Family Sharing is a pretty cool feature of Steam: simply put, it allows you to share your game library with friends and family, so if you, your brother, and your mother all want to play Helldivers 2, for example, you don't all have to buy it separately. Family Sharing and Family View parental control systems into one big package called Steam Families.

Steam Families functions very similarly to its predecessor, but with several improvements, the biggest being the ability for family members to play different games simultaneously.

Under the old system, if someone was playing a game from your library, no one else could use that library at the same time. Now that restriction has been removed: you cannot play the same game at the same time, but you can play different games. Also, each member of a family group will have their own individual saves, achievements, workshop files, and other features.

The new parental controls also allow parents to monitor what their children are playing on Steam and when, with access to "playtime reports" so adults in the room can see exactly what their children are doing.

There is also a new option aimed at simplifying the process of purchasing games for children: instead of buying gift cards for them or giving them credit cards (as someone who once issued a large bill in his mother's name, I can I can tell you), the child's account would be able to request payment for whatever is in the shopping cart to an adult account in the family group. The adult could then approve and pay for the purchase via mobile device or email, at which point the game would be added to the child's Steam account.

The Steam Families FAQ includes a real-world example of how the new system will work:

For example, suppose you are a family of four and own copies of Portal 2 and Half-Life. At any given time, one member can play Portal 2 and the other can play Half-Life. If two people want to play Portal 2 at the same time, one family member must purchase a copy of the game. After the purchase, the entire family will own two copies of Portal 2, and any two people can play at the same time.

This example also illustrates another new aspect of Steam Families: pooling copies of games. Previously, library sharing was done on a one-to-one basis between two accounts. Of course, there are still some limitations to the new system, which one can only imagine could lead to headaches, heartache, and possibly lifelong blood feuds. Adults can leave a Steam family at any time, but if they do, they must wait a year before creating or joining a new Steam family. (Families that played together may stay together forever.) Even worse, but more interesting, an adult family member can kick another family member out of the group. Alas, your new mother-in-law, Baratolo, will have to stay.

(Update: Valve later clarified that family members can immediately join their original family group with no cooldown, as long as they are invited back. This makes sense, but not as interesting as the idea of a father being angry for a year because he can't use his family's Steam account.)

There is even more potential for sibling chaos: if your immediate brother gets banned for cheating while playing your game, that's too bad buddy, you get banned too. As someone who has a sibling, I can say with 100% certainty that I would have had him ban every game my sister had so that he could mess with her. And now that we are both adults, I feel bad about that. It is worth noting that Valve has had a similar policy with Family Sharing for years.

Of course, these restrictions are necessary to combat smurfing and ban evasion, which is a real problem that is likely to be far more troublesome than hypothetical family squabbles. And overall, the reaction to the system seems generally positive. Valve said that Steam Families is "intended for households of up to six close family members," and that some of those who sign up for the new system will be excluded from living in other countries. However, the ability to play multiple games simultaneously on a shared account has been met with a great response.

Steam Families is currently in beta testing, so it is possible that some aspects will be tweaked before it is fully rolled out. In fact, Valve stated in its announcement that "conditions for joining Steam Families and the number of members may be adjusted over time" to maintain usage consistent with Valve's intentions, while monitoring usage of the new features.

To check out Steam Families now, you must opt-in to the Steam Client Beta: to do so, select the Interface option from Steam's Settings menu, and from the Client Beta Participation dropdown Select "Steam Client Beta" from the Steam Support page for more detailed instructions.