Valve Announces Steam 'Family Sharing'

ekuest said:
yes being able to share your ENTIRE library of FULL games for FREE with ANYONE and letting them SAVE THEIR GAME is such a dick move by valve. i say boycott!
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lol :p I don't have a problem with this but I find it useless. Why not just let the original Steam user create a "guest account" that can access your games for a limited time etc.. Leaving you the option to go online and play your games even if the other person is playing on your guest account.

This is not much different than letting my nephew borrow my account.
 
Sickb0y said:
lol :p I don't have a problem with this but I find it useless. Why not just let the original Steam user create a "guest account" that can access your games for a limited time etc.. Leaving you the option to go online and play your games even if the other person is playing on your guest account.
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I'm pretty sure that's exactly what they're doing, but thanks for telling them that they should do that.

This is not much different than letting my nephew borrow my account.
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Exactly. Except that this will probably not involve putting your entire account in the hands of someone else, including your password and credit card information. Just a minor difference.
 
Sickb0y said:
lol :p I don't have a problem with this but I find it useless. Why not just let the original Steam user create a "guest account" that can access your games for a limited time etc.. Leaving you the option to go online and play your games even if the other person is playing on your guest account.

This is not much different than letting my nephew borrow my account.
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exactly. letting you do this makes it still one account, just other people are allowed to log in instead of like now where technically it's against the TOS to share your password.

if they let multiple people play multiple games then they would be giving you multiple accounts with all the same games multiple times. that is a ridiculous request as they would lose TONS of game sales and the game studios would never allow it anyway.
 
ekuest said:
exactly. letting you do this makes it still one account, just other people are allowed to log in instead of like now where technically it's against the TOS to share your password.

if they let multiple people play multiple games then they would be giving you multiple accounts with all the same games multiple times. that is a ridiculous request as they would lose TONS of game sales and the game studios would never allow it anyway.
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It almost can be used to demo games! I mean i got to go to work, so why not let a friend check out a game and hopefully buy it. Then we can play together.. I think this is the best thing about this idea.
 
Sickb0y said:
so the original owner of the game has to logoff for the user who borrows the copy to play?! did I understand this correctly? :confused:
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Let them play it while your at work, asleep, etc... Even consoles dont allow Multiple mahcines play the same game at the same time...
 
Zohar78 said:
It almost can be used to demo games! I mean i got to go to work, so why not let a friend check out a game and hopefully buy it. Then we can play together.. I think this is the best thing about this idea.
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I'm pretty sure this is the intent. Like going away for the weekend and letting a friend play all your games without having full access to all of your other security related stuff like steam wallet and passwords and etc.

The shortsighted and entitled seem to be squirting tears over the fact this new system is simply "useless to THEM" because they can't just give individual titles to other people. Well no shit, Valve isn't going to stick a knife in the backs of developers and allow one person to buy a title, finish playing it and pass it around indefinitely to other people like a joint so they too can play it fully and be done with it before its passed again.

Doesn't require brain surgery to see how quickly that would get out of hand.
 
DooLocsta said:
You have to share your entire library. If a 'family member' is playing a game from your shared library you are unable to play ANY of your other games in your library. No Thanks!
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Doesn't sound any different than lending someone your usernname & password.
 
This will actually be good for me because I can merge my two accounts without having to log in / out to play the games on the accounts. I'd love it if I could just permanently move games from my old account to my current account.
 
DooLocsta said:
You have to share your entire library. If a 'family member' is playing a game from your shared library you are unable to play ANY of your other games in your library. No Thanks!
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How did you think the mechanic would work? I saw this coming for a while now, and I think even suggested it on the forums years ago
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Why would there be a shitstorm? You can, at no time, share your Steam library with anyone right now. If people freak out that Valve is adding a new sharing feature, which is limited in scope, that they do not have now... they are probably not terribly smart.
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You might not be able to do it with your Steam library, but you can do it with individual games purchased outside of Steam.
Zohar78 said:
I thought the big issue there is no matter what, the xbox had to check in atleast once online no matter what. Didnt matter if you only play box games offline.
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And this is different from Steam how, exactly? Currently, you can't install a new game to Steam (Or any modern PC game these days) while offline.
Zohar78 said:
i cant believe people will fuss about this. This is actually a decent thing, and gives a better value on the already rediculous low prices and deals you can fine on steam.
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Yes, it is a decent thing. Not nearly as good as it sounds at first glance, but a good first step. It's also a lot worse than Microsoft's version with the XBox One (That got bitched and moaned about so much that MS withdrew it and went back to the 360's method of authentication).
 
