Request: Improve family sharing

[Warlock]

Please allow my family members to play games from my account while I am also using that account. While there are workarounds, it's irritating already to be locked out of my games while my son plays Plants vs Zombies and will become more so once we add an extra portable ~console to the household. Note that one of the easiest workarounds is 'spread purchases across several accounts, such as other stores'.

I recognise the potential for abuse of unlimited sharing so would expect the increased ability to share to come with additional requirements.

[Suoy]

What you have on steam is not a "streaming" platform. Your whole family did not made a contract with steam or bought the key for each and everyone seperat. The account is bound to you, and only you.

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by Suoy (GER):

What you have on steam is not a "streaming" platform. Your whole family did not made a contract with steam or bought the key for each and everyone seperat. The account is bound to you, and only you.

It is however a (free) subscription service.

Steam is Software as a Service, you have very little rights.

Personally I don't this trading cards, silly hats and achievements were worth the loss of consumer rights, but enough people apparently do.

[ShelLuser]

First... why not actually post this on the suggestions forum?

But nah, sounds like a bad idea to me. Why not simply buy the game for your family member(s)?

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

But nah, sounds like a bad idea to me. Why not simply buy the game for your family member(s)?

This mind set will never cease to amazing and shock me

"Dad can I read this book", "No, I'll go buy you another copy"
"Mum can I borrow your jacket?", "No, I'll pop to the shops and buy a whole new jacket"

Why? What part of your brain has been conditioned to even think this is remotely acceptable?

What if they've got more than 1 kid, or wife that plays too, how many times should he have to buy a game that is only being used by one person at a time?

BTW. I don't know if the mods still do this, but they used to move any posts made in Suggestions regarding making SFS usable straight into the Help and Tips forum so they'd disapear.

[GeneralClayman]

I'd also like to know how the Deck would work if I turn it on and play something while at the same time running a game on my main PC without having to resort to family sharing or turning off the internet connection.

Currently I have a switch on a separate screen to play games on while waiting in queues, respawning or in general while waiting for lads to return to continue playing.

Seeing how much better the Deck is gonna be when it comes to doing this same thing, I'm wondering if I can be logged in on my account on both PC and Deck or not while also playing games on both. (I do know the Deck counts as a PC and that it might just boot me out of my main pc if I have an internet connection on). I just hope I'm not forced to work with a family shared account and keep internet connections on if I want to play something on the console at the same time as main PC. The Deck as a standalone Factorio server would be perfect for it. As I Currently just have to Alt+Tab between a factorio world I'm running for multiple players and another game I'm playing at the same time.

There is no info out regarding any changes to the feature of being able to log in on PC and Deck (specifically) without getting booted out. As to fill in for OP, it'd be better if the Deck would just allow you to play while being logged in on the same time, preferrably online, without taking out a normal PC that has the account already logged in. As its supposedly possible if you take out the internet connection. I would understand if it didn't work on multiplayer games like CSGO, Dota, PUBG, Smite and Apex (to name a few), disallowing you to run the SAME game twice.

[星空]

可以

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

But nah, sounds like a bad idea to me. Why not simply buy the game for your family member(s)?

This mind set will never cease to amazing and shock me

"Dad can I read this book", "No, I'll go buy you another copy"
"Mum can I borrow your jacket?", "No, I'll pop to the shops and buy a whole new jacket"

Apples & oranges. If that book was an e-book then... yeah, that's not going to work.

But another aspect you're now carefully ignoring: can dad still read his book while the son or daughter is borrowing it? Can mum still wear her jacket when her kid is wearing it to school?

So why should this hold true for digital items?

[GeneralClayman]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

This mind set will never cease to amazing and shock me

"Dad can I read this book", "No, I'll go buy you another copy"
"Mum can I borrow your jacket?", "No, I'll pop to the shops and buy a whole new jacket"

Apples & oranges. If that book was an e-book then... yeah, that's not going to work.

But another aspect you're now carefully ignoring: can dad still read his book while the son or daughter is borrowing it? Can mum still wear her jacket when her kid is wearing it to school?

So why should this hold true for digital items?

