Valve has finally done it! They've overhauled Steam Family Sharing with the new Steam Families set of features now available in Beta and it fixes the most annoying issue with it.
Currently, with Steam Family Sharing, if one person is playing a game your whole library is locked. You can either boot them off, or wait. Now, that's changed. As long as you're playing different games - it's all good. Obviously if other members in your Family Group have a copy, multiple people can play the same game at the same time.
This new Steam Families replaces both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, putting everything under one banner and this introduces new features too. These new additions include new parental controls so you can set proper limits now including:
- 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.
Children can also request purchases for you to approve or deny!
Valve also clarified that if someone in your group got banned using your copy, you will also be banned.
See the full announcement on Steam.
It took a long time for Valve to do this, many features here people have been requesting for a long time. Glad to see it land, at least in Beta for now. It's quite likely the Steam Deck gave Valve a little extra push to do it, as it has been a source of complaints there too. But as we've seen time and time again, Valve do react to feedback and constantly improve.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Wow, that's a welcome change! I didn't think they would implement it, as it opens Steam to a lot of abuse by "families". Hopefully they don't do a 180° after a while, like Netflix did - and also hopefully people won't simply abuse it...
Last edited by pb on 18 March 2024 at 8:09 pm UTC
Last edited by pb on 18 March 2024 at 8:09 pm UTC
7 Likes, Who?
Huge improvement based on the description, and very timely for my family. The whole-library-lock was a non-starter, and was very much pushing me to GOG. Though GOG still has the edge for multiplayer; would be nice if Steam could give developers the option of allowing multiple simultaneous of one copy, at least if all on the same local network. Time to check out the beta.
4 Likes, Who?
Love to see it. My partner got her first gaming PC at the end of last year and only has a handful of games in her library. Now with this change she pretty much has 2000.
8 Likes, Who?
Wow! Frankly, I never thought I'd see the day...
However: "Family Sharing is a feature that developers may opt their games out of for technical or other reasons at any time. Visit the Steam Store to see a list of games that currently support Family Sharing."
And: "it is understandable that some day you may need to join a new Steam Family. Adults can leave a family at any time, however, they will need to wait 1 year from when they joined the previous family to create or join a new family."
Still, this was my major peeve with Steam by far, so any improvement is better than locking my entire account when my daughters and I just want to play different games...
Last edited by seamoose on 18 March 2024 at 8:21 pm UTC
However: "Family Sharing is a feature that developers may opt their games out of for technical or other reasons at any time. Visit the Steam Store to see a list of games that currently support Family Sharing."
And: "it is understandable that some day you may need to join a new Steam Family. Adults can leave a family at any time, however, they will need to wait 1 year from when they joined the previous family to create or join a new family."
Still, this was my major peeve with Steam by far, so any improvement is better than locking my entire account when my daughters and I just want to play different games...
Last edited by seamoose on 18 March 2024 at 8:21 pm UTC
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ElectricPrism Mar 18
QuoteCurrently, with Steam Family Sharing, if one person is playing a game your whole library is locked. You can either boot them off, or wait. Now, that's changed. As long as you're playing different games - it's all good. [...] if other members in your Family Group have a copy, multiple people can play the same game at the same time.
Like it should have been, and I don't even have to come to the comments to ask.
I've purchased 500+ games and the whole -- I can't play a free to play game while a family member is playing some other game I bought is not sensible at all.
Hail Gaben & VOVO -- one of the last companies who truly care about their customers.
This is how Capitalism was supposed to be.
I really don't like companies behelden to Wallstreet Stock Investors. The companies have 2 masters and they always pick their stock holders over their customers -- infact it's legally codified that they are required to otherwise they could be sued for not squeezing every dollar and cent.
That's what the symbolism of the Harkonnen lore in Dune is all about.
Remember when corporations weren't legally considered people?
/rant-off
Good Guy Valve delivers once again -- no wonder I am proud to return their good in kind.
6 Likes, Who?
This is huge! And I think it won't be abused as we think. There is a very big problem with sharing with random: if they get banned when using your copy of a game, you will be banned too. So yeah, sure, go ahead sharing your library with randos... Until one of them gets banned in your favourite online game and you get banned too.
To be clear, I am very ok with this as it will prevent you from sharing with people you don't trust. So nice, an awesome change that was about time to happen!!
To be clear, I am very ok with this as it will prevent you from sharing with people you don't trust. So nice, an awesome change that was about time to happen!!
1 Likes, Who?
ElectricPrism Mar 18
Quoting: seamoose"Family Sharing is a feature that developers may opt their games out of for technical or other reasons at any time. Visit the Steam Store to see a list of games that currently support Family Sharing."
The words "at any time" do invoke concern.
Not a fan of that -- if when I purchase a product that feature is included and declared, I think they should only be able to turn it off for new purchases.
A handshake is a handshake.
3 Likes, Who?
This is great! What would be even better is if I could play a game with the same account on two devices simultaneously.
Like, I got two Steam Decks (OLED and LCD) and it would be awesome if I could play a game I own with a friend.
Like, I got two Steam Decks (OLED and LCD) and it would be awesome if I could play a game I own with a friend.
1 Likes, Who?
Vortex_Acherontic Mar 18
Noice! Been wishing for this a long time too. But probably wouldn't be able to use it for long as for some reasons shared libraries randomly disappear for me without changing anything at all over and over again ... :/
0 Likes
Quoting: ElectricPrismI really don't like companies beholden to Wallstreet Stock Investors. The companies have 2 masters and they always pick their stock holders over their customers -- infact it's legally codified that they are required to otherwise they could be sued for not squeezing every dollar and cent.
That's not really true. Officers of the company have a duty to act for the benefit of the company, and can be sued if they don't - that much is true. But that doesn't mean they're required to maximizes short term profit at the detriment of long term value - that would just be dumb.
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