Steam :: Steam News :: Introducing Steam Families
steamcommunity.com
Hello! We are excited to announce Steam Families, available today in the Steam Beta Client. Steam Families is a collection of new and existing family-related features. 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. Create a Steam Family To get started, you can create a Steam Family and then invite up to 5 family members.

Valve announced a replacement feature for both Family Sharing and Family View. Currently in beta.

Features:

  • up to 5 members
  • game sharing
  • parental controls
    • 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
  • child purchase requests
    • @[email protected]English
      32•8 months ago

      To be fair, a lot of monopolies are great in the beginning. It’s the inevitable power-tripping downslide that sucks.

      I still love Steam and Valve though.

      • @noyouEnglish
        32•8 months ago

        The only reason this hasnt happened with valve is because it’s a private company. Publically traded companies are the cancer of ou society tbh

        • @[email protected]English
          23•8 months ago

          Not disagreeing, but I think the point is that no single person or company should be in a position of that much power. All it takes is for one thing to go wrong, one law to change, or one financial scare to happen, and BOOM. Suddenly this great monopoly is doing things people hate and there’s no alternative.

          • @BuddahrifficEnglish
            3•8 months ago

            From what I’ve heard, his son is cool, so we might get two generations of awesome steam.

        • JojoEnglish
          6•8 months ago

          Laughs in Rockefeller and standard oil

          Steam is a private company and being run by a decent human. Didn’t have to be both.

    • SchadrachEnglish
      2•8 months ago

      I suspect we’ll be fine until Gabe dies. Then, it depends on who ends up with the company and what they do with it.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•8 months ago

      I think people are more negative than positive about this change. The old system allowed for far more freedom at the cost of being more annoying to set up.
      This change cracks down on anyone who used the old system in unintended ways, i.e. to share games with family members not living in the same household. For now that check only compares store region/country, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they tighten the requirements further in the future.

      It’s also a negative compared to the old system if one of your (adult) family members throws a huge tantrum, allowing them to cause a lot more damage and inconvenience than before.

      Edit: I just wanna mention, I am saying this as someone who is usually “RiDiNg sTeAm’S DiCK”.