If you get kicked out of your Steam Family, the slot is locked for a year, so you'd better get along—here's how Steam's new family sharing system works

Steam's old Family Sharing feature, which allowed members of the same household to play each other's Steam games, has been replaced with the new Steam Families system, which graduated from beta this week. The revamped system does the same thing as the old one, but adds new features and comes with some new stipulations, including a region restriction. 

Up to six people can be part of a Steam Family, and every game in each member's library is shared with the group (except for games the owner marked «private» in the properties menu, but if that were a feature I was going to rely on, I'd probably test it to be sure). Only one person can play any given copy of a game at a time, and everyone's cloud saves, achievements, and Steam Workshop installs are independent of each other. A new parental control system allows adults in the group to decide what children can play, and there's also a new way for adults to purchase games for kids in their Steam Family, which looks convenient.

There are also quite a few rules and conditions to consider. The biggest stipulation is that you can't hop around between Steam Families as often as you want. You'll only be able to start or join a new Family if at least a year has passed since you started or joined your previous Family. There's also a one-year «cooldown» on each of the six available slots in a Steam Family, so if someone vacates a slot you can't immediately put someone else in their place.

It's not mentioned explicitly in the FAQ, but one thing we've noticed is that the region restriction present in the Families beta, which wasn't in the old system, is still present. One PC Gamer writer's attempt to share games across national borders (between the UK and Spain) didn't work. You can still set up a Steam Family with people who live in different physical homes in the same region, but Valve would prefer it if sharing were limited to «a household.»

«While we know that families come in many shapes and sizes, Steam Families is intended