If you get kicked out of your Steam Family, the slot is locked for a year, so you'd better get along—here's how Steam's new family sharing system works

SoftwarePlatformsIf you get kicked out of your Steam Family, the slot is locked for a year, so you’d better get along—here’s how Steam’s new family sharing system worksWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Steam’s old Family Sharing feature, which allowed members of the same household to play each other’s Steam games, has been replaced with thenew Steam Families system, which graduated from beta this week. The revamped system does the same thing as the old one, but adds new features and comes with some new stipulations, including a region restriction.

Up to six people can be part of a Steam Family, and every game in each member’s library is shared with the group (except for games the owner marked “private” in the properties menu, but if that were a feature I was going to rely on, I’d probably test it to be sure). Only one person can play any given copy of a game at a time, and everyone’s cloud saves, achievements, and Steam Workshop installs are independent of each other. A new parental control system allows adults in the group to decide what children can play, and there’s also a new way for adults to purchase games for kids in their Steam Family, which looks convenient.

There are also quite a few rules and conditions to consider. The biggest stipulation is that you can’t hop around between Steam Families as often as you want. You’ll only be able to start or join a new Family if at least a year has passed since you started or joined your previous Family. There’s also a one-year “cooldown” on each of the six available slots in a Steam Family, so if someone vacates a slot you can’t immediately put someone else in their place.

It’s not mentioned explicitly in the FAQ, but one thing we’ve noticed is that the region restriction present in the Families beta, which wasn’t in the old system, is still present. One PC Gamer writer’s attempt to share games across national borders (between the UK and Spain) didn’t work. You can still set up a Steam Family with people who live in different physical homes in the same region, but Valve would prefer it if sharing were limited to “a household.”

“While we know that families come in many shapes and sizes, Steam Families is intended for a household of up to 6 close family members,” Valve says. “To that end, as we monitor the usage of this feature, we may adjust the requirements for participating in a Steam Family or the number of members over time to keep usage in line with this intent.”

The vague warning that things may change if we don’t stick to “close family members” in “a household” probably isn’t going to stop anyone from creating Families with their Discord pals. The noncommittal language here might mean it’s more lip service (to avoid spooking developers) than a real intention to add more technical restrictions to curb unintended use, but we’ll see.

Some other Steam Families considerations:

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Finally, depending on the level of dysfunction in your family, this may or may not be an important detail: “Adult family members can kick any family member out of the Steam Family.”

(Image credit: Valve)

I have no doubt that “one more word and you’re out of the Steam Family” will be used as an argument-ender in the very near future, if it hasn’t already. The one-year cooldown period on slots could scorch relationships for decades.

TheSteam Families support pagecontains instructions on how to up a Steam Family, and an FAQ with a few more details.

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