Hardly anyone uses two Steam features – although they save you a lot of money

Steam offers an almost unbelievable number of features – but some of them only a few people know about. Two functions can even save you a lot of money. We’ll show you which ones.

Steam Family Library: Sharing is fun

Did you know that you can play your friends’ Steam games? To get access to this function, your friend only has to log in to your computer with their account, unlock the Steam Family Library feature there and then authorize your PC for access. Your friend will surely thank you if you do the same on his computer.

After the procedure, you should have access to all of your friend’s Steam games. Well, at least almost all of them. Some games cannot be shared with other players through the Steam Family Library due to technical issues. But overall a cool thing, right?

However, the family function cannot be used completely without restrictions. So can about maximum 5 accounts and 10 devices Have access to your Steam library. Also, if your friend is currently playing a game from their library, you are denied access to his game selection. The same applies vice versa.

And what if you’re playing a game from your buddy’s library and he starts one of his games himself? Steam will then point this out to you and give you a few minutes of grace to save and then exit the game (source: Steam).

So, thanks to the Steam Family Library, you can coordinate with your friends on who gets which game and together that way save lots of money. But there is more!

Steam Remote Play Together: Play couch co-op over the internet

Because in fact, for a group of couch co-op fans, it’s enough for a single player to get the game on Steam – at least as long as the game Steam Remote Play Together supports. You can find the corresponding information on the respective product page of the Steam game on the right-hand side:

The function allows you to play classic couch co-op games such as Cuphead, Overcooked or Moving Out, which you would normally play on a computer, together over the Internet.

Either you or one of your friends hosts the game and invites the others to the game via the friends list. It is best to ensure that the host has a stable internet connection with quite high upload bandwidth has. After all, he has to simultaneously transmit up to 3 video streams to his teammates with sufficient image quality.

As a player, you must also connect a controller to your PC, which is recognized by Steam. Then there’s nothing standing in the way of co-op fun over the internet!

Valve has summarized the basic information about Steam Remote Play Together in a short video:

Anyone who tried Steam Remote Play Together in the beta phase a few years ago and encountered technical difficulties at the time should definitely give the feature another chance today. Since launching in 2019, Valve Remote Play Together constantly further developed and optimizedso that the function can now be recommended without reservation.

Thanks to these two Steam features, you can save a lot of moneyif you are willing to accept the limitations mentioned.