This is almost completely pointless. If you can't play more than one game at a time in a single household the only thing I can use it for is not having to log in and out every time I move from my PC to the lounge and being able to download a game to one PC while playing a game on another.
 
Deimos said:
This is almost completely pointless.
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The real point of this is to generate more sales by lending your games to your friends. You'll kick them off when you want to play, they'll get annoyed, and eventually end up buying their own copy. Atleast that's what Steam is hoping for, they don't want your friends to actually be able to play a full uninterrupted game from start to finish.
 
ITT: people complaining that someone else can't play a game they don't own while you wan't to play something else in your library.
 
DooLocsta said:
You have to share your entire library. If a 'family member' is playing a game from your shared library you are unable to play ANY of your other games in your library. No Thanks!
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As it stands now in the BETA yes. However Im sure that Valve will make it more granular. The key phrase in the FAQ for me is:
"As the lender, you may always access and play your games at any time. If you decide to start playing when a friend is already playing one of your games, he/she will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing."

This means you will be able to borrow the copy but when the dude you've borrowed it from wants it back you will get the option to go to the shop and shell out to continue playing. If this is coupled with the fact that you can only borrow the same title from one person it will sell more games. Valve are devious masters of marketing at the same time they listen to what the customers are saying.

Congratz Valve - another win!

Just my 0.02€
/F
 
This is definitely a step in the right direction.

What would be better though, is if I could lend a game to a friend, and then play another game from my library on my computer while they are playing one of my other games.

This would really be nice for my HTPC, so I could be logged in on two machines simultaneously. If I have one licence for a game then only one machine can play at a time. If I have two, then both can play. Why can't I have this feature?
 
It blows my mind how many people are complaining about this. If Valve allowed people to share games with both users playing simultaneously, that would upset a lot of publishers. It would probably drop PC game sales significantly if instead of buying games you could just find a friend who has it without any system in place to entice you to buy a copy for yourself. Is that really what we want, considering how hard it already is to make the PC an attractive platform against the much better selling consoles. As it stands, its a way to let people try s few of your games when your away, and then if they like them, they can buy it for themselves and not have to deal with the hassle.

Everyone just seems to want free shit without considering that the more ways people find to play PC games with out paying, the less games there precious PC is even going to end up with. The way Valve set this up is spot on.
 
d_stilgar said:
This is definitely a step in the right direction.

What would be better though, is if I could lend a game to a friend, and then play another game from my library on my computer while they are playing one of my other games.

This would really be nice for my HTPC, so I could be logged in on two machines simultaneously. If I have one licence for a game then only one machine can play at a time. If I have two, then both can play. Why can't I have this feature?
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Evening lending a game I think could be abused. Even if it were a system where say you could give a person access to a game for X amount of days, during which you could not play it. Its not like letting a friend borrow a game disc for a few days. Mostly because it would let you share with anyone, anywhere in the world, for free. You'd probably see Steam lending pages start popping up, allowing people to offer one game in exchange to borrow another. This still creates a method for people to play a lot of new games without paying.

Any system that Valve sets up to share games must leave an attractive reason for the second player to purchase the game. Otherwise sales will drop, and its just one more reason to ignore PC.

As for logging into the same account in two spots, that I would love to see, and I dont see why it can't be done with the right restrictions. I also game on an HTPC and would like to not have to switch my login. I don't see why they can't allow it so long as you can't play games on both logins at the same time. To prevent PW sharing maybe make it so all machines logged in at the same time have to be on the same local network or something.
 
