Allowed To Play Two Games At Once?

[PUSHER]

I'm playing an MMO waiting for an event - I open my Steam Deck to quickly fill the time but get locked out from starting a game because the MMO is currently running.

Both devices are under the same network - is this behavior intentional? I see that we might be trying to prevent account sharing of some kind but I don't think it'd be unreasonable to allow a small cap of simultaneous games being played.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

It is intended to work this way, yes.

[ZanyScum]

You are allowed to play many games at once .... on the PC.

If you can't do it with the Steam Deck then it is probably not because you are not allowed but because there is a technical reason... or just a design decision.

[Lystent]

AFAIK, it is more of a DRM feature; basically, you can only run software from the account on only one computer at a time. But there is no limit on how much of the software you can run on that computer at that time, AFAIK (beside hardware limitations, ofcourse.)

That said, seems like you found one of the very few practical reasons I've ever heard of to had a GPU card and an IGPU running at the same time. (You can run a "big" game on the card whilst running a lighter game on the integrated graphics, after jumping through some hoops of which I admittedly forgotten. I did it once long ago as a proof of concept, but never found any need and have since swapped that CPU for a top-tier one. All top-tier CPUs from that brand don't offer integrated graphics AFAIK.)

Edit: you can run multiple games on the same GPU, BTW. it just uses up more resources, and the idea I mentioned is just only a means of distributing the usage.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by ZanyScum:

You are allowed to play many games at once .... on the PC.

If you can't do it with the Steam Deck then it is probably not because you are not allowed but because there is a technical reason... or just a design decision.

Playing games on multiple devices with a single account at the same time is still not allowed.

Playing multiple games, 30 or whatever, with a single account on a single device is fine.

[crunchyfrog]

Think about it.

If you could play two games on two devices under one account then people would fleece the hell out of it by sharing their account with their friends.

So the only way you can play more than one game at once on one account is by doing so on the same computer.

[imag2OOO]

u can play 2 at once but 1 or both comps need to be in offline mode {like fully offline mode not just appear offline mode} so u need to launch steam without wifi to do it

[PUSHER]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Think about it.

If you could play two games on two devices under one account then people would fleece the hell out of it by sharing their account with their friends.

I specified that the two devices are on the same network - so it'd be more a family member situation. Or you're a really good friend and give friends VPN access to your local environment.

It's sounding like the "workaround" is going to be finding a game or two on GOG and putting those on the Steamdeck to play. I assume I can't put all those free games I've been collecting on Epic to work and launch those on the Steamdeck.

[Vaemer-Riit]

If you make a 2nd account and add that to a steam family with your main account you should be able to run 2 separate games on 2 separate devices.

This requires you to be on the steam family beta and I'm not sure if that is available for the steam deck yet.

[Ben Lubar]

Set one computer to offline mode and it'll work how you want it to.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Vaemer-Riit:

This requires you to be on the steam family beta and I'm not sure if that is available for the steam deck yet.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/6727887174685485482

[Vaemer-Riit]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by Vaemer-Riit:

This requires you to be on the steam family beta and I'm not sure if that is available for the steam deck yet.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1675200/view/6727887174685485482

:winterbunny2023:

Oh nice, I'll have to look into this later.

So yah, the steam deck client appears to be able to take advantage of the steam families beta

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Playing games on multiple devices with a single account at the same time is still not allowed.

This is false information and not true. We can play as many different games on as many different devices as we want to with 1 steam account and no one cares. We're just only allowed to have 1 computer/device ONLINE at a time. If we set other devices to Offline mode with steam then we can run as many games as we wish on as many devices as we wish. Just set the extra devices to offline mode first before starting the games and it works fine. I do it all the time.

[CuriuM]

Originally posted by PUSHER:

I'm playing an MMO waiting for an event - I open my Steam Deck to quickly fill the time but get locked out from starting a game because the MMO is currently running.

Both devices are under the same network - is this behavior intentional? I see that we might be trying to prevent account sharing of some kind but I don't think it'd be unreasonable to allow a small cap of simultaneous games being played.

yes and my best is 12 ( little ) games 💀

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by CuriuM:

Originally posted by PUSHER:

I'm playing an MMO waiting for an event - I open my Steam Deck to quickly fill the time but get locked out from starting a game because the MMO is currently running.

Both devices are under the same network - is this behavior intentional? I see that we might be trying to prevent account sharing of some kind but I don't think it'd be unreasonable to allow a small cap of simultaneous games being played.

yes and my best is 12 ( little ) games 💀

If we have 1 device online and the rest of the devices set offline with Steam then there is no limit to the number of devices we can use with the same steam account in the same network in the same house.

[76561199559798421]

make a new steam account, an split up your games between them, also that way you can play games together from two acccounts a the same time on two different computers.


having two steam accounts to divide your games among is also safer for you as in the event you have a compromised account you will still have some games to play on your other account.


also the gimmick with steam deck was created to cause this commotion, steam wanting to sell you a device that requires the steam store to play the games is part of the rub.

in the future you should consider having multi steam accounts and spreading your games between them to ensure your own user safety and ability to play multiply games at the same time across many devices.