The best part about this compared to the old way is that if you're playing a game, your Steam Family still has access to any of your other games. Before, it would lock them out entirely.
Imo the best part is that you dont have to give your login details to share your library. Its hard to trust someone enough and risk getting locked out of your account. Specially if you have invested a lot of time and money on it.
@@wassup4532 I kinda get the restriction that you have to login on the other persons computer, because that means you trust them enough. The new family system also doesn't allow you to be a part of multiple families, so it can definitely break up families where a child lives periodically at two different places etc.
worst part is you can't share with two people who don't know each other, and if they share with other people too, it becomes impossible to use this new way.
"Wheatley has requested: Helldivers 2" I'm just imagining Wheatley's voice in something like Helldivers, and it's hilarious. Thank you for all of this.
"Hello! Ok, so, I know it will sound crazy, BUT. I know a cheat code, hold up, look at this... Up, right, down, down... Down! There, now if you stay in this beam, you SHOULD be pretty much immo-"
@@WwZa7[Chell looks at her monitor in half horror half stifling a laugh as Wheatley’s in game character is completely vaporized from existence. From the other room, she could hear the faint sound of Wheatley attempting to smash his keyboard, but as he is connected to the laboratory framing, he cannot reach far enough to fully crush it under his rage]
I think that children should have a grace period of at most a week where they can leave on their own to avoid scams where someone is invited to a “family” to “share” a big collection of games but instead get their account held hostage for ransom because they didn’t notice that the invite was to join as a child.
They can just simply wait until the grace period ends to ask for ransom. I wonder why they don't allow kids to leave on their own in the first place tho.
@@PeterQian-q7s But to convince people to wait, they need to actually have a good games offering which costs a lot of money. And families are limited to 6 people. So they would need to host lots of steam families. Especially since what do they do with people that refuse to pay? Let them go and win or waist a family spot hoping that they will give in. The reason why they don’t want to allow kids to leave on their own is because it would disable parental controls on the kid’s steam account.
@@gregorymirabella1423 While that would work, I doubt that they are interested in increasing how much work they have to do by having to deal with that.
@@LegendsSeeker and the only one that keeps improving and supporting open source projects and their store with that budget when they could just sit do nothing and earn money
@@LegendsSeekerFr, most people said they did nothing and still win but steam has done more for PC than any of its competitors those names shall not be called because they don’t deserve it.
"All adult members can invite new family members, remove other family members, or leave a family. CHILDREN DO NOT HAVE ANY OF THESE PRIVILEGES." That got me laughing so hard for no reason lmao
We know exactly what will happen. The machine will take over, ban anyone who's been on a list for the past 15 years, and everything 10+ years old will get deleted.
actually the system is restrictive when it comes to region, i could not add an alt to a family because it "could jot be verified that its the same household" people complained on the forums but iirc they didnt change it.
Yes Valve, thank you SO much for making it so me and my partner who live in different part of the country can no longer share games together. That is sarcasm, screw your corporate greed.
It's crazy how feature-rich this app already is. More than pretty much all other clients put together, excluding GOG I guess because of their unique approach.
@@shearman360 right, but only 1 friend could play any of those games at a time. So they restricted it to geos so multiple people could share all games simultaneously. They refocused the system. If you were only sharing with a single long distance friend then sure, it lost value. But to pretend that's the norm and ignore the improvements is pretty self centered. It was branded Family Sharing this whole time, the intent was pretty clear.
@@jeffreyeaton5214 Epic Games has been around for at least a decade now and it took them several years to implement a shopping cart and they *STILL* do not have an ability to review games. EA Origin was around since 2011/2012 and it's similarly quite trashy.
