Steam players left fuming as new game-sharing feature could see you banned when your family cheats

WE’VE all taken a little more money from the bank than we should when playing Monopoly, and cheating when you play family games is almost expected.

That’s all well and good when it’s family board game night and the stakes are low, but doing it on Steam could cost you cash.

Steam recently refreshed its game-sharing feature, now officially called Steam Families, and it’s available for all users.

The new feature allows a group of people to share games with each other in the group, but Steam has warned people to be careful about who they team up with.

Valve recently put a pretty long blog post out on Steam explaining how Steam Families will work.

In short, all players within the group will be able to play any game that any other person in the group owns, but not at the same time. 

Essentially, once you join a family group, you can play any game that someone in the group owns.

However, if only one person in the group owns a particular game, then only one person can play that game at a time.

There are additional features like child accounts and parental controls, that will help parents manage their children’s games and play time.

Many people want to use the feature to share games between other gaming friends, but Steam has sent a friendly warning to those considering this.

Once you join a group you cannot join another Steam Family. Even if you leave that group, you’ll have to wait a year before you can join another one.

Six people can join a single Steam Family, but if someone leaves, their slot cannot be filled for at least a year.

This is because the feature is designed for close family members only who won’t change very often, so if you are using it for friends, you have to make sure you are equally close.

Further, if someone gets banned, for example for cheating while playing a game that you own, you will also be banned from that game.

People have been complaining that this is unfair, but as the plan is meant to be exclusively for tight knit families we can see the purpose.

Now even Gen Alpha can feel the pain of your sibling ruining the disc for your favourite game.

If you want to read more about PC gaming, check out the free games available on the Epic Games Store.