then click on Family Management.

If you want to play a game that someone else in your family owns, you can do so provided they’re not online playing it at the same time. If you collectively own multiple copies of the game, as many people can concurrently play it as own it.

“Family Sharing is a feature that developers may opt their games out of for technical or other reasons at any time,” Valve added.

Finally, those who are sharing with children can also implement parental controls across the Family itself. More on this can be found on an accompanying support page.

Are you going to be taking part in Steam Families? Why or why not?