"Dad, who's Claire? Why did you add her to our family?" "Son, she's your stepsister" ...... "Dad, why? why did you leave our family????" "I'm sorry son, you're on your own. Families have a member limit. There's a twin coming and now I have to create a separate family"
@@Ludasan1 You know what? I've actually recently watched Lost for the first time but I can't remember if I referenced it intentionally or the name Claire was randon 😆 I don't even remember if at the time of commenting if I already knew about that revelation 😄
While most of this is great, the old family sharing supports many different family setups, while this just allows for 6 close family members. For example an already full family means you cannot share with your significant other, or sometimes people just don't want to share with specific people, you maybe don't want to associate your account with your siblings s.o. but your sibling does want to. If my siblings s.o., which i don't even necessarily want to be in the same family, cheats in CSGO, i might be held responsible too? That seems pretty unreasonable. In contrast having each account have a separate family would allow for far more family settings. I.e. i could have my siblings/parents/children and my s.o., while each account in my family has their own family group, where I have to be a member (so both must be in each others group), but they could freely choose whether they want to associate with any particular person. Especially when people get older, families diverge, and some people might have good relationships with each other, but not others. For example two siblings might have a good relationship, but one has cut connection with their mother, and not the other. Sure these setups might not be common, but having these options doesn't hurt anyone, and can really positively impact the edge cases out there :)
I wish Steam would reconsider the way they define "household". As it is now it excludes a lot of families. (e.g. a kid travels between two different homes can't use the same family accoutn at both, or an older child lives in a different place for college can't game while at school, or families who move for seasonal work are just SOL)
Guys, I've also said this in other comments replies, I have a family with all of my friends in it, we all live in the same city but have different IPs, and we don't have any problem, everyone can play everyone's game, maybe you're talking about people from literally different states, but that's to prevent people from joining random paid families and abuse the system to earn on it
@@PATATAGAME1At least, currently, you can Steam Family share across states. We’ve been using the beta since it started and have a member across the country and it’s worked just fine. It’s all subject to change at any point, but right now the only restriction is that you can only switch families once per year and you can only have play simultaneous games for the number you have copies of. I think groups are also capped at 6? As long as whoever you want to share with is in your group, you can share libraries. If you live in a split family, simply have everyone that wants to participate join the same group. Other than the awkwardness of dealing with your ex, it’ll be fine. If a kid goes away to college, again, currently this is a non issue. I’ve done various forms of family sharing across multiple platforms, and by far, steam is the easiest and most generous.
@@PATATAGAME1 nah dude they updated family sharing a couple of weeks after the beta launch to restrict to the same ip. people who even live on the same street cant start a family share with each other. at least people who already started shares are unaffected but yeah they made it worse unfortunately
Yeah I family share with my cousin who lives less than 10 minutes away. Try a game out from his library while he's not on before deciding to get it for myself. Now I just can't anymore? oh well.
I think you have misunderstood. It works as if your entire library are physical copies, anyone can play them without locking the owner out of their steam account. The only restriction is that two people can't play on the same game at the same time if there's only one copy. The beta version had no household lock, I am family sharing with someone who is an hour away. Whether they add a household lock in with the full release remains to be seen but I doubt it
We used to share our library with our friends to try out games before purchasing, and since we could only play our friends library one at a time, it felt like the good old days of lending physical copies of a game you loved, without feeling like we were abusing the system. I'm sad to no longer be able to do that with this new system :(
@@Jawrones I sent request to my brother who lives in a different city so I don't think that's the case. Edit: Just tested it. It all works fine. My brother can even play games from my library at the same time as I.
@@vanjaarsic1616 It is the case. Can't share my games with friends anymore because "Failed to accept the family invite. You are ineligible to join this Steam Family at this time, as your Steam activity doesn't indicate that you are in the same household as other members of this family."
I guess me living in a different country is no longer considered family with my Mother and sister since they still live in home country... Remove that weird country requirement Valve, Please fix. Remember.. Piracy is a service issue and you just made one. I can no longer share my games with them, so we'll probably pirate them since it makes no difference anymore.
im glad theres more than like 3 actually normal people in this comments that arent completely blind to how steam is harming an 11 year old system spread the word
@@MusicIsAwesomeSauce It doesn't help, and to stop misinformation being spread. It locks depending on your billing address. So even if you both are in the same household, but your partner/family member has foreign card/billing address. You cannot use new family share with them.
