...or S-team.

Originally posted by Bobbyboy The CatAstroph:

Steam Family ... should be renamed Steam Household

Steam Family feature has become completely useless...

I'm wondering how many people match the new rules - i.e. same household and immediate family... I guess the only people matching would be living with their parents. And in this case, how many players are playing the same games than their parents ???

Really I don't see the point of maintaining a feature that apply to a negligible fraction of the community. Might just remove it.

Who can be in a Steam Family?

While we know that families come in many shapes and sizes, Steam Families is intended for a household of up to 6 close family members.

To that end, we expect the requirements for participating in a Steam Family to change over time as we monitor its usage and add requirements to keep usage in line with this intent.

https://steamhost.cn/help_steampowered_com/en/faqs/view/054C-3167-DD7F-49D4#frequent

Originally posted by Bobbyboy The CatAstroph:

Steam Family feature has become completely useless...

I'm wondering how many people match the new rules - i.e. same household and immediate family... I guess the only people matching would be living with their parents. And in this case, how many players are playing the same games than their parents ???

Gotta say, when I heard about the feature originally, I assumed that it's intended use *was* within a household. Parents owning the account and sharing it with their minor children (as part of a parental control/oversight thing) and/or multiple minor children sharing with each other.

The whole "why can't I keep sharing my account with my adult siblings 2000 miles away!" thing, has always baffled me that people thought it should be that way. /shrug

Every pirate in Existence: THe Rest Of The World Is My Family!!!

Well I'm not saying Steam is unfair with the new rule.
It's just that the new rule can only apply to parent-control... so the feature has become poorly named at best and completely useless for most people in my opinion.

Originally posted by wesnef:

Originally posted by Bobbyboy The CatAstroph:

Steam Family feature has become completely useless...

I'm wondering how many people match the new rules - i.e. same household and immediate family... I guess the only people matching would be living with their parents. And in this case, how many players are playing the same games than their parents ???

Gotta say, when I heard about the feature originally, I assumed that it's intended use *was* within a household. Parents owning the account and sharing it with their minor children (as part of a parental control/oversight thing) and/or multiple minor children sharing with each other.

The whole "why can't I keep sharing my account with my adult siblings 2000 miles away!" thing, has always baffled me that people thought it should be that way. /shrug

Same.

When my son is 18 and moved out, he will likely want to leave the Families Group anyways. He can afford his own games then, so won't rely on us for them.

I may never reach 6 accounts in the family, but the goal isn't to max out the number available after all, just to share my games with those in my family who live here. Anyone else can just buy their own.

I can play with my wife and my two kids. Add my brother and his wife, who don't live with us, and that would be six. But why would he join my group when he can form his own with his wife and three kids, only one of whom lives with him, and that's five. Let's throw his daughter in law in there for six.

The only people we can't add are my sister and her husband, who live in a different country. We're OK with that because they can form their own family group with his side of the family, none of whom live with them.

Sounds like it's working as intended, and works quite well for those of whom don't want to abuse the system, which is a great number of people, mah dude.

Originally posted by Bobbyboy The CatAstroph:

Really I don't see the point of maintaining a feature that apply to a negligible fraction of the community. Might just remove it.

"Feature doesn't revolve around me, therefore it's pointless."

As for the rest of your opinion, it will only matter when you own Valve. And that doesn't seem likely.

Originally posted by BJWyler:

I can play with my wife and my two kids. Add my brother and his wife, who don't live with us, and that would be six. But why would he join my group when he can form his own with his wife and three kids, only one of whom lives with him, and that's five. Let's throw his daughter in law in there for six.

The only people we can't add are my sister and her husband, who live in a different country. We're OK with that because they can form their own family group with his side of the family, none of whom live with them.

Sounds like it's working as intended, and works quite well for those of whom don't want to abuse the system, which is a great number of people, mah dude.

Well I imagine your case is quite rare...

Which "system abuse"? I can't share games with my brother because I don't live with him...

Originally posted by Bobbyboy The CatAstroph:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

I can play with my wife and my two kids. Add my brother and his wife, who don't live with us, and that would be six. But why would he join my group when he can form his own with his wife and three kids, only one of whom lives with him, and that's five. Let's throw his daughter in law in there for six.

The only people we can't add are my sister and her husband, who live in a different country. We're OK with that because they can form their own family group with his side of the family, none of whom live with them.

Sounds like it's working as intended, and works quite well for those of whom don't want to abuse the system, which is a great number of people, mah dude.

Well I imagine your case is quite rare...

Which "system abuse"? I can't share games with my brother because I don't live with him...

Nothing rare about having immediate family living with you as well as having family not living with you. I can share with my brother, and he doesn’t live with me. I can say the same for my aunts and uncles, and many, many cousins. I can pick any six, who don't live me, and share with them. It's quite common for many, many Steam users.

Originally posted by BJWyler:

I can share with my brother, and he doesn’t live with me.

Well that's exactly what I want to do! Tell me how?
I cannot join my brother SteamFamily because it says I'm not at the same location...

Originally posted by Bobbyboy The CatAstroph:

Well that's exactly what I want to do! Tell me how?
I cannot join my brother SteamFamily because it says I'm not at the same location...

According to the FAQ:

I cannot join a Steam Family
If you cannot join a Steam Family, it is likely for one of three reasons:
Your account activity does not show that you are part of the same household as the existing members.
Your account is still on cooldown from being a member of a previous Steam Family.
The Steam Family's member slots are still in cooldown from being occupied by other accounts.

Make sure you both have the same Steam store region. If you do, then you may have to be physically in the same location at least once so you can login on each other's PCs as necessary.

Not even same household works. Same country, same steam store region, same house, same wi-fi, what else is needed?
I contacted steam support to try to understand the conditions better, their response: "Steam cannot provide specifics". Steam support does not support at all. If you are gonna ask for paternity test do so, but state it as it is 😒

I'm "family" with 2 people who aren't in my household. One is a former flatmate who lives someplace else entirely, one is a close friend who lives in the same city.

So no, it's not "Steam household".

Have you exactly gone through your settings to see if you have them set correctly? Are you already in a family group?