Valve has pulled its Steam Family Library Sharing feature out of beta and made it available to all users allowing them to share games with each other.
Lenders, users who intend to lend their library, can authorise up to ten computers and five Steam accounts. These authorised systems and accounts can then request to “borrow” a game for a period of time.
This temporary lending is active up until the lender wants the game back at which point the borrower will have to return the tile and if they want to continue playing the game they are required to purchase the title. If they buy the title, their progress will be carried over.
“Steam’s Family Library Sharing is now released for all Steam users. Players who share computers can now also share their available libraries with one another, each earning their own achievements and saving their own game progress to the Steam Cloud. It’s all enabled by authorizing shared computers and the familiar accounts that log into them”, reads the official announcement.
There are quite a few catches attached with Steam Library sharing. First and foremost is the inability to remotely authorise an account. This means that borrowers will be required to physically log into the lender’s system in order to register as a borrower.
Secondly, games that require Origin/Uplay Passports or use CD Keys are not supported. Third, users won’t be able to play DLC for a particular title which they already own.
If at any time the lender jumps in to the play the title that the borrower is playing, the former will be asked to quite the game or purchase a copy of their own to continue playing the game.
On top of this, a single game cannot be played by two borrowers at the same time and regional restrictions will apply as well.