As long as I can still share games with people who don't live in the same place, I'm okay with this, but if they're gonna do the netflix house restriction crap, that's a big nerf to current sharing.
it's restricted to the same house hold, you can no longer family share with people outside of your house hold. someone during the beta of this feature tried family sharing with his brother living in a house a few meters away and it did not work, it seems that all the computers have to be connected to the same wifi or be in a close enoght proximity for it to work
@@thediab2732 Dude in comparison to the already unique Libary Sharing from Steam this is an improvment on a feature no other Storefront (The ugly not be named here) has. This is a great feature. And yes families can be not living in the same household but its needed to be this way, because else you open every door to make it even easier for game reseller / key sellers. So i think this is a good compromise
the ability to request parents to pay for stuff is genius. One less way for kids to to get access to the credit card when they shouldn't. This should honestly be a feature implemented by banks for general purchases.
You still can, this system’s only real downside is the 5 member limit. Also you won’t get kicked off a shared game if the family member who you’re borrowing a game from starts playing a game on their device anymore
Its a huge shame you need to be in the same household now. I wanted to family share with my cousin and nephew and now I cannot. We're already punished an entire year for leaving the family share why force it to be in the same household?
Pretty much all services that provide a "family share" element require you to be living under the same household, why would Steam do it any differently?
According to this, I’m not considered to be in the same household as my sibling, even though we literally live in the same house, at the same address, because they have a separate IP subscription. That’s not how you define a household, Steam…
Use the generous two hour no questions asked refund window? The old family sharing system was terrible for letting people try out games because only one person could play the library at a time.
@@DriveCancelDC Brother if I'm asking my friend to try a game, I'll be coaching him from the side lines. Yes the 2 hour refund policy exists but it's so much more hassle than just not playing with a friend. Helping a friend learn the game is more important than carrying them through. Side note what should I do when I have multiple friend groups? Leave and join families over and over again instead of just switching out people who have access. If they add family switching like the old system it'll be a better system.
The previous family sharing system was better for the consumers. This change only benefits you as a company by giving you more control and user data while doing nothing for the consumer.
The old system locked the entire library, you couldn't play at the same time the title owner was playing even a different shared game game. This is a straight up win for consumers, and ressembles way more lending physical disks within the same household. ...and I don't see how they would get "more user data" from it, and even what they would do with that data. You're most likely already friends with those family accounts, which all connects from the same IP, there's already a link existing
It also benefits game developers as more people will buy games, which provides a greater incentive to studios to invest increased money in making better games.
@@Piztou You could always do this by just starting up your account in offline mode. And by 'more user data' I mean they know that you have a kid and allow that kid to ask you to buy things for them. They're going to heavily advertise to child accounts to take advantage of this. Using GOG and just sharing the files via usb w a friend is far closer to physical disc sharing. I want to share my games w my bf, my roommate, and my sister. That's it. Are any of those in the same 'family'? No, but we all live in the same house. Now my roommate has to choose to share w his sister or us and my bf has to do the same. This isn't a practical means of sharing games, it's a convoluted mess w pretty wrapping paper on it.
@@grapeflavoredfawful6253 yeah :/ The solution is maybe that the person comes to your house and connects to the same network and then try again. If not, the person should buy one game for under 1$ from the same network and then try again.
I always knew that Gaben and Steam _(comparing it to competitors especially)_ means quality, yet still any QoL update like this surprise me *every single time.*
yea, but now it's region locked so you can ONLY family share with people in the Same house hold, even if some one lives next door it won't work. this the Biggest change from the old system
@@tamoghnapal6619 It works, for now. They might remove all the accounts that are currently linked through family share in the future. "You should set up a Steam Family! Once done, Steam will automatically recommend inviting any accounts that you were previously sharing with." from their announcement post makes this ambiguous as for now, this feature is region blocked. Only the future will tell how they will think about this.
If this works like the beta branch worked so far, only steam Accounts in the same household (IP adress) will be able to share. Won't be able to share games with a friend who lives down the block or across the globe. Idk what to think of this, but sounds nice for the gamer parents. I dont think anyone has implemented something for gamer parents yet, nice foresight on steams behalf
Yeah, that's what concerns me. I have mutual sharing with a friend who lives two states away as well as a family member that I live close to now but won't for long. It also sounds like you can only be in one group? ugh.