Anaerin said:
Yup, it's the entire library. So if your friend has borrowed CS:GO from your account, and you want to play Portal 2, they will get booted out of CS:GO. Despite the fact they're completely different games. So like the XBox One had, but about 20x worse.
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Yes, except the xBone *never had* the "one" people think it had...;) That's still funny even now--what people fantasize xBone "was" going to do before Microsoft said it wasn't going to do anything. But Steam is actually going to implement this plan--which is about all that would be possible for any company to do--while xBone has announced no plans to do anything at all. My opinion of the whole thing, whether Steam does it or xBone does it, is that it is a gimmick and not at all particularly useful.

If people want to borrow or lend out their game software, you still can't beat borrowing actual game DVD disks from friends and acquaintances.
 
Viper87227 said:
If Valve allowed people to share games with both users playing simultaneously, that would upset a lot of publishers.
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Why on earth would it? If my friend is playing CoD:MW2 (For instance) and I'm playing BF4, why would EA/Activision care? Playing the SAME game simultaneously, yes, publishers would have a major problem with it, but (almost) nobody is proposing or asking for that.
Viper87227 said:
Everyone just seems to want free shit without considering that the more ways people find to play PC games with out paying, the less games there precious PC is even going to end up with. The way Valve set this up is spot on.
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Okay, except that you have the right to lend your game to anyone, even if (under the "Right of First Sale") that counts as a sale for $0. The fact that modern DRM bullshit has effectively broken that right does not negate it. And you can (with boxed games from any publisher) lend them to your friends without having to give them every single game you own. For free. Right now. So this is a single (baby) step towards granting you back some of the rights you are due in law. "Good, but could do a LOT better".

"Lending" will never take the place of "Owning", especially with modern games going much more heavily into multiplayer experiences. All "Lending" will do is encourage more people to try games they would not normally have considered (as they don't have to put their money down first and can get an idea what the game is like). If someone was never going to buy a game anyway, lending isn't going to "take away" that sale, because that sale was never there to begin with.
 
Anaerin said:
Why on earth would it? If my friend is playing CoD:MW2 (For instance) and I'm playing BF4, why would EA/Activision care? Playing the SAME game simultaneously, yes, publishers would have a major problem with it, but (almost) nobody is proposing or asking for that.
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For the sake of argument we will pretend both games are on Steam. You own both COD and BF4. If your playing BF4 and your friend can freely play your copy of COD, there is absolutely no reason, ever, why your friend would have to pay for COD so long as they were willing to not play it when you want to. This would be especially problematic for single player games. Once you've beaten it and have moved on, you can let as many people as you please play it without restriction, for free. That has the potential to take away a whole bunch of sales. You could say the same for lending a console game, but as I stated in my post that's not the same as digital. Exchanging the game in person limits the amount of people who you are likely to share it with.

If its digital, you can share with anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time. You don't have to know them, you don't have to trust them with taking care of your shit or returning it in a timely fashion. You could share your game with everyone on hard forum if you really wanted to. If they are allowed to play without restriction so long as you aren't playing the same game, there's much less incentive to buy the game. That's obviously bad for anyone looking to profit off game sales. By creating a restriction like they did, while you can share, there are still reasons to go buy if you don't want to worry about only being able to play when the owner isn't around.
 
Quite a lot of bitching over a feature addition. Par for the course in the PC gaming community these days, however.
 