You're still missing the point. Like OP, I aint gonna spend another 400,-+ in games that i racked up over 8 years and redo the time spent unlocking some stuff (Like Hades and Dead Cells having cloud saves now which work on only your account, getting said game on another console requires you to redo everything again).

He's already spending 400 to 700 bucks on an additional "console" and probably like 50 bucks on a dock to connect the thing to a TV screen. To allow family sharing to not be ♥♥♥♥ or you to be logged in on a Deck (Specifically a deck in this case) and staying online to play games should imo be a feature for this system or at the very least addressed by valve on why they wouldn't do such a thing in this case.

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

So why should this hold true for digital items?

Insane take, It's almost as if digital items are digital and can be accessed on multiple devices already. Current family sharing will boot you out and requires the shared computer / account to be online if they want to play something you own. On that same note, as mentioned it's possible to buy multiple games on different accounts and to log in on those whenever you want to play a certain game, but you'll basically be breaking TOS with that to begin with because you'll be sharing an account.

Another thing you can do is buy off of GOG or Itch.io, which ends up in just steam missing out on sales.

Finally there's the not-so-legal option which is out of the question for most, but still an option.

I'd rather have Valve allowing you to link a Deck with the original OS it comes with to 1 account, allowing them to be logged in and run something at the same time as your main PC. The only other workaround is playing offline. Not too much of an issue, but it would limit like a handful of games (Being unable to run the exact same game twice is understandable though. But running multiple different games at once is already possible on 1 device. Steam checks the latest running game as the one you're currently playing)

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

This mind set will never cease to amazing and shock me

"Dad can I read this book", "No, I'll go buy you another copy"
"Mum can I borrow your jacket?", "No, I'll pop to the shops and buy a whole new jacket"

Apples & oranges. If that book was an e-book then... yeah, that's not going to work.

But another aspect you're now carefully ignoring: can dad still read his book while the son or daughter is borrowing it? Can mum still wear her jacket when her kid is wearing it to school?

So why should this hold true for digital items?

Why not with an eBook? There's no technical or legal reason, its simply a choice made by which ever company to maximise revenue.

I wasn't ignoring anything, no-one expects to be able to drive the car they just lent to someone else. But they do expect to be able to drive any other vehicle they own without effecting the driver of the borrowed vehicle in anyway.

Unless the license issuer dictates otherwise, that license should only be used as a single active instance.

Now its great that place like GoG allow you to have as many active installs as you have machines in the house, Microsoft are slightly less so with a maximum of 10 machine, that's a wonderful positive.

But Valve blocking inactive licenses, is not. It pretty much made Steam near useless for me.

[GeneralClayman]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Unless the license issuer dictates otherwise, that license should only be used as a single active instance.

Now its great that place like GoG allow you to have as many active installs as you have machines in the house, Microsoft are slightly less so with a maximum of 10 machine, that's a wonderful positive.

But Valve blocking inactive licenses, is not. It pretty much made Steam near useless for me.

Doesn't GOG just give you the download whenever and wherever you log in? Meaning that sharing the same key is possible and technically authorized by the devs because they're the ones publishing their game on that platform?

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by GeneralClayman:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Unless the license issuer dictates otherwise, that license should only be used as a single active instance.

Now its great that place like GoG allow you to have as many active installs as you have machines in the house, Microsoft are slightly less so with a maximum of 10 machine, that's a wonderful positive.

But Valve blocking inactive licenses, is not. It pretty much made Steam near useless for me.

Doesn't GOG just give you the download whenever and wherever you log in? Meaning that sharing the same key is possible and technically authorized by the devs because they're the ones publishing their game on that platform?

Most games on GoG are licensed direct from GoG, its Their EULA you agree to, there are a few games from big publishers where it their EULA and not GoG's.

GoG's EULA gives the right to install onto any machine you own. So I can install onto the machine my son uses. He's a minor, the machine is mine though its for his use. But I can't install onto eldest daughters machine, since she's an adult, left home and the machine is her's.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Warlock:

I recognise the potential for abuse of unlimited sharing so would expect the increased ability to share to come with additional requirements.

There are no requirements that valve could legally ask that would prevent abuse of this

Originally posted by GeneralClayman:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Unless the license issuer dictates otherwise, that license should only be used as a single active instance.

