You’ll soon be able to share your Steam games with friends

Steam is set to introduce the new Family Sharing program that lets users authorise other Steam users to play their games.

Through the program, one Steam user will be able to authorise a friend or family member’s Steam account and PC to have access to his/her games.

The program is currently in beta (you can sign up for it here), and it will allow users to authorise other 10 accounts as friends or families. Those friends will then be able to save their own progress and earnt heir own achievements in thos games.

Our customers have expressed a desire to share their digital games among friends and family members, just as current retail games, books, DVDs, and other physical media can be shared. Family Sharing was created in direct response to these user requests,” said Valve’s Anna Sweet.

There are, however, two limitations of this program. Firstly, both users will not be able to play a game together or even separately at the same time. The moment the owner of the game launches it, the borrower will be prompted to either buy the game to stop playing. If neither option is selected, the borrower’s game will end.

The second limitation is that games requiring additional third-party keys or secondary log-ins into services like Uplay will not be supported in the Family Sharing program. So it’s safe to assume that Steamworks-enabled games will support it.

Read more about Steam Family Sharing here.

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