[solved] Allow Family Sharing only Specific games

[D. Flame]

Allow people to make sub libraries of games and to share those only. You don't want to be sharing 18+ or M rated games with younger members of your family.

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https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/4149575031735702628

Steam Families includes new parental controls that allow parents to set limits on what and when children play games on Steam. You can control which games your children have access to and monitor their activity.

[Anonymous Helper]

You can now private specific games and from what I've read, those games won't be shared if you family share your library. Maybe someone who has used the feature can confirm this.

[Tito Shivan]

You can also lock games you don't want shared through Family view.

It'll lock access but they'll still be visible IIRC.
Kind of amazing that family sharing and adult-rated games have still features with so many rough edges.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

You can now private specific games and from what I've read, those games won't be shared if you family share your library. Maybe someone who has used the feature can confirm this.

I don't know if the live version has the update but the beta did...

Private games will no longer show on family sharing accounts

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/announcements/detail/3865841912997760347

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

You can now private specific games and from what I've read, those games won't be shared if you family share your library. Maybe someone who has used the feature can confirm this. :lunar2020thinkingtiger:

This really doesn't work either. Like say you want to leave a public review of Mortal Kombat, but you do NOT want to share that game with your 7 year old nephew, you end up with a mismatch problem. Then maybe you DO want to share that same game with his 17 year old brother. Again, another issue.

All of these things become non-issues if you are able to create and share sub-libraries based-on your current library.

Examples:

Set: Library
subset library: all non-adult games
subset library: all games below M rating + no unrated games
subset library: games that I am not currently playing myself
subset library: only games rated for 7 and below
subset library: JRPGs

etc.

Then you could assign or share these specific sub libraries to people individually.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

You can now private specific games and from what I've read, those games won't be shared if you family share your library. Maybe someone who has used the feature can confirm this.

This really doesn't work either. Like say you want to leave a public review of Mortal Kombat, but you do NOT want to share that game with your 7 year old nephew, you end up with a mismatch problem. Then maybe you DO want to share that same game with his 17 year old brother. Again, another issue.

All of these things become non-issues if you are able to create and share sub-libraries based-on your current library.

Examples:

Set: Library
subset library: all non-adult games
subset library: all games below M rating + no unrated games
subset library: games that I am not currently playing myself
subset library: only games rated for 7 and below
subset library: JRPGs

etc.

Then you could assign or share these specific sub libraries to people individually.

You literally defined categories, inside which, games can be marked as private.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

This really doesn't work either. Like say you want to leave a public review of Mortal Kombat, but you do NOT want to share that game with your 7 year old nephew, you end up with a mismatch problem. Then maybe you DO want to share that same game with his 17 year old brother. Again, another issue.

All of these things become non-issues if you are able to create and share sub-libraries based-on your current library.

Examples:

Set: Library
subset library: all non-adult games
subset library: all games below M rating + no unrated games
subset library: games that I am not currently playing myself
subset library: only games rated for 7 and below
subset library: JRPGs

etc.

Then you could assign or share these specific sub libraries to people individually.

You literally defined categories, inside which, games can be marked as private.

:winterbunny2023:

Reread my post, chief. I don’t want them to be private. You can’t leave a public review if you mark them private, at least not as far as I know.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

You literally defined categories, inside which, games can be marked as private.

Reread my post, chief. I don’t want them to be private. You can’t leave a public review if you mark them private, at least not as far as I know.

You can still leave a public review on a game marked Private. Reviews are separate UGC with their own privacy setting.

And yes, I have tested this many times, including again now.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Reread my post, chief. I don’t want them to be private. You can’t leave a public review if you mark them private, at least not as far as I know.

You can still leave a public review on a game marked Private. Reviews are separate UGC with their own privacy setting.

And yes, I have tested this many times, including again now.

:winterbunny2023:

Even if that is the case, there are other implications to privating games that you may not want to deal with simply to lock down what you share and to whom.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

You can still leave a public review on a game marked Private. Reviews are separate UGC with their own privacy setting.

And yes, I have tested this many times, including again now.

:winterbunny2023:

Even if that is the case, there are other implications to privating games that you may not want to deal with simply to lock down what you share and to whom.

You literally have a way to control what games are shared.

You are wanting to essentially curaye a library based on which family member you are sharing with. Which sounds like abusing the family share feature already.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by SlowMango:

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Even if that is the case, there are other implications to privating games that you may not want to deal with simply to lock down what you share and to whom.

You literally have a way to control what games are shared.

You are wanting to essentially curaye a library based on which family member you are sharing with. Which sounds like abusing the family share feature already.

How is curating which games you share with your family (based on your own values and beliefs) somehow "abusing the system" in your mind?

A parent using this as a sort of parental control system honestly seem far more responsible and in line with what a system like this should be used for. I would much rather a parent do this than try to force Valve to apply the same regulations to the entire user base.

Unless you provide some justification for your objections, I can only assume that you are just saying it just to be a contrarian.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by SlowMango:

You literally have a way to control what games are shared.

You are wanting to essentially curaye a library based on which family member you are sharing with. Which sounds like abusing the family share feature already.

How is curating which games you share with your family (based on your own values and beliefs) somehow "abusing the system" in your mind?

A parent using this as a sort of parental control system honestly seem far more responsible and in line with what a system like this should be used for. I would much rather a parent do this than try to force Valve to apply the same regulations to the entire user base.

Unless you provide some justification for your objections, I can only assume that you are just saying it just to be a contrarian.

You mean beside the fact that you can literally private games you do not want to share?

[D. Flame]

Awesome, it got implemented, at least some what.

[talt]

So... if I am reading this right. What I need to do is:
step 1. create a second account. like
MYNAME-HTPC
step 2. enable library sharing on my main account. and share games I want to have on the HTPC for adults and children.
step 3. on the HTPC, enable family view to restrict access to some games while in kid mode.

that would result in the HTPC being in kid friendly mode and only accessing the shared kids games. and no access to buying stuff
until a password is entered with unlocks the adult functions. and all the adult and childrens games I shared with my HTPC. but not the private ones?

Is this the case? or is there a more correct way to do this?

facepalm. steam won't ask for a password to switch accounts on the same PC instance.
double facepalm. steam detects I am "playing" an idle game on my main PC. so it forces the HTPC to receive a stream of any other game from my main gaming PC over wifi instead of running the game locally.

[talt]

hmm... wait. I think I have an idea to make it better.
use multiple OS accounts.
each OS account with a different steam account.
then I can share different games with different accounts.
Even better, I can lock all accounts against purchase. (I trust the adults with playing mortal kombat, I don't want them making purchases)

using different OS user accounts should resolve the steam woes.
but it will be a bit clunky. and require a lot more work to setup.
I might end up having to rebuy games I already own depending on how the share works

[Steven]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.