Valve improves family sharing of games

The Steam Families beta has been announced by Valve.

Previously, if you were playing a game online, another family member could not play a different game from your library. If a third family member wanted to play a game from the shared library, they would not be able to. The Steam Families beta seems to solve this, by allowing different people to play different games from the same library at the same time.

One solution would be to make a new account for each game purchase, so if someone wanted to play a game, they would use the per-game account and play that game. However this becomes cumbersome and inconvenient in its own way.

"Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members' libraries, even if they are online playing another game."

"Steam Families is intended for a household of up to 6 close family members."

There are also parental controls, and children can make purchase requests.

Having a family of gamers, the implementation of expanded family features and sharing of digital purchases is something I've been wanting for a long time, bringing it closer to the flexibility of physical games when it comes to sharing them with others.

A game's developer controls whether a game is eligible for sharing with Steam Families. All developer settings for the previous Steam Family Sharing feature are being brought forward to Steam Families. So, if a game is currently eligible for Family Sharing, it will remain so in the new system unless the developer chooses to opt-out later.

In addition, not all games can be shared due to technical limitations. For example, titles that require an additional third-party key, account, or subscription in order to play cannot be shared between accounts.

This part is not ideal, but overall this is an important step forward with DRM-based digital purchases. DRM-free has the greatest flexibility but not all games are available this way. I hope other DRM-based digital marketplaces will strive for greater flexibility for digital purchases.

Here is the GameSpot article.

Are you excited about these features? Do you want others to adopt these features? What do you hope to see?

I love how Valve has contiuously kept improving Steam over the last couple of years. From handheld support to this.

Many big companies can't even begin to measure to what Valve is doing with a relatively small amount of employees.

Only if a developer chooses to share their game with you. And doesn't work with games you need an account for which is all the popular games like GTA, NBA2k, FIFA, CoD, Assassins Creed, etc. So pretty much all the games you'd love to share with your family and play together...you can't.

It also says games that require a third party key won't be able to share.

@mesome713: Yeah that is the part I mentioned as not being ideal. It is possible to see if the game applies before you buy it. IMO physical is still the best way to go for what I want to do.

Because Valve is a company that's literally run by employees and not by an executive dictating what should be done. It works like a co-operative and in some ways even better than a co-operative even though Gabe owns it but he doesn't run it.

I recently met a person who worked at Valve and seriously I was dumbfounded when I heard how the company functions. It was almost like something from a fantasy utopia, employees themselves decide what project to work on, who and when to hire and who gets how much bonus etc.

Someone on a forum mentioned that most Pornographic games on Steam have it, so i checked; and i still chuckle at the fact that indeed most porn games have family sharing.

Honestly completely forgot this was a feature to begin with.

Assuming Epic Store hasn't got this?

Just for once, I actually regret deleting Elden Ring from my steam profile. My big brother was interested in playing it.

@uninspiredcup: Epic is missing a lot of features, I don't think they have this.

Agreed. Big fan of valve. Smart people.....

I will fact check this!

Obviously some room for improvement, but a.) it's still in beta, and b.) dependent on publishers/developers, and c.) a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge really awesome deal for everyone!

Valve is great! Love how they're always improving and trying to make things better for the end user.

Yeah, Valve is simply incredible. It is not overstating the fact to say they are arguably one of the greatest companies involved with video games (and definitely one of the best involved with PC gaming) ever.

I heard they're actually pretty tough, though. Like if you work there, you have to propose a project, and you have to produce an end result (whether it's a success or failure doesn't matter so much I've heard). Did your friend touch on that aspect at all? Not saying good or bad, just saying that they apparently have pretty high standards.

The virtues of being successful and not publicly traded!

Haters in 3...2...1....

Makes sense.

After all, we live in a world where Elizabeth Hurley's son films her sex scenes, and a son films his mom's Onlyfans content.

And that's enough internet for today...

The virtue signalling for Valve by Hermits is hilarious, keep'em coming 🤣

Used it with my brother shortly, but nice to see them expanding on the idea. We both have our own places now, so it wouldn't work, plus we buy largely the same games regardless.

No, we didn't discuss anything like that. The topic came up when we were discussing layoffs in general and how your average Joe has no power whatsoever. I mean you might be true about that but I don't know how would that work if no manager looking over you?

I did know about a similar thing though but with Google. In Google maintaining a service or keeping it up doesn't count or take you far. You have to propose and come up with a new product in order to climb the ranks. That's why the company at one time has 4 messaging apps competing with each other. Make a new product/idea, work on it regardless of any real value or feasibility, climb the corporate ladder, when the project inevitably fails blame someone else or something else,rinse and repeat.

Good to see that they are matching what is available on Xbox but spans more people than two systems.

Yeah, shame on us for recognizing a positive change and being happy about it. The gall! 😋🤣

@mrbojangles25: Did you bring your cheerleaders outfit and pom poms too?

Give me a G, give me an A, give me a B, give me an E, give me an N, and what does it spell...give me a break 🙄