Valve has officially released its new and improved Steam Families feature for everyone. It has been under beta testing for the last few months. It will serve as a single destination for all family-sharing needs of Steam players. The new feature will replace existing Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View functionalities.
Steam Families Features and Details
A Steam Family can have six members. This means you can invite up to five members to your Steam Family group. These members can either be adults or children.
As soon as a new member joins, they will immediately get access to all available games that support family sharing in that group. These games will appear under a new sub-section within your Library.
Each member will have their game progress saved, achievements to unlock, and access to workshop files separately. While Steam Families lets you share games, multiple members cannot play the same game simultaneously. The number of players that can play a game at the same time will depend on the number of copies your group members have.
Adults can choose to leave a Steam family whenever they want. However, if they do so, they will have to wait for one year before they can join or start a new Steam family. Children accounts do not have the privilege to leave a family account unless an adult removes them.
Steam Families Parental Controls
Since Steam Families can have children as family members, Valve has offered a new set of parental controls. These controls will let parents choose what games their children play and for how long. They can approve or reject new game purchase requests from children.
Parents can further restrict the Steam Store, Community, or Friends Chat access. The child can also recover the accounts if the password is forgotten. These parental controls will be available only to adult members of the family group.
