Family sharing and playing different games at the same time

[Kunzi]

I am totally shocked that it is not possible to play two different games at the same time from family shared library. I see no reason but greed behind this. Because of this I won't buy the EA FC 24 from steam but directly from EA as it then allows my kid to play the EA FC 24 at the same time I am playing some other game from my Steam library.

I think this is something that has to be changed. Game library is not _one_ item. Games in library should be seen as physical copies you could lend.

Because of this I will be buying games from other places when possible.

[Pscht]

You "see no reason but greed" when you look into a mirror. Your games collection isn't there to loan out games, maybe even for a fee. Because that would happen 100%.

"Other places" don't let you do that either. If you mean Gog, take a look at their rules. They just can't enforce them.

[ْSmoke™]

yeah that sucks but you can't do anything about it

[Piston Smashed™]

Steam is a single user account, it does NOT do family accounts. Yes there is Family Sharing on some games if the developers allow them to be shared. If you want to share the games with your kids at the same time as you playing a game then one of you must on in to offline mode.

Steam is a DRM and only allows one game to be played because it was created that way. Back in the day people would share game codes, Steam stopped this by locking down the game codes to an account, one user playing one game from one account, a single user account which is why you cannot play multiple games on multiple devices from the same account while connected to the internet because if you could then it would be abused like it was before Steam was created and would go totally against why Steam was created (along with an easier way of keeping our games up to date) for in the first place.

Edit: By the way you might see this as greed but this was in place long before Steam even had a store.

[Chika Ogiue]

The owner of the library being shared can still play any game if they go OFFLINE to do so. I do this all the time when my eldest daughter is using my library.

[pasa]

What really sucks is that free games also lock the library. That serves no good purpose beyond inconveniencing users.

[Crazy Tiger]

Family sharing already gets abused as it is. Just look at Ebay and the amount of accounts sold with family sharing enabled. You just have to promise to never go offline with the account, lol.

Opening it up will simply mean more people will create a rental business. I see Valve removing family sharing much sooner than opening it up. Heck, it might be the best thing to do.

What I'm mostly shocked about is that people think that comparing it to physical copies is an actual argument or a good analogy. You can't share your physical copy with someone on the other side of the world in seconds, but you can do that with digital copies.

[Kunzi]

Unfortunately I see things differently than other it seems. For me the stupidest thing is that if I have 4 gamers in family, only one can play a game from the same library. Others can read a book I guess. They could implement some sort of IP rule that would allow family to really share games.

Anyways thanks for the tip. I will try the offline mode. It is just so stupid that I need to convey to that kind of workarounds, because of too many restrictions.

Piracy was a thing because it was too difficult and pricey to do things legally. Please don't drive us on that road again. When easiness goes out of the window, piracy comes back.

Already bought that EA FC 24 directly from EA for my kid so I can play my games. Actually also bough my kid couple of new Switch games for the same purpose :) Those Switch modules are nice and you can sell them too. I wish they could create something similar to PC. It would be like a disc or something... ;)

[Sir Digby Chicken]

Locking out the entire library from use instead of just the title being played makes the feature next to useless in most households.

No reason why it can't be done with local network controls, same IP, and enforcement of the steam apps on the same subnet being able to keep in check. Developers can already exclude their titles. I'm sure it would be tested for misuse, but a couple of steam guard prompt step-ups to confirm legitimate behaviour is more than manageable in a household and a complete nuisance and blocker to resellers.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

What I'm mostly shocked about is that people think that comparing it to physical copies is an actual argument or a good analogy. You can't share your physical copy with someone on the other side of the world in seconds, but you can do that with digital copies.

Family sharing is locked to accounts with the same Steam store region. To access an out of region account, your IP address must match its store region. In other words, the solution is simple: Valve shouldn't use IP address to determine whether a library is accessible or not, and should only use the set store region, as they do for purchasing and key activation.

[Angery >:(]

Originally posted by Pscht:

You "see no reason but greed" when you look into a mirror. Your games collection isn't there to loan out games, maybe even for a fee. Because that would happen 100%.

"Other places" don't let you do that either. If you mean Gog, take a look at their rules. They just can't enforce them.

Xbox allows for this with no issues

[Pscht]

Then go play on Xbox. Saying "but THEY do it" is not a compelling argument for Steam to start copying others.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Angery >:(:

Originally posted by Pscht:

You "see no reason but greed" when you look into a mirror. Your games collection isn't there to loan out games, maybe even for a fee. Because that would happen 100%.

"Other places" don't let you do that either. If you mean Gog, take a look at their rules. They just can't enforce them.

Xbox allows for this with no issues

Xbox only allows this due to the fact that the console itself is the DRM. Xbox can 100% track who logs into a console, who is playing, where they are playing and how. They can 100% detect any hint of abuse and literally nuke every account, and every console and every account that has touched a particular console from orbit

None of which is possible on a PC.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by pasa:

What really sucks is that free games also lock the library. That serves no good purpose beyond inconveniencing users.

You should tell whoever is borrowing from your library to go to the steam page for said free game and click "Add to Library." This issue shouldn't be happening, but if they haven't done that then it makes sense that Steam would assume the game is being borrowed rather than played on that account itself.

[KOOLLAYDTAC]

I find it amusing how some people are defending the family share restrictions in this thread. That's why this platform sucks and has went down hill over the years because ya'll are always signing off on dumb stuff. lol Family share sucks. Period. End of story. This is exactly why I claim all the free games on Epic on two different accounts. I made my own family share for free. I'd suggest ya'll do the same mates. lol

[DarthElsa]

This is complete non-sense and irritating. While in no way do I expect to play the same game simultaneously with 1 license. However, I do not expect that playing ANY game would not lockup the WHOLE library. This makes family sharing nearly useless.

In todays usage, hardly anyone has shared machines to start with. If the platform can detect that two games are being played (since its going to kick someone off), it can absolutely detect which game is being played.

The only functionality I'm looking for is let different people in my family to be able to play different titles in the shared library at the same time. The current functionality isn't a library, its a console. In my case, I have one game in the shared library my daughter wanted to play. But I can't play any of the other titles (not shared). What crap.

I guess I'll have to go back to buying CDs.