In September last year Value announced a new program allowing Steam users to share their digitally downloaded titles with their friends and family. This is one major caveat of digital copies as opposed to physical ones, sharing isn’t exactly easy, with the latter people previously just used to hand over the discs, with digital copies it isn’t that simple. The Steam Family Sharing program allowed gamers to share their entire library with as many as 10 authorized computers. Initially only 1,000 Steam accounts were given access to this feature, now Valve has opened it up for everyone.
Steam Family Sharing essentially works based on the relationship between a user and a lender. The former must first send a request to the lender, who will then authorize their computer, which will take one of the 10 available spots. All users with whom games are shared will have the ability to save their own achievements and game progress, even if they’re playing shared titles.
There are some restrictions though, lenders won’t be able to share region locked games outside of their specified regions, beta stage titles needing third-party serial numbers or subscriptions won’t be supported and once the account lender signs on, any connected user will be logged out. Only one person will be able to access the shared account at any given time.
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