14 DAY TRIAL // Steam’ Family Library Sharing feature is now available to all its users, Valve revealed, allowing games to be shared in the same manner computers are among family members.
Valve has announced that is has now unlocked the Steam “Family Sharing” feature for all its account holders, allowing family members and guests to play one another’s games. The feature comes with the possibility for each player to earn their own achievements and save their game progress to the Steam Cloud, and continue where they left off if they decide to buy the game for themselves.
The process is not at all complicated, and it’s done by authorizing shared computers and users. For instance, if you see a game you’d like to play on a family member’s library, you can send them a request to authorize you, and they can grant you access to their library and even authorize your own computer to access, download and play their games.
The system is completely free, and the software giant has started beta testing it since September last year. Where the system will truly shine will be once Steam Boxes start to gain some traction, and you can just show up to a party and have instant access to all of your (an your friends’) local multiplayer games – and there are quite a handful on Steam – without having to carry around any physical storage devices or plan ahead.
The decision followed the Steam community’s desire to be able to share their digital games with their friends, similarly to how they would share their comics, books or retail games or other physical media.
The only downside is that the games will only be available if the library is not currently being used, and if the owner logs in to play the same or another title in the shared library, the friend will receive a warning and will be offered a couple minutes to either quit or purchase the game and continue playing.
Consequently, the friend currently using the library will have priority and will not be kicked out whenever someone else wants to play a game, unless it’s the owner of the account.
Users can now authorize up to ten other devices for game sharing, and those who want to find more information should read the official Steam Family Sharing FAQ.
Microsoft had a similar initiative once for the Xbox One, that would allow players to designate a few family accounts that would be granted access to their library, as well as allowing access to all of a user’s games from anywhere they could connect to their account, without having to carry their game discs around, but the feature was eventually dropped, even though it was considered one of the fans’ favorite features.