Steam Beta Client is introducing Steam Families, a collection of new and existing family-related features. It aims to replace both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, giving users a single location to manage which games your family can access and when they can play.
To get started, you can create a Steam Family and invite up to 5 family members. You can manage the family from the Steam Client, mobile device or web-browser. Each member gains access to the following features:
- Family Sharing. When you join a Steam Family, you automatically gain access to the shareable games that your family members own and they will also be able to access the shareable titles in your library. 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.
- Parental Controls. Allows parents to set limits on what and when children play games on Steam. You can control which games your children have access to and monitor their activity.
- Child Purchase Requests. Steam Families introduces a new payment option where a child account can request an in-family adult to pay for their shopping cart. The adult can approve and pay for the purchase from their mobile device or email. Once approved, all games from the shopping cart will be added to the child’s account.
Check out the official reveal page to find out more and join the testing of this new feature. Note that 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.