Now its great that place like GoG allow you to have as many active installs as you have machines in the house, Microsoft are slightly less so with a maximum of 10 machine, that's a wonderful positive.

But Valve blocking inactive licenses, is not. It pretty much made Steam near useless for me.

Doesn't GOG just give you the download whenever and wherever you log in? Meaning that sharing the same key is possible and technically authorized by the devs because they're the ones publishing their game on that platform?

Nope, in fact its EXPLICITLY against the terms of their service to share your key and that would be piracy.

Family sharing on steam deck works just like it does for a 2nd PC. You cannot have 2 people active at once to prevent friends from just sharing their login. Its a necessary security precaution in order for the dev's to agree to it.

Without that restriction all the dev's would just opt out and you'd have nothing.

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Its a necessary security precaution in order for the dev's to agree to it.

Without that restriction all the dev's would just opt out and you'd have nothing.

Nope.

SFS was announced and its core code, including the library lock, was up and running before any publisher knew.

Look at the publications of the time, publishers were taken by surprise with the announcement.

Also

For it to have been at the request of the publishers, ALL publishers would have been signed up in agreement, because playing TR from Square-ENIX is blocking the execution of software from every other publisher. Can you imagine the legal mess if that was dictated from a group or even just one publisher?

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Nope.

SFS was announced and its core code, including the library lock, was up and running before any publisher knew.

Provide your sources for your claim, you have no way to prove anything your claiming, just because valve didn't tell every publisher doesn't mean that they didn't talk to publishers and discuss things, especially the bigger ones.

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

For it to have been at the request of the publishers, ALL publishers would have been signed up in agreement

Never said it was at the REQUEST of the publishers, again please read. I said it was so dev's would agree to use it.

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

, because playing TR from Square-ENIX is blocking the execution of software from every other publisher. Can you imagine the legal mess if that was dictated from a group or even just one publisher?

Well for one there would be no mess at all, because BEFORE family sharing there was no way for you to play any of your friends games so you could NEVER play his copy of TR blocking execution of other games.

Plus there is also the fact that publishers have to OPT IN to even participating in family share. Every publisher is free to remove their game from family share and not participate in it. Something most will do without that restriction and a reason many developers won't release their games at all on GoG for instance.

Again, people need to brush up on the basics of software law. Its not unique to video games. Licenses sold are PERSONAL and non transferable. Just because you could share them in the past doesn't mean its ok or was ever legal.

Just like people who didn't self-report their taxes for online purchases wasn't really possible to enforce never made it ok not to do so, and its the reason why laws are being re-written to require companies to now collect the tax instead.

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

Nope.

SFS was announced and its core code, including the library lock, was up and running before any publisher knew.

Provide your sources for your claim, you have no way to prove anything your claiming, just because valve didn't tell every publisher doesn't mean that they didn't talk to publishers and discuss things, especially the bigger ones.

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

For it to have been at the request of the publishers, ALL publishers would have been signed up in agreement

Never said it was at the REQUEST of the publishers, again please read. I said it was so dev's would agree to use it.

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

, because playing TR from Square-ENIX is blocking the execution of software from every other publisher. Can you imagine the legal mess if that was dictated from a group or even just one publisher?

Well for one there would be no mess at all, because BEFORE family sharing there was no way for you to play any of your friends games so you could NEVER play his copy of TR blocking execution of other games.

Plus there is also the fact that publishers have to OPT IN to even participating in family share. Every publisher is free to remove their game from family share and not participate in it. Something most will do without that restriction and a reason many developers won't release their games at all on GoG for instance.

Again, people need to brush up on the basics of software law. Its not unique to video games. Licenses sold are PERSONAL and non transferable. Just because you could share them in the past doesn't mean its ok or was ever legal.

Just like people who didn't self-report their taxes for online purchases wasn't really possible to enforce never made it ok not to do so, and its the reason why laws are being re-written to require companies to now collect the tax instead.

Its OPT-OUT not OPT-IN, you may also want to look up Oracle vs UsedSoft.

If you want to throw around "whats legal" might be worth doing a bit of basic research.