this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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Steam Deck

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Introducing Steam Families (steamcommunity.com)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

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.

Best of all, 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. If your family library has multiple copies of a game, multiple members of the family can play that game at the same time. For a more detailed look at how Family Sharing works, see the FAQ below.

Also adds parental controls for children's accounts. Parental controls let you:

  • 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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/11954402

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[–] [email protected] 166 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Wait, now someone can play a game from my library while Im playing another? That's huge

[–] [email protected] 71 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Same thoughts. Mainly because it's such a pain to explain how the library access system works in the previous family share.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Now just need to be able to 'hide' some games from sharing and we are good to go!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure you can set games as private now, but it sure took them some time.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It's not clear if that hides games from being shared. The info page explicitly states that ALL eligible games are shared.

To get control of what an account can and cannot see/play, the account has to be configured as a child.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

I marked some games as private and they indeed do NOT show up on the other families users library. Seems to work like a charm!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Gonna be complicated to explain to my brother why he has to be a child account lol

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Just let him see your hentai games, say they're "jokes" or something.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Yes I have 2500+ hours of playtime for Femboy Adventures: The Catboi Chronicles, but that's just a joke, bro

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

The Q.A. page specifies that you can specify what games are shared or shown using the normal means.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

Also no need authorize each machine, and games are shared in both directions.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It also allows you to own multiple copies of the same game, which is another huge step in regards to parental controls. If you and both of your kids enjoy a game, you can buy three copies for your account and set restrictions on when/how long they can use it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Does it? I assumed it works like this but I could be wrong.

Three out of five members in the family has the same game. That means three people in the family can play that game at the same time.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Being able to play game from a single library simultaneously is awesome and how it should've been from a usability perspective.

Sadly this change will make it impossible to simply share games with someone specifically, since it's now required to be in the same Family Share, which is a strong commitment. For sharing games in a single friend group, this change won't change much (unless someone still wants to share with their family). The changes make game sharing work more like intended, in other words family share.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It was never really meant to be used like that though. They might've tolerated it but in the end they can get rid of it while adding further functionality for actual family sharing.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Agreed. The new restrictions are similar to what Spotify is doing with their family plan and is way more useful for it's intended purpose.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

What happens if my brother gets banned for cheating while playing my game?
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.

Fuck that, yo.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's probably to avoid someone buying a game, and then cheating on a child account to avoid bans.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

yeah necessary rule fsure

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

That's actually nothing new, it's been like that with family sharing for ages. If the family share account gets banned, the owner of the game gets banned as well* so that they can't keep making alt accounts to bypass the ban. Others in your family not being impacted by the ban would actually be an improvement - it used to be that if the owner is banned, anyone family sharing the game would be as well.

*There are exceptions with a few games, like Dark Souls 3, which doesn't ban your main account so you can use family share to play mods in coop. Elden Ring bans both, however.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Is there a non-zero chance you’d add a potential cheater to your Steam family?

[–] prettybunnys 17 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I could imagine someone’s kid doing it

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

Not for me.

My kiddo is kinda an butthead and I know he will absolutely figure out how to get banned.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Being able to play a game simultaenously is insane news!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

Yeah. Not being able to play a shared game because the other person is playing something else has been sooooo fucking annoying.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 8 months ago

This looks great! It would be even better if they improve the handling of multiple accounts on the steam deck.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago

This is incredible news, I've been using the deck as a console, and when the kids were playing something I'd be logged out, so this really is a game changer.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

With cooldowns for abuse prevention now on the table, I wish Valve will consider adding something like a "day pass" for Steam friends where they can share their libraries—or perhaps specific games—for a short duration to someone they know without having to adopt them.

With cooldowns they would find appropriate, of course. And I hope that isn't a whole year...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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

That's a great first step, but I would also like to be able to play another game from my own library on another device (e.g. steam deck and pc) at the same time

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You could make a second account, add it to your family, and use one account for your PC and one for your deck.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

That's one possible workaround, but that will, obviously, break stuff like cloud saving and achievement progress. So, not ideal, but probably viable for some situations.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I could've sworn this was already a feature

Am I getting the Mandela effect?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

The previous 'family sharing' feature allowed for you to share your games with someone else, provided you were not playing any games at the moment.

This new family sharing seems to allow you to share your library even if you're playing another game.

[–] manastorm 9 points 8 months ago

Amazing!! My kid is going to love this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Too bad that if my kid cheats I will be banned too. :(

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (4 children)

I'm curious how aggressive it will be at limiting families who live in different houses from sharing games.

The article specifically states that it is meant for "same household" families. But will it actively prevent that?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nice! Now, all I need to do is make the babies.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

For sure, all of us who have been waiting to fall in love, get married, and have kids, are now free to do so now that we have better steam library sharing. I know it was the main thing most people have been waiting for.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I set family sharing up a while ago. It's been great. Only issue is I made my own account a child account and don't mnow how to undo that. Not a huge deal since I know the pin, just sucks to have to put it in to look at the store or appear online to play with friends. Probably not a steam problem, just user error, and if I put enough effort into fixing it as I did writing this comment I probably would have already fixed it. The answer just doesn't seem apparent...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I would say the answer is typically a-parent haha

Not very helpful but I hope a dumb joke makes you smile!

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Maybe now I'll finally be able to share my library with my partner

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You could before, but any games with steam DRM (which is most of them) would lock your library if your spouse was using it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It would not lock your library if someone was playing one of your games. You could start any game in your library and the family member would be given a 15 minute period to wrap up their session before being booted. It had nothing to do with steam drm either.

Source: I actually used family sharing a few times.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Anybody know if I set that up and decide to buy the game myself if my played time, achievements, and saved games will transfer over?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

I would assume so too, jw. Cause I know if you buy a game and play it and refund it, if you buy it again the saved data and achievements and stuff is still there.

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