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Valve\u2019s new Steam Families feature is now available for everyone<\/a> following a beta launch earlier this year. With Steam Families, parents are able to share games with their families, manage parental controls for their kids, and approve requests from their kids to buy Steam games.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The big improvement with Steam Families over Valve\u2019s previous Family Sharing setup is that multiple people can play games from a shared library at one time. So if I\u2019m playing Balatro<\/em><\/a>, and my partner, who is part of my Steam Family, wants to play Arranger<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>we can both play those games at the same time. However, if my partner wants to play Balatro<\/em> while I\u2019m already playing it, she\u2019ll need to buy an additional copy. With Steam Families, you can play shared games offline, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Valve says that Steam Families are \u201cintended to contain your immediate family\u201d and that they can include \u201cup to 6 close family members.\u201d Each member of a Steam Family will have their own save games and earn their own achievements. Adults can leave a Steam Family at any time, but if they do, they\u2019ll have to wait a year before they can start or join a new Family. Children can only be removed by a Steam Family by an adult or with the help of Steam support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a video<\/a>, Valve says that the old Family Sharing feature will be retired \u201ceventually,\u201d so if you\u2019ve been using that, you might want to set up Steam Families instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You can start using Steam Families by updating Steam. The newest Steam client update has a handful of other updates<\/a>, too, including a redesigned screenshots manager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n