What's the point in Steam family if I can't invite my friends anymore?

[lastbreath]

Earlier Steam allowed to share your library with specific PC user. I live in Ukraine and I was able to let my friend from Poland to play my games. Now I can't. So what's the point?

[lastbreath]

What about my comment?

Originally posted by lastbreath:

I mean if my brother can play my copy of the game, why can't my friend? As customers they are literally the same. In any case rights owner looses one buyer. And there is no difference if he is my family member, friend or some random guy from Brazil!

[Yujah]

Originally posted by lastbreath:

I mean if my brother can play my copy of the game, why can't my friend? As customers they are literally the same.

Your friend from a different country? No, they are certainly not the same, and especially not if the two countries are/have two different pricing regions. Latter opens up a hole for abuse of regional pricing big enough to steer a herd of spermwhales through without incident.

[