Viper87227 said:
For the sake of argument we will pretend both games are on Steam. You own both COD and BF4. If your playing BF4 and your friend can freely play your copy of COD, there is absolutely no reason, ever, why your friend would have to pay for COD so long as they were willing to not play it when you want to. This would be especially problematic for single player games. Once you've beaten it and have moved on, you can let as many people as you please play it without restriction, for free. That has the potential to take away a whole bunch of sales. You could say the same for lending a console game, but as I stated in my post that's not the same as digital. Exchanging the game in person limits the amount of people who you are likely to share it with.
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From the publisher's point of view (Which is what we were talking about here), they get exactly the same amount of money from lending as they do from second-hand sales. I.E. None.
Viper87227 said:
If its digital, you can share with anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time.
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No you can't. Region restrictions still apply.
Viper87227 said:
You don't have to know them
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Yes, you do. If they're not in your friends list (In fact, if they're not in a small subset of your friends list), you can't share with them
Viper87227 said:
you don't have to trust them with taking care of your shit or returning it in a timely fashion. You could share your game with everyone on hard forum if you really wanted to.
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No, you can't. because they're restricted to sharing with no more than 10 people.
Viper87227 said:
If they are allowed to play without restriction so long as you aren't playing the same game, there's much less incentive to buy the game. That's obviously bad for anyone looking to profit off game sales. By creating a restriction like they did, while you can share, there are still reasons to go buy if you don't want to worry about only being able to play when the owner isn't around.
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I have no problem with the "Only share with 10 people" restriction. I have a problem with the "Can't play X while friend is playing Y" restriction, which seems arbitrary at best.
 
i hope valve doesnt see what a bunch of whiny kids some people are.

VALVE THEY ARE A VOCAL MINORITY. I LOVE WHAT YALL BE DOING. <3
 
ekuest said:
VALVE THEY ARE A VOCAL MINORITY. I LOVE WHAT YALL BE DOING. <3
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none1.jpg
 
Viper87227 said:
Evening lending a game I think could be abused. Even if it were a system where say you could give a person access to a game for X amount of days, during which you could not play it. Its not like letting a friend borrow a game disc for a few days. Mostly because it would let you share with anyone, anywhere in the world, for free. You'd probably see Steam lending pages start popping up, allowing people to offer one game in exchange to borrow another. This still creates a method for people to play a lot of new games without paying.

Any system that Valve sets up to share games must leave an attractive reason for the second player to purchase the game. Otherwise sales will drop, and its just one more reason to ignore PC.

As for logging into the same account in two spots, that I would love to see, and I dont see why it can't be done with the right restrictions. I also game on an HTPC and would like to not have to switch my login. I don't see why they can't allow it so long as you can't play games on both logins at the same time. To prevent PW sharing maybe make it so all machines logged in at the same time have to be on the same local network or something.
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I completely agree. You could have logins all on the same IP address and then it's really not a big deal at all. I paid for all the games, and I don't want to play the same game on multiple machines without buying it twice. I just want to play on my HTPC and have the games stay updated and on my main PC at the same time.
 
WaltC said:
Yes, except the xBone *never had* the "one" people think it had...;) That's still funny even now--what people fantasize xBone "was" going to do before Microsoft said it wasn't going to do anything. But Steam is actually going to implement this plan--which is about all that would be possible for any company to do--while xBone has announced no plans to do anything at all. My opinion of the whole thing, whether Steam does it or xBone does it, is that it is a gimmick and not at all particularly useful.

If people want to borrow or lend out their game software, you still can't beat borrowing actual game DVD disks from friends and acquaintances.
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Bingo. Every xbox kid seemed to believe, and apparently still does, that the vague sharing plan Microsoft never really bothered to detail or even outline - and in fact refused to at E3 when pressed for more details in interviews - was going to enable them to buy a title once and let 10 of their family and friends play it any old time anyone felt like it as long as it wasn't already in use. Yeah. right.

Valve's plan was obviously reached by careful deliberation and trying to strike a balance between creating extra value for their customers while not simultaneously stabbing publishers and developers in the back. That meant it had to add some convenience (no longer having to give a friend full access to your steam account, financial info, security settings), but not too much convenience (ie the ability to lend individual games for free to anyone else on Steam once you were tired of playing it).

Anyone able to see this with adult eyes should realize its a win and a step up. I can give a friend or family member access to my entire games library whenever I'm not using it, without giving them access to areas they don't belong.
 
Oddly, ive needed a similar feature from steam, but i dont think that this will help me.

i have a powerful desktop (for tier one games), and a weaker laptop (for simpler popcap type games)

the only reason i even bought the simpler games was to play on my laptop. however if a child or wife plays on my laptop, i cannot at the same time play the kickass games on my desktop.

i personally think that this is kind of wrong, and hopefully somewhere in the guts of this new feature, my fix exists.
 
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