Valve announces Steam Family Sharing

AlmightyCushion

This was rumoured a while ago but I never thought it was actually happening.

http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/

There is a link to sign up for beta access. It allows you to share access to your games library with up to 10 other people. Games that use a subscription or that need a third party serial key won't work with it apparently.

ShadowHearth

In fairness, it is pretty much same thing as just giving your steam account details to a family member or close friend.
You cant play separate games. The host ( the one that shares games ) has to be offline, for other person to be able to play those games. As soon as host pop in, the "borrower" has few minutes to buy game or just quit it.
So its just lame. The issue of having 2 different games on steam and being able to play them at the same household on two separate machines is not fixed. For example me playing Dragon age origins, while misses playing Bastion on second PC is still a No No.

AlmightyCushion

ShadowHearth wrote: »

In fairness, it is pretty much same thing as just giving your steam account details to a family member or close friend.
You cant play separate games. The host ( the one that shares games ) has to be offline, for other person to be able to play those games. As soon as host pop in, the "borrower" has few minutes to buy game or just quit it.
So its just lame. The issue of having 2 different games on steam and being able to play them at the same household on two separate machines is not fixed. For example me playing Dragon age origins, while misses playing Bastion on second PC is still a No No.

I really wouldn't want to give anyone my steam login details. It's not perfect and not as good as the version Microsoft were apparently offering on the Xbox One but still it's a start. You never know where it might lead.

ShadowHearth

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I really wouldn't want to give anyone my steam login details. It's not perfect and not as good as the version Microsoft were apparently offering on the Xbox One but still it's a start. You never know where it might lead.

Thats why its called "sharing with family members and close friends".

titan18

ShadowHearth wrote: »

In fairness, it is pretty much same thing as just giving your steam account details to a family member or close friend.
You cant play separate games. The host ( the one that shares games ) has to be offline, for other person to be able to play those games. As soon as host pop in, the "borrower" has few minutes to buy game or just quit it.
So its just lame. The issue of having 2 different games on steam and being able to play them at the same household on two separate machines is not fixed. For example me playing Dragon age origins, while misses playing Bastion on second PC is still a No No.

Oh, I thought it meant that both could be online with separate accounts and playing different games on the same library. So, there's still a requirement to be offline on one and online on the other. No change then.

chrismon

titan18 wrote: »

Oh, I thought it meant that both could be online with separate accounts and playing different games on the same library. So, there's still a requirement to be offline on one and online on the other. No change then.

So its the same as it was?
Lol

uncle_sam_ie

Me and my son share the same account so, ShadowHearth is correct nothing has really changed with this announcement. What we want is to be both on the account at the same time. At the moment I can't play anything off of steam while if he is on it.

titan18

Aye, can understand not allowing the same game to be played at the same time, but be nice to be online and play different games.

Grimebox

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Me and my son share the same account so, ShadowHearth is correct nothing has really changed with this announcement. What we want is to be both on the account at the same time. At the moment I can't play anything off of steam while if he is on it.

Tell him to go to bed. Problem solved :pac:

Tar.Aldarion

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Me and my son share the same account so, ShadowHearth is correct nothing has really changed with this announcement. What we want is to be both on the account at the same time. At the moment I can't play anything off of steam while if he is on it.

just launch a game and kill the steam process, then log in on the other computer. As long as one is single player thats fine last time i tried. Can even launch some games from their folder.

SeantheMan

ShadowHearth wrote: »

In fairness, it is pretty much same thing as just giving your steam account details to a family member or close friend.
You cant play separate games. The host ( the one that shares games ) has to be offline, for other person to be able to play those games. As soon as host pop in, the "borrower" has few minutes to buy game or just quit it.
So its just lame

It's better than nothing, and also it works in my case.
Being in Korea I'm 8 hours ahead of Europe and 8-11 hours behind the US

So I can easily share all my games now with anyone as my times usually don't overlap

I will need to look into the security provided though to see can they gain full access, change passwords, emails etc

grimm2005

SeantheMan wrote: »

It's better than nothing, and also it works in my case.
Being in Korea I'm 8 hours ahead of Europe and 8-11 hours behind the US

So I can easily share all my games now with anyone as my times usually don't overlap

I will need to look into the security provided though to see can they gain full access, change passwords, emails etc

Agreed, I'm happy to give access to my catalogue to friends but not willing to give them my login/password info no matter how well I know them. There's also the issue of wanting to log in to play yourself and having an awkward "you can play at this time but you need to log out at 8 cos I wanna play then" type situation which is just messy. This way, the account holder always has priority over the lender and when the account holder logs in, I imagine the lender will get a 5 or so minute warning to buy or save their game. The 2 can then chat on steam about how long hes going to be on etc.

As for security, I'm pretty sure the lender will just see a new tab under library called "John's Games" for example and it'll either be blacked out or available depending on if John is logged in or not. I don't think they'd have any account access whatsoever, just full game privileges when you're not logged in.

C14N

I'm sure for people who use a single password for many things, giving it away to someone, even someone they know well, isn't an appealing prospect.

I probably won't use the service but still, it doesn't sound like it will hurt anyone and it might help someone so it's good that they threw it in there.

Sarky

Clearly this means HL3 will have co-op.