Family sharing conundrum.

[luckiee]

I know this has been done to death but I was wondering if a Steam employee could address this.

Say I have a shed with 120 bikes, I lend one to a friend. Now I am locked out my shed, unable to use the other 119 bikes. In what world does this make sense?

I have a license for one person to play a game. It makes no sense that you cannot play two *different* games at a time in a househould. I understand why you wouldn't be able to play the same game at the same time but this is ridiculous as I may aswell allow her (GF I shared access with) total access to my Steam account which achieves the same thing with the same limitations (not being able to play 2 games at once) breaking Steam TOS.

The idea of a shared family PC which this is designed for is outdated by about 20 years.

I am aware of workarounds via Steam and third party sources, but I feel one should not have to circumvent this draconian policy as it shouldn't be implemented in this way in the first place in *current year*.

[my new friend]

No employees here. The current stance is, the product is how it is and isn't changing any time soon.

[Crazy Tiger]

As Tito mentioned in another thread, it's an account sharing feature, not a game sharing feature.

Don't expect that to change soon, as there is no actual reason for Valve to do so.

[𝕎𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕫]

Originally posted by luckiee:

Say I have a shed with 120 bikes, I lend one to a friend. Now I am locked out my shed, unable to use the other 119 bikes. In what world does this make sense?

You can use the other 119 bikes inside the shed.

I really don't get what's so hard about playing offline for a while when somebody plays a shared game...
Because you can play all other games from your library offline while someone plays a shared game.

[luckiee]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

As Tito mentioned in another thread, it's an account sharing feature, not a game sharing feature.

Don't expect that to change soon, as there is no actual reason for Valve to do so.

If it's an account sharing feature why is sharing account access against Steam TOS? like I said it achieves the same thing with the same limitations.

Originally posted by Wouselz:

I really don't get what's so hard about playing offline for a while when somebody plays a shared game...:cat_and_thoughts:
Because you can play all other games from your library offline while someone plays a shared game.

What if I want to play a mutliplayer game that requires Steam services while she is playing a single player game? She has to be online to verify access to my library, therefore I can't without booting her out.

I think its outdated because as I mentioned there are several very easy workarounds like pulling your ethernet cable out after person launches the shared game, firewall or she logs into my account then goes offline, and I re-login on my PC online.

As I said these go against Steam TOS, not advocating for these methods to be used but listing them to show how easy it is to get around it to show how pointless said restrictions are.

The measures in place to stop playing 2 games at once don't stop you from doing it, it's just a slight inconvenience that anyone can work around.

[Nx Machina]

Family Sharing on Steam is agreed with the dev, pub who can revoke it at any time as it is voluntary not mandatory.

Family Sharing on the Epic Launcher, GOG Galaxy, Rockstar Launcher, Batttlenet.app and Origin is so much easier and .............. oh wait they do not do Family Sharing ........

[my new friend]

Don't expect it to change any time soon since all these knuckleheads decided sharing was for random strangers and had Valve lock up the entire discussions due to the abuse of sharing.
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/familysharing/discussions/

[luckiee]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Family Sharing is on Steam is agreed with the dev, pub who can revoke it at any time as it is voluntary not mandatory.

Not really relevant as its the same across all games by all publishers.. futhermore..

Family Sharing on the Epic Launcher, GOG Galaxy, Rockstar Launcher, Batttlenet.app and Origin is so much easier and .............. oh wait they do not do Family Sharing ........

What about Playstation or Xbox which allows you to do exactly what I'm talking about, and actually play the same game at the same time. The same exact games which are available through Steam. Therefore I don't believe this is due to Publisher discrepency.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by luckiee:

What about Playstation or Xbox

Locked down hardware.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by luckiee:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

As Tito mentioned in another thread, it's an account sharing feature, not a game sharing feature.

Don't expect that to change soon, as there is no actual reason for Valve to do so.