@@isnotkevin part with one group for all members is what stopping me, i have few friends i share my library with and they have their own list where are people i dont even know who they are and it becomes much more than 5man group share even tho its 3-4 shared people for each person
what are you on about... i have been sharing with people who live in diffrent areas of my country and it works fine... the only limitation is that it only works with people within the same country
@@festivebop3309 if you added them during the beta (or on the old family share system since 2013) before they announced the same household/ip restriction, it won't be restricted for you. but for everyone post-launch it will be
Please don't be fooled, this is a step DOWN, not up! Steam Family Sharing allowed you to share your library with up to 5 family members up to now. I used that to share my games with my younger sister who moved to another city, for example. Now you'll be only able to share your library with family members/people who live in your own household (I suppose they use IP-tracking!?). =/ So they're actually cutting a feature and this marketing trailer - which includes other great features, to be fair - has the main purpose to sell you this idea of making Steam worse.
Supposedly, it's a mixed bag because they used to only let one person play your games at any time and now other folks can still access your other games while you're playing one yourself.
I was wondering if they would track the ip or not as my sister sometimes spend months on another city and the fact that now it would be possible to play any other games at the same time is something that peak my interest, but if ot does tracks the ip and prevents her for playing from her home, I won't bother setting this up
@@andremalerba5281 Yeah you won't bother now, but idk if you listened to or watched the video in its entirety, but the old family sharing is going to be phased out no matter what either way so you're inevitably going to have the cord pulled on you and your sibling. It's just a change Valve is going to have to make based on the feedback, and it seems pretty highly unlikely since in the grand scheme, it affects steam sales. The limitations it had on locking libraries was the only thing mitigating some of it and now that it's going away, they have no need to worry about product purchasing dodgers. Valve wins no matter what.
@@azalty that "better way" just prevents me from sharing my library with my actual family, since we don't all live under the same roof anymore. The only people benefiting from this are american-style nuclear families. something that barely even exists anymore, especially in europe
They're already full steam (pun not intended) ahead with the enshittification process. new bloated electron-based steam client? check. universally hated CS2 release replacing CS:GO so you can't go back? check. not fixing bugs people have complained about for 5 years (since the introduction of the new steam client)? check. destroying family sharing with absurd new restrictions that make it essentially useless unless you're in a nuclear family? check
probably nobody will see this comment but i watch these update videos every time. no fail. even though it doesn't effect me in the slightest, they're just good videos.
The new system doesn't allow you to share your games with anyone that doesn't share your same IP address, and who hasn't been living in the same country as you since the account creation. Basically, it destroyed sharing for international families, or people who live in 2 or more different places. Also the new system doesn't allow big families. The old system per device basis, and didn't have any of the restrictions I already said. It was a little bit more "cumbersome" because you had to set this individually on each device, but outside of that, it was a way better system.
@@ShikiByakkoThe old system only allowed one person to use the Steam library at a time, so if ANYONE was playing a game, nobody else could play anything in the library. The new system is better, the old system was at times useless, like when you had multiple games in the same timezone in the same Steam Family. Most the people complaining are people who are mad they can no longer share games with FRIENDS.
Definitely a fan of this. You are no longer are locked out of your library if one other person in the family is playing a game. What a win. Thanks Valve.
So, if my brother and I have a fight, he can just kick me from the family group and we all have to wait an entire year to fix it? Great. I'm sure that won't be used to emotionally manipulate and abuse ppl.
From the guide on steams website "I accidentally left my Steam Family! Do I have to wait a year to rejoin? No. You can always rejoin the last Steam Family that you were a member of without waiting, provided that it has less than 6 members when you try."
@@kittytitania5759 VPN won't help. Everyone need to be in the same house/share the same IP or you can't even add them to the family group. Valve made this 11 year old feature entirely useless overnight
@@el_gabronit is so obvious, uses a throw account to play games from main account without having it logged into the same pc. But also quit dumb, you steam guard nothing will break into the main account.
This was introduced so people would stop buying accounts in different regions and buying games for cheaper, then they would just family share it and play on their main, now you cant unless you switch countries on the account which can only be done with a purchase.
