Steam Families: game sharing and safety for families
March 28, 2024
Video games can be a fantastic form of entertainment for the whole family, but parents often worry about appropriate content and time spent by children in front of the screen. Steam, the popular game distribution platform, has introduced a new solution to address these concerns: Steam Families.
What is Steam Families?
Steam Fam ilies is a set of game sharing and monitoring features for parents and children, currently available in beta. This solution replaces Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, integrating some of their existing features along with updates.
Each member of a Steam Family will have a section called “family library” in their game list, where they can access shareable games. Ownership of the games remains with the buyer, but any new titles purchased will appear in the list. You can play another member’s games even when they are online, as long as they are playing another game. In addition, you can save your progress and goals.
Parental controls
Steam Families also simplifies the process for getting parental approval to purchase games, ideally making them more frequent. Children can now request an adult on the floor to pay for a shopping cart, which a parent can manage via email or phone, accepting or rejecting the request.
Only adults can manage the account or implement parental controls, such as setting playtime limits (and reviewing requests for more time), seeing playtime reports, and choosing which games a child can play. In addition, they can control access to the Steam store and chats.
How to participate in Steam Families
Steam Fam ilies is currently in beta and requires every member to join to participate. You can find the option to join under the interface and choose Steam Family Beta in the drop-down menu of participating in the beta program of the client.