If it's an account sharing feature why is sharing account access against Steam TOS? like I said it achieves the same thing with the same limitations.

One only provides access to the library part of the account, the other to the whole account.

Family sharing never was supposed to be on an individual game basis, only on a library as a whole (so not one bike, but the whole shed). And while it's understandable you want that differently, it's not something Valve actually has to oblige.

Also always keep in mind that family sharing is optional for game devs/publishers. They can, and some do, revoke it at any time.

[luckiee]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Family sharing never was supposed to be on an individual game basis, only on a library as a whole (so not one bike, but the whole shed). And while it's understandable you want that differently, it's not something Valve actually has to oblige.

Also always keep in mind that family sharing is optional for game devs/publishers. They can, and some do, revoke it at any time.

I understand that but keeping with the silly analogy, even if I lent the whole shed to a friend I'd still be able to access the contents of it.

I'm by no means versed in licensing laws but surely by purchasing the license of a game, it allows the sole license holder to play it. By sharing my library, the other person becomes a temporary license holder of that game and I lose my license to play it, temporarily.

I don't see how that prevents me from playing ANY other games I own a license for.

It is what it is I suppose, though I'm quite surprised there aren't any actual Steam employees on the forums.

Originally posted by my new friend:

Locked down hardware.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? As far as my understanding goes you can use it on multiple consoles over multiple accounts. I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by luckiee:

Originally posted by my new friend:

Locked down hardware.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? As far as my understanding goes you can use it on multiple consoles over multiple accounts. I'm not sure if that's what you're referring to.

They can ban entire consoles through hardware bans making them unable to go online or share games anymore.
Valve can't.

[𝕎𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕫]

Originally posted by luckiee:

Originally posted by Wouselz:

I really don't get what's so hard about playing offline for a while when somebody plays a shared game...
Because you can play all other games from your library offline while someone plays a shared game.

What if I want to play a mutliplayer game that requires Steam services while she is playing a single player game? She has to be online to verify access to my library, therefore I can't without booting her out.

And again... what's so hard about playing offline for a while
Did it harm you physically in some way not be able to play online for a while

[luckiee]

Originally posted by my new friend:

They can ban entire consoles through hardware bans making them unable to go online or share games anymore.
Valve can't.

Valve can actually hardware ban you, atleast from certain games as far as I'm aware, [I'm wrong]. and as far as consoles go it is actually encouraged to share games, they won't hardware ban you for doing so, and it's not really related to what I said

The same exact games which are available through Steam. Therefore I don't believe this is due to Publisher discrepency.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by luckiee:

Originally posted by my new friend:

They can ban entire consoles through hardware bans making them unable to go online or share games anymore.
Valve can't.

Valve can actually hardware ban you, atleast from certain games as far as I'm aware, and as far as consoles go it is actually encouraged to share games, they won't hardware ban you for doing so, and it's not really related to what I said

The same exact games which are available through Steam. Therefore I don't believe this is due to Publisher discrepency.

Valve does not use hardware bans. Some game developers may use hardware bans but those are easier to get around on PC by changing some files.
But Valve does issue account locks which effectively removes the accounts ability to share games, yes.

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by luckiee:

Not really relevant as its the same across all games by all publishers.. futhermore..

Relevant as it was implied all devs, pubs.

Originally posted by luckiee:

What about Playstation or Xbox which allows you to do exactly what I'm talking about, and actually play the same game at the same time. The same exact games which are available through Steam. Therefore I don't believe this is due to Publisher discrepency.

Irrelevant. Steam and all those others are PC platforms so complain to those that do not do Family Sharing.

You need 2 PS and 2 XB to do that and 2 copies of the game.

As a sidenote,: not been the system you want does not alter that fact that Family Sharing hss not changed since it was introduced and it is AGREED with the dev, pub who can revoke it at any time or to put it another way, the dev, pub is the one who sets the flag for on or off.

Personally i think Valve with dev, pub consent should remove Family Sharing.