Steam Families, a collection of new and existing family-related features that replaces Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View to give what Valve says is a single location for players to manage what games their family can access and when they can play, is now officially live following beta testing, Valve has announced. The new feature, which includes Parental Controls and Child Purchase Requests, comes with at least one caveat, however, in that game owners may find themselves banned from a game if a family member is caught cheating.
Valve writes:
- “When you join a Steam Family, you automatically gain access to the shareable games that your family members own and they will also be able to access the shareable titles in your library.”
- “…when you are playing a game from your family library, you will create your own saved games, earn your own Steam achievements, have access to workshop files and more.”
- “Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members’ libraries, even if they are online playing another game.”
- “…adult family members can kick any family member out of the Steam Family.”
- “If a family member gets banned for cheating while playing your copy of a game, you (the game owner) will also be banned in that game. Other family members are not impacted.”
A promo for the new feature:
Valve on Parental Controls and Child Purchase Requests:
Steam Families includes new parental controls that allow parents to set limits on what and when children play games on Steam. You can control which games your children have access to and monitor their activity. This information is available from wherever you access Steam, including your mobile device when you are away from home.
Steam Families [also] introduces a new payment option where a child account can request an in-family adult to pay for their shopping cart. The adult can approve and pay for the purchase from their mobile device or email. Once approved, all games from the shopping cart will be added to the child’s account.