Steam Family View: A Guide to Parental Controls and Child Safety

Steam is among the most popular gaming platforms, but should children be able to access it? If you decide to grant them to use this platform, we suggest setting Steam Family View. You’ll learn everything about this feature and other parental controls on Steam in the guide below!

Contents:

• What Is Steam?
• Why Do Parents Need to Set Up Steam Parental Controls?
• Does Steam Have Parental Controls?
  • What Is the Family View on Steam?
• How to Set Parental Controls?
• How Else Can You Keep Your Child Safe?
  • Stay Safe with Kids360
• FAQ

What Is Steam?

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Steam is a gaming platform that includes a store where you can purchase games. You can buy titles, add them to your library, download and install digital game versions from Steam servers and play on desired devices.

The estimation is that Steam has over 120 million active users monthly. The platform’s library has over 80,000 titles, ranging from premium games by huge studios to indie games developed by individual creators. The platform offers games for all ages and interests since it covers a huge variety of genres, from sports and strategy to casual and arcade titles.

Why Do Parents Need to Set Up Steam Parental Controls?

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Before we answer the question that interests you the most, and that’s “Does Steam have parental controls,” let’s see why you even need it on this platform. As advice, it’s always smart to monitor your kid’s activity on a platform that has millions of users worldwide.

Here are the top reasons why you should consider Steam parental controls:

• Violent content in games. The Steam library covers various genres, but that also includes fighting, shooting, sci-fi, and other titles loaded with different violence types. Games often feature killing, abuse, and other forms of aggression, which could have a negative influence, especially on younger kids.
• Adult game content. Inappropriate content could also feature adult scenes. These might include nudity, sexual acts, and dialogues children shouldn’t hear.
• Bullying and harassing. Steam’s community is large, and adding friends and communicating with others is an option. Unfortunately, this often leads to threatening, bullying, swearing, harassing, and other unsuitable behavior. You don’t want to risk your child dealing with internet abuse, so it’s best to protect them from any contact with others via this platform in the first place.
• Purchasing games. Most titles on Steam require a purchase, and only then are you available to play that game from that account. You don’t want to risk your child spending money on your behalf, especially if you have a card connected to the Steam profile.

Does Steam Have Parental Controls?

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Yes, we could say that parental controls exist on Steam. However, they might not be what you imagined, as they have a unique way of working.

The idea is to set limitations on a particular account and protect your child from accessing unwanted sections. That’s done by using a special Steam Family View feature. It’s available for free, but it’s necessary to activate it from your account settings.

What Is the Family View on Steam?

Family View is Steam’s parental control feature. In short, it involves sharing a single Steam account with your kid but choosing which games and sections your kid can access.

It’s easy to activate Family View from settings, and here are the options you can choose:

1. Select games from the library your kid can access to ensure they can’t see any age-restricted titles.
2. Pick whether your kid can browse the Steam store.
3. Select if your child can add friends, chat, or join groups on the platform.
4. Pick if they can access the account’s online profile, achievements, and screenshots.
5. Choose whether your kid can access the community section with content generated by other members.

Another convenient feature is the Steam Family Library Sharing. It allows you to pick up to five accounts to use your gaming library on up to ten devices. You will need to authorize the accounts and devices first so you have full control. This is an excellent feature for joint family accounts, but please note that not all games support it.

How to Set Parental Controls?

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This is something that’s best to do before your child even starts using Steam. That’ll ensure you can adjust everything and monitor your kid’s activity from the beginning. Here are the detailed instructions on how to implement Steam Family View!

1. Make an Account for Your Kid

Head to Steam’s official website on the device your child will use for playing. We strongly suggest installing the Steam app, which is completely free. It’s easier to access the desired options and games this way for you and your kid.

After clicking the Install Steam link in the upper-right corner, download and install the software. Run Steam and the software will launch a pop-up asking you to log into your account. Choose “Create a Free Account” in the lower-right corner.

Complete the registration process and access the account with the chosen details.

2. Enable Family View on Steam

After you click your account name in the upper-right corner, you will notice a drop-down menu. From this menu, choose Account Details.