Valve has made sharing games on Steam easier than ever

By Carli Velocci Published September 13, 2024

The words "Steam Families" next to three outlines of people on a blue background. — Valve

Steam Families is now available to all users, making it easier than ever to share your games library and monitor your child’s activity.

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The PC gaming platform has had family features for a while, going back to Steam Family Sharing and parental controls like Family View. But Steam Families — announced in beta in May — puts them in one hub. It officially went live on Wednesday, and since it’s now the weekend, this is a great time to start sharing games.

Valve has also overhauled some of the features, even adding new functionality. Family Sharing has specifically gotten a huge upgrade. Previously, you could join a family and access a member’s catalog, but not all games supported it, and only one family member could play a game from an account at a time. For example, I’m in a family with my husband, and I’ve been playing through his copy of Baldur’s Gate 3. This is excellent for my wallet, but if he wanted to hop online and play a game from his library at the same time, I would get a five-minute warning from Steam before it kicked me out.

That’s no longer the case. Valve confirmed that you can play games from another member’s library “even if they are online playing another game.” You still can’t play the same title simultaneously, but if multiple members have copies of a game, you can play together. After the update, I was able to open Tactical Breach Wizards while he was playing in Tabletop Simulator.

Steam says Families is “intended” for a household with six family members, but you could theoretically share your library with trusted friends. Valve wrote that it has the right to change the limitations and requirements over time.

There are also new parental controls that let you limit what your kids buy on Steam and how they play. You can allow access to certain appropriate games or restrict access in the store or chat. You can set playtime limits and view reports of your child’s play behavior.

Valve also now offers child purchase requests, so can approve any game your kid wants to buy.

There are other highly requested features in beta on Steam. Currently, Valve is testing native game recording and a new review helpfulness system that even shows when a user has primarily played a game on Steam Deck.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…

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