Steam Introduces Family Sharing

I'm confused...right now you can install Steam on as many computers as you want, but it can't run at the same time...okay, I guess that's what this is dealing with then, you can still install it wherever you want, and this is something different...

Not bad, so long as you the account holder can deauthorize someone!

This is just another sales approach, nothing more. You can try your friends games however if you want to play something full time you need to buy it. That is it. Nice "buy and try" with social aspect as you want to play with your friends.

I honestly doubt that you will be allowed to share the library without being locked out. It would violate many licensing agreements. Valve being what it is still is to small to battle top production studios.

@alexglass: You share the whole library or nothing. One player at a time per library. So if you share to 10 friends only one of you can play from your library at once.

I can still play my Bioshock Infinite, while my brother can play my SpaceChem or SMB

Which is funny again because Microsoft was implementing Steam in all but name until people booed it off the system entirely. Truly odd.

Still no clarification on whether sharing different games from the same library simultaneously is possible?

Nobody's tried contacting Steam?

It sounds like just a more secure way of sharing your account. It's not much, but better than sharing your password. Will we ever get something closer to what Xbox One was supposed to have? Maybe in the future, but not yet.

I'm more curious to see what other company is going to adopt this same policy later. Valve always feels like it's dipping it's toe into something too scared to fallow through, but recently they don't seem that conservative with their policies and programs.

How do you sign up for the beta....?

@joeyravn: indeed it is. hopefully gta V comes to the pc!

lol, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, the xbone version was way better. Only issue people had with that was that all games were considered digital downloads even if you bought the disk. Only reason i put up with steam is because i don't know anybody with a computer decent enough to even trade games with anyway, they all console game.

Now all I need is a license trade-in program and I'll be happy. I have a lot of stuff I no longer play or want, and would love to get out of my Steam library. If I could get a little something back towards something new, that would be awesome.

Now all I need is a license trade-in program and I'll be happy. I have a lot of stuff I no longer play or want, and would love to get out of my Steam library. If I could get a little something back towards something new, that would be awesome.

@katelyngadd said:

I wouldn't say it makes it useless, but yeah, this is a nice idea that has some way to go. Digital lending is in its infancy, though, give it time.

The answers to your persecution complex can be seen throughout this comment thread. It wasn't the same, it isn't the same, and the thing people like here is something they liked in the One.

You don't have to share your account information and CC, essentially. Otherwise, not much. Just makes it a little easier.

So how long until someone starts a cross-globe buddy finding thread on the forums where people list the GMT times when they're likely to be using Steam?

What? I can't believe you don't understand what the difference is. The difference between locked out and not locked out is that when you are locked out you cannot access your games and when you aren't you can. It's not rocket science. I share my games with my friends and they can try out whatever I have or play it. When I log in, they're booted out and I play. If I shared my password, they could do with my account whatever they want, they would unlock achievements I didn't earn, they would add game time that isn't mine and most importantly, if I wanted to play I need to ask them nicely to log out so I can log in.

What the difference is? Everything. I'm not giving anyone my password and change my stats in the process, not to mention having to trust them with it. I would totally share my library though and it would be awesome to try out the games someone else has bought.

I almost can't believe you think this is a bad thing.

Steam introduces.... pregnant controllers!

Exactly.

What's the point of sharing it in the first place.

"Yeah sorry, dad/niece/friend/etc., I know I said you could play that Call of Duty game, but I really need to play Prison Architect, so yeah, go buy your own CoD or just wait couple of hours until I finish my sessions."

There really isn't a difference between being locked out and deciding to stay off. If you're not a complete asshole, you know you wont just kick your family members from the games just so you can play.

So yes, it's pretty much the same as it is now, when someones logged to your account, you can't do shit with all the 200+ games you have on it, when you log in, the other guy is kicked out and you take over the control of the library.

Where the hell is the difference if they allow per-game selection of sharing and letting you play other non-shared games in that library or the whole library and making it inaccessible in the mean time.

Developers/Publishers wont get more money either way, I bought the games already, the one whos playing them wont spend a penny.

All this is, is an easier way to share your account, without Steam Guard annoying you with emails with codes to unlock it, it's not like people are not sharing their accounts now.

Which is funny again because Microsoft was implementing Steam in all but name until people booed it off the system entirely. Truly odd.

Except this was the one and only good idea MS had for their bs online stuff. A tiny miniscule gleam of sunlight amongst a sea of liquid shit. And then they dropped the feature, and now Valve is doing it, and on PC no less. It's almost hilarious.

It's really strange that people's primary complaint is that you can't share a game with someone and continue playing a different game.

Let's look at the issue for Valve here:

1. Valve needs money to operate

2. If no restrictions on access to games that other users haven't purchased exist, Valve and other publishers are going to lose money, because one person is charged, and 9 others are given a free, unadulterated game.

3. ???

4. Profit... or lack thereof.

You can't just say "Well I want all these rights to play these games", when you just don't own those rights, for better or worse. It's a little depressing, but Valve is kinda being generous by allowing non-purchasing users to play the entirety of the game for essentially free - even if that player is not earning cards or achievements for their own account.

ok no need to be a jerk about it guys. He actually has a perfectly valid point, Microsoft were trying to emulate Steam with their policies very directly.

I think the real point of contention is that people still trust Valve... they had an extremely bumpy controversial time launching Steam. Valve however weren't launching their own hardware platform and could afford to push through all the negativity and earn the trust they now have. Microsoft on the other hand have not earned anyones trust over the way their digital distribution methods work. Games on Demand prices are still absurdly high compared to retail prices and the confusing profile system still in effect on the 360 doesn't help matters.

Its not that Microsoft didn't have some good ideas they just went about communicating them very badly and haven't put the work in to earn the consumer trust that would allow them to go ahead with these kinds of policies. They backed down as a bumpy launch for a console along side its competitor would have been suicide... shortsighted on their part really.

Different platforms, different plans, different markets, different players. What Microsoft wanted to do was to completely remove the option of selling used games from its system, and the account sharing stuff only worked locally. Are you saying you honestly can't see the difference between that and Steam's approach? We know you hate PC gaming, but, come on... it's something so basic and obvious that it goes beyond your blind fanboyism!

Has it been said that borrowers can receive cards from borrowed games? Don't remember reading anything about that on the info page.

Also, Valve does not take 15% of card sales. I think 10% of that goes to the developer.

I think what people are failing to understand is people weren't upset at Microsoft introducing this method of sharing, I think a lot of people liked the news, but the fact it was the digital restrictions put in place which meant they had to put the system in place. PC Games have been digital for so long, with an audience that is used to this, and in an eco-system where games are cheaper as a result and that's why it seems like it's being accepted more.

@wh1terav3n: Xbox One version wasn't way better than this because it simply did not exist. When people reacted to all the other things Microsoft wanted to do, the idea of family sharing got scrapped with the rest. We don't actually know what Microsoft would have done with Xbox One family sharing.

Considering Microsoft controls the databases saving this information, they could easily flag games as digital-only and disc-based. Then they could allow the sharing of digital-only games kind of how one can lend out Kindle ebooks. Person sharing the game has to go online in order to lend the game to their friend, then the game is flagged in the cloud and on their system as being lent out. Person borrowing the game has to go online to receive an initial authorization that the game was lent to them. Again that information is saved in the cloud and on their system. The first person can't play the game online or offline until the second goes online and deauthorizes his lent copy. It's no longer an always-online solution.

They could have also gotten around the whole used physical disc and sharing situation by requiring the disc be in the drive to boot the game up.

Completely pointless as long as they keep the restriction wherein you can't use any of the games in your library without booting the person playing a game with your shared library out of his game. May as well just share the account and have the other person use offline mode even if it does break the Steam ToS.

I don't see the difference between this and simply sharing my account with somebody. Except when I really share it (give him name & pass), the person can play all of my games not just chosen titles. So yeah, most likely bullshit.

So what's the difference between this and just sharing a steam account?

Come on people! Just because it's from your friendly neighborhood game company does not mean you have to think it's amazing. Lets call it for what it really is, a Steam time share. Could be that I'm selfish but I don't want to schedule out my game time anymore than I have to.

@patrickklepek: "but strangers things have happened"

*Stranger

This news is pretty awesome though. It's annoying when both my brother and I have to individually buy copies of a game even though we are both sitting in the same room while playing.

The fuck are you talking about? You're never locked out of your own library. If someone's using your library and you log in, they get a few minutes to buy the game or exit it. There's a big difference between deciding to stay off so your wife can play and being "locked out."

A solution for co-op games really needs to be found.

C'mon, valve. This isn't the important thing. This isn't the thing that might harm you business-wise, but still needs to be done, b/c it's the right thing to do.

You need to get trading in your system if you want to even halfway fake caring about your consumers.

@fminus: at least they cant buy more content. It seems like a read-only thing.

It's a little more clunky than what microsoft proposed, but the important thing is they will prolly go through with this whereas the microsoft stuff seems to have been put away for now while people stop complaining about it. People love steam so even if this is in fact kinda a lamer version of what the Xbox One was gunna do it will help people open up to trading and sharing digital games.

Nothing about this stuff is nuts, it's additional functionality to what doesn't exist already... it's LESS nuts than where we are at now, which is nowhere. Right now you can't do any of this stuff, you'd have to share your actual account info to other people and work out weird ways to play on schedules where they are not etc. This Steam stuff allows a bit more flexibility because you can have separate accounts access the same game when shared.

This is pretty useless as some have mentioned. When you share, you're locked out of your whole library. What's the difference between just giving your login/password to your family memeber and let them get access that way - yes it's less annoying with the email confirmations and what not, but not much else.

My sister lives in Austria whilst I'm in Slovenia, and we quite regular exchange my account between each other. She has her own kids who like to play games I have and since they are not yet able to buy games for themselves and the gaming addict I am, I got a lot of games, so I share them with my sister. She gives me a Skype call I tell her the email confirmation code and she is ready to go to let her kids play on my account.

Also I have 4 PCs in my own household and every PC is running Steam with either my or my girlfriends account, so our kids can play.

This is exactly the same shit, sans the email confirmation bugging.

What they should do, is allow per-game allowance on games, so I can allow my sister to access some games she wants her kids to play, while I can still play other games on my account, now that would be something I would look forward to.

But as said the way they propose it is kind of yeah cool, i can share it easier now, but "meh sister, are your kids done, can I get back on my account and play some?" "nah brother, give them an hour more" - it's still gonna be that.

Dammit the site ate my comment. :p Moving on.

In other words, 10 years from now Valve will own your soul.

In other words, 10 years from now Valve will own your soul.

Don't know if anybody pointed this out, but...

I realized the nefarious plot Valve has set up. Valve takes a minimum cut of all Steam card sales. Most go for a few pennies and valve gets just 15% of it, but the minimum Valve gets off each transaction is always 1 cent (it's safe to assume the other penny fee is going towards card/paypal fees Valve has with them or something similar). This many new cards would saturate market with the value 7 or 8 cent cards (the average) going down to 4. That's quite a drop off, but Valve is only making a penny off the 7/8 cent cards and would make that same amount if it's only worth 4 cents. So if they get plenty of people earning and buying and selling new cards, they've created a much bigger revenue stream through sheer number of new cards being earned and sold.

Also, I fully expect others to create dummy account to re-earn new cards to "trade" to their main account and sell them from there. You know people will do it. People will want to do it, and Valve wants you to do it as well.

@alexglass: Yep. Although, in Microsoft's case, they could just do exactly what's Steam's doing, in that if someone is using your shared library, they're kicked out if you start playing a game.

That would work for sharing digital games. The fact that they're treating every game as a digital game is sort of a flaw in how they approached it, as people have an expectation to be able to trade in/resell their physical console games based off decades of precedent.

It would be kinda neat if they had an opt in system. e.g.: treat physical games like they've always been, and basically treat the disc as a key required to play the game, with "game sharing" only possible if you lend someone the actual disc, upon which you can't play until you get the disc back.

If someone opts-in (I.E. buys a fully digital download copy of the game), they could do the game sharing system similar to what they originally had planned(or what steam has just announced). This would eliminate the need for online-check-ins for physical discs, but still allow sharing, and in turn promote digital purchases for the benefits it allows.

@mindgrinder: I don't think so. Think about it.

I add you, you're playing one of my games. I want to play something, anything, and you're booted.

But in MS's case it didn't just apply to digital games. I would imagine the 24 hour check-in is basically what allowed for physical discs to be installed and then shared as digital games. Without that, you'd have people installing a game, share it, then keep playing or even sell the physical disc. That's one way to constantly check for the same game copy popping up on multiple consoles.

Don't see why Steam would need that.

Seems a little pointless the way it's going to be implemented.

Correct. As far as I know, everyone liked the family sharing plan. Microsoft took it away as they said it was locked into the 24 hour online Checkin, which was required regardless of what you did. Everyone hated the 24 hour mandatory check-in. Anyone who somehow thinks people hated the sharing plan is highly confused.

So long as Steam doesn't do away with Offline mode to enable this (or, say, disables sharing while offline mode is enabled on the main account, which would be fine), this potentially shows that Microsoft's reason for taking it away (and method of online check-in) was flawed.