As the saying goes, it only took them twenty years — and Steam’s creators have finally realized what a monstrosity their Library Sharing was. Originally, it was meant as a way to let your family (or friends) play your games. But it was implemented in the most ass-backwards way imaginable. Sure, you could make your games available to your family, but the moment you started playing anything yourself, your entire library became unavailable to everyone else. So let’s say you’ve got 400 games in your personal library and you let your kids play them. Your son launches Game A and is happily playing, and then you come home from work and decide to play too — Game B. And suddenly your son gets kicked out of Game A because “the owner is back.” Even though you’re playing a different game. Why on earth can’t he just keep playing the first one?
Nobody ever understood why this feature was introduced in such a dumb way, because its value was extremely low. Mobile platforms introduced the idea of a family. Streaming services like Netflix let an entire household watch content under one family subscription. But game platforms held out until the bitter end.
And finally, on March 18, 2024, Steam launched proper Family Groups in beta. What does that mean? You can now create a family group and add up to five family members (six total: the creator plus five members). Everyone’s personal libraries are merged into a single shared family game library: no matter which family member owns a game, it becomes available to all members of the family group. Steam explained this feature in detail in an announcement and in answers to frequently asked questions. I’ll focus here on the most interesting points.
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