Steam :: Steam News :: Introducing Steam Families
steamcommunity.com
Hello! We are excited to announce Steam Families, available today in the Steam Beta Client. Steam Families is a collection of new and existing family-related features. It replaces both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, giving you a single location to manage which games your family can access and when they can play. Create a Steam Family To get started, you can create a Steam Family and then invite up to 5 family members.

Valve announced a replacement feature for both Family Sharing and Family View. Currently in beta.

Features:

  • up to 5 members
  • game sharing
  • parental controls
    • allow access to appropriate games
    • restrict access to the Steam Store, Community or Friends Chat
    • set playtime limits (hourly/daily)
    • view playtime reports
    • approve or deny requests from child accounts for additional playtime or feature access (temporary or permanent)
    • recover a child’s account if they lost their password
  • child purchase requests
  • MirodirEnglish
    270·
    7 months ago

    I experimented around with it in the beta out of curiosity.

    Failed to accept the family invite. Your account must be in the same country as all current family members.

    I’m assuming this is based on account region (i.e. purchase region) and not IP.

    • Lem453English
      130·
      7 months ago

      Wireguard makes everyone one big happy family!

      • PyroEnglish
        100·
        7 months ago

        If this is based on store region, VPN is not enough. You’ll need a payment method from that country as well.

      • MirodirEnglish
        70·
        7 months ago

        Assuming it is store country that is checked: Simply VPN-ing doesn’t change that. Instead you have to make a purchase in the new place with “a payment method from the region you have moved to”. From experience this locks your account to the new region for 3 months. What would be interesting to know is if you can be in a family and then change regions afterwards without getting auto-kicked.

        Needless to say, my experiments ended at trying to see if they have any kinds of restrictions in place (unlike for the original family share) and I don’t wanna buy a throwaway game and lock an account into a different region for 3 months just for shits and giggles.

      • yamaniiEnglish
        22·
        7 months ago

        You should remember that valve already threatened VPN users after everyone was buying games in Argentina.

        • Saik0English
          50·
          7 months ago

          They mean you vpn into your home network.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_PleaseEnglish
      10·
      7 months ago

      Worth noting that this could also potentially be due to differences in censorship/rating laws across country lines. For instance, Germany has some strict regulations regarding Nazi imagery in media. So games need to have a specific Germany-friendly version if they feature that kind of imagery. And Steam may not be able to serve two different versions of the game with a single license.