I'm done with Steam! Just another dictator in the gaming industry!

[MattJE9601]

Until now I've always thought pretty highly of Steam, but today while trying to set up gaming computers for my kids I just realized how greedy and crooked Steam actually is as I can't share my large and very expensive game library with my kids.

By this I do not mean playing the same game at the same time. For that I obviously expect to purchase another license, and would have done for the games they like. I mean playing DIFFERENT games at the same time, each of which I have paid good money for a license for 1 person to play... but it seems that Steam doesn't believe I have the right to use more than one of my games at the same time. I am so sick and tired of the walled gardens and control surrounding the gaming industry as a whole. I'm trying to move my kids to PC gaming to get away from xboxes as I already can't stand Microsoft... and how many times I've had to pay for Minecraft just for a single person!

So here's the deal... unless this changes, I will no longer be buying my games through Steam. I will buy every game direct from the developer separate from ANY game launchers, and I will use an open source launcher to manage my games from now on. AND I WILL LET MY KIDS PLAY GAMES I'M NOT USING... like it used to be when we actually OWNED the games we paid for! I will also most likely dump my Deck and will not be buying one for each of my kids as I planned on doing.

I'm royally pissed, and everyone else should be too! This is like buying 2 cars from a dealership and them telling you that only one can be driven at any given time. Absolutely absurd and I'm done tolerating this BS! I only wish I could get my games away from Steam so I can completely dump it altogether, but unless I feel like paying for games again (which I honestly might just on principal) I'm still stuck using it for games I already stupidly bought through here. Lesson learned I guess.

I really wish enough people would throw a fit about this. I really don't want to hate Steam but I feel I don't have a choice here. I mean who the F do they think they are to tell us we can't use more than one of the products we own at a time? They simply do it because they have the power to and it makes them more money, plain and simple. Do the game police kick down our door because we shared a game of checkers with our kids? NO! But if it can be tracked digitally it will be shoved right up your *** every time. So goodbye Steam! Thanks for being just like everyone else...

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

You never owned the games. You own a license to access them and this has been the same since Steam launched in 2003.

You can even check this by going to your account details. Top right corner of Steam, click on your username and select account details. There you will see licenses and key activations.

Every other platform is like this as well. Whether it is EA, Ubisoft or Epic.


EDIT
Why aren't you using Family Sharing? You can share the entire library but your kids will still not be able to play a game if you are playing it and the entire library is shared not just one or two games. Your kids also have to have their own Steam account.

https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing

[C²C^Guyver |NZB|]

Please read the post again. I added more information.

[Tolkien Book Fan]

It's not like having two cars and being told your kids can't use one. It's like asking for multiple copies of your driver's licence for your kids to use.

People keep coming here and screaming that Valve is a 'dictatorship' that they intend to oppose with abuse and threats of violence. But that's not revolution, that's just robbery.

[Komarimaru]

1. Steam at least offers family sharing.
2. You won't be buying any games from developers hardly, all keys are Steam or EGS for new game releases.
3. There's no open source launcher for your games. If they are DRM free, don't need a launcher. If they use DRM, you need Steam, EGS etc.
4. It's been this way for games for well over a decade now. Going on two decades actually. From all the way back in Games for Windows Live, to GameSPY etc.

[Jack Schitt]

Did the new UI remove Family Sharing? I do hope that people this frustrated with anything Valve does consider that we're only one person of over 30 million users, if we stop using Steam we no longer have access to all of the games and other content we've purchased a license to use through Steam's services, and there really aren't any comparable services we can transfer our usage licenses from Steam over to - we would have to buy everything on that other services.

A lot of developers sell their software products through networks like Steam and that's the only places they're available. Stand-alone versions of games and software has become almost completely a thing of the past (20 years ago) other than Console gaming systems where we can buy a CD but even those are migrating to selling only digital copies online.

I don't like the monopoly either. That's not why I'm responding with a comment to this. My concern is all of the things you and anyone else with these thoughts are going to lose if they stop using Steam to run the software and games (etc) they've purchased a license to use.

We would lose a lot of time and money if we would leave Steam and stop using it.
Steam only loses a the few users that decide to leave. Their user base continually grows.
It doesn't hurt them at all, you're only hurting yourself.

[MattJE9601]

Originally posted by Tolkien Book Fan:

It's not like having two cars and being told your kids can't use one. It's like asking for multiple copies of your driver's licence for your kids to use.

People keep coming here and screaming that Valve is a 'dictatorship' that they intend to oppose with abuse and threats of violence. But that's not revolution, that's just robbery.

Wrong. I want to play 2 different games, not 2 people playing the same game at once. This of course would require a second license. That's would be understandable.

[MattJE9601]

As for family sharing, yes I did try that. That's the problem. Family sharing is useless. No different than just letting my kids play on my own profile other than separate progress tracking etc. If one of my kids is playing a game, and I try to run a totally different game my kid get's booted. Absolutely no point to it. And yes, it's a license for 1 person to play the game.... for each game you buy. It's Steam that doesn't allow you to play more than one game at a time. There is no reason for this other than their greed!

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by MattJE9601:

Originally posted by Tolkien Book Fan:

It's not like having two cars and being told your kids can't use one. It's like asking for multiple copies of your driver's licence for your kids to use.

People keep coming here and screaming that Valve is a 'dictatorship' that they intend to oppose with abuse and threats of violence. But that's not revolution, that's just robbery.

Wrong. I want to play 2 different games, not 2 people playing the same game at once. This of course would require a second license. That's would be understandable.

YOu can blame gamers for why this doesn't happen m8. We both know that what'd happen is peopel would turn their libraries into game rental shops. Which would hurt their bottom line anmd the bottom liune of their publishers./buisiness partners.. which is bad business.

[Komarimaru]

Originally posted by MattJE9601:

As for family sharing, yes I did try that. That's the problem. Family sharing is useless. No different than just letting my kids play on my own profile other than separate progress tracking etc. If one of my kids is playing a game, and I try to run a totally different game my kid get's booted. Absolutely no point to it. And yes, it's a license for 1 person to play the game.... for each game you buy. It's Steam that doesn't allow you to play more than one game at a time. There is no reason for this other than their greed!

Tell me, what service does?

[MattJE9601]

Originally posted by Jack Schitt:

We would lose a lot of time and money if we would leave Steam and stop using it.
Steam only loses a the few users that decide to leave. Their user base continually grows.
It doesn't hurt them at all, you're only hurting yourself.

It's this attitude that's responsible for the entire world going to ♥♥♥♥. That's why all the monopolies as well as governments etc get away with whatever they want despite everyone complaining about things... lack of action... because the peasants believe they're powerless.

[d3str0y3r]

Originally posted by MattJE9601:

As for family sharing, yes I did try that. That's the problem. Family sharing is useless. No different than just letting my kids play on my own profile other than separate progress tracking etc. If one of my kids is playing a game, and I try to run a totally different game my kid get's booted. Absolutely no point to it. And yes, it's a license for 1 person to play the game.... for each game you buy. It's Steam that doesn't allow you to play more than one game at a time. There is no reason for this other than their greed!

Or maybe because people would abuse it to rent their libraries out. Which would end with publishers pulling their games from family share.

[Jack Schitt]

Originally posted by MattJE9601:

As for family sharing, yes I did try that. That's the problem. Family sharing is useless. No different than just letting my kids play on my own profile other than separate progress tracking etc. If one of my kids is playing a game, and I try to run a totally different game my kid get's booted. Absolutely no point to it. And yes, it's a license for 1 person to play the game.... for each game you buy. It's Steam that doesn't allow you to play more than one game at a time. There is no reason for this other than their greed!

Yes, greed is what it is. I, too, just click on by and get TOS windows out of my way. As far as I'm aware all of the gaming networks like Steam have the same basic TOS; license to use, we don't own.

If there were other options I don't think Steam would be doing it this way. They surely wouldn't be as successful as they are.

If there are other options and we can still get stand-alone pc games links would probably be appreciated for people that want to make that choice. I personally don't. I'm staying here on Steam. I'm not ticked off enough to torture myself with not playing the few games I have and play on here. That handful of games (my situation) are only available on Steam. So the options for me are don't play my favorite video games or deal with whatever Steam does with the client.

[sumolagann]

Can you just run offline on one pc? or does that not work anymore, seeing posts about it.

[MattJE9601]

Wow... the attitude people have is amazing. Just roll over and take it, huh? Humanity really is doomed. Clearly this isn't the kind of community I want to be a part of anyway.

[Komarimaru]

Originally posted by MattJE9601:

Wow... the attitude people have is amazing. Just roll over and take it, huh? Humanity really is doomed. Clearly this isn't the kind of community I want to be a part of anyway.

People are just explaining the facts to you. You just don't like them, which is fine.

Been this way for well over a decade like I said before. You'll not find any other service out there like Steam, others being more restrictive actually.