After a lengthy beta period, Valve has officially launched Steam Families, a new way to share games between groups of players. A Steam Family can consist of up to five people, and if one member buys a game, everyone else in the Family will also have access to it. As expected, the feature will only be available if the developer approves.
“Let’s say that you are in a family with 4 members and that you own a copy of Portal 2 and a copy of Half-Life,” Valve explains.
“At any time, any one member can play Portal 2 and another can play Half-Life. If two of you would like to play Portal 2 at the same time, someone else in the family will need to purchase a copy of the game. After that purchase, there are two owned copies of Portal 2 across the family and any two members can play at the same time.
“In this example, if your family chose to not buy a second copy, you can play any other game in your library while waiting for your family member to finish playing your copy of Portal 2.”
Each Steam Family slot has a one-year cooldown if a member leaves. Once this cooldown expires, a new member can join.
“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. The next time you log in to Steam, this new ‘family library’ will appear in the left column as a subsection of your games list. You maintain ownership of your current titles and when you purchase a new game it will still show up in your collection,” Valve writes.
