Valve has just lifted the lid on Steam Families, an all-new ecosystem that’s going to replace Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View. It has been said by Valve that this will give users a ‘single location to manage which games (their) family can access and when they can play’. It’s available now exclusively on the Steam Beta platform.
Control Your Steam
In a release published by Valve, it was revealed that a Steam Family can now consist of up to five members, all of which can be managed independently by the chief user. Any ‘shareable games’ that these users own can be played across a centralised library – but it can all be controlled from a centralised menu. Despite sharing games, it was confirmed that users will have access to their own saved games, achievements, and Workshop files.
One of the biggest boons is that users can play a game from someone else’s Steam library even if that person is playing something else at the same time.
There’s a wide range of parental control mechanics being made available as part of Steam Families. They’ll allow parents to monitor playtime and restrict access to inappropriate games, chat functions, or the store. There’s also a function that’ll allow young users to ‘ask’ for a purchase, pinging a notification to the parent to either approve or deny it.
Valve also confirmed that any malicious activity will land at the game owner’s door. If your little brother misbehaves while playing your game and gets banned, you – as the owner – will also be banned.
The full breakdown of Steam Families is available on the Steam blog.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Dying Light 2’s Techland has a secret formula to ensure success
