Share your library of games with Steam Family Sharing

Steam Family Sharing is now available to all users.

Steam Family Sharing, a feature that allows friends and family to share their libraries of Steam games, is now available to all users,Valve has announced.

A user can make his library of Steam games available for others to access, download, and play on approved authorized accounts and devices. You may authorize Family Library Sharing on up to 10 devices at a given time, and for up to five accounts. Though simultaneous usage of an account is prohibited, the lender is always able to play their games at any time. If the player decides to start playing while a friend is borrowing a game, the friend will be given a "few minutes" to purchase the game or quit.

Individual members can earn their own achievements and keep their own saves and application data intact with Steam Cloud.

Lenders can’t access games that aren't available in their region or games that require a third-party key, account or subscription.

You should also be careful about who you share with. Family sharing privileges may be revoked and your account may be VAC (Valve’s anti-cheat system) banned if your library is used by others to cheat.

You can find out more about Family Sharing and instruction on how to use the feature on Steam’s website.

Cool, I can finally get my friends to beg me to share my 250+ games library! Fun times ahead

"Though simultaneous usage of an account is prohibited, the lender is always able to play their games at any time. If the player decides to start playing while a friend is borrowing a game, the friend will be given a "few minutes" to purchase the game or quit."

From how I understand it you wouldn't be able to do that. It says "simultaneous use of an account" not of a game... Basically you can allow your kid/partner/friend to play games on your account, but never while you are using it.

Yah I wonder if this great idea would be available on console at some point?

Oh wait...

Awesome

There's so much confusion surrounding this thanks to the dodgy wording they use when describing it. -_-

I like this Steam thing. I am thinking of ditching my consoles and going Steam only at some point

Steam Family Sharing is now available to all users...

And no one should care at all. I know I don't. I have been using it throughout the beta and it is a throw away feature in its current form.

It's easier and less intrusive to just share your games through offline mode and be done with it. At least you can actually share then. Having to stop playing a game while the owner plays a different game is just dumb and makes the service pointless.

Playing on the same account is a good way to mess up your account statistics and saves, offline or not. Family Sharing gives each player seperate settings, achievements, and saves, and I think that's a pretty huge benefit. Account statistics and such getting messed up is exactly the reason I didn't let my brother play on my account when I was younger.

EDIT: And for the record, this is supposed to be similar to letting a relative/friend play on your PC/console. Of course you won't be able to do it when your friend/relative is doing it. There's a reason they call it Family Sharing, not Game Sharing or Library Sharing.

It isn't supposed to be similar to letting someone borrow your console or your actual PC. It is supposed to be similar to loaning a physical game. If it were limited to not being allowed to play the same game you might have a point but it limits the entire account. You shouldn't have to stop playing game A while someone else is playing game B and so on. Simply logging in and placing your PC into offline mode to play without interuption while allowing a friend/family member to play a seperate or even the SAME game is far better IMHO than the so-called sharing plan.

So far the ONLY plus for the Family sharing option is the ability to filter allowed games which is little more than a parental control feature for those with kids. Outside of that Offline mode is just a better "sharing" solution IMHO.