Valve has introduced a major upgrade to the way players can share the games they own on Steam with household family members, revamping the feature and calling it Steam Families.
Between the old Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View features, Steam users could link up a family member’s account and play or watch each other without needing to purchase multiple copies of the game—with certain caveats and limitations as to when both accounts could play. But now, Valve has rolled the features into one simple package.
Here’s how to set up Steam Families so you and your family can game together.
Setting up Steam Families, a guide
1) Create a Steam Family
To begin sharing Steam games with your family, you must first create a Steam Family and invite your family member’s Steam accounts. If you haven’t done so already, make sure your family member has signed up to Steam on their own account.
Here’s how to set up a Steam Family:
- Log in to Steam and navigate to the Settings menu.
- Under the Interface tab, go to Client Beta Participation and select Steam Families Beta.
- Restart Steam when prompted.
- Once Steam reopens, click on your profile in the top-right of the Steam window and select Account details.
- Click the Family Management tab, then select Create a Family.
- Give your family a name, then hit Confirm.
You can only add five registered accounts to your Steam Family at one time, and to allow for game sharing, each account will need to have Steam Guard enabled on the account and device first.
Once done, your Steam Family is up and running. Now, you’ll need to invite your family members to join so you can begin sharing your games.
2) Add family members to a Steam Family
To add members to a Steam Family:
- Head back to the Family Management tab.
- Click Invite a member.
- Select the family member from your friends list or enter their Friend Code (found in their Account details).
- The family member will need to confirm the invite via authentication (email or app).
And you’re done! You’ll be able to select which games you’d like your family to access and can even give an Adult or Child designation to prevent disallowed access to certain features like Steam Community or Market access.
As part of the upgraded Steam Families feature you’ll no longer be limited to playing on one device at a time: As long as it’s a different game, family members can play on their own devices using the game owned by the lead profile.
There are other limitations such as how often you can switch and whether a game is eligible to be used. For more on that, check out the Steam Families FAQ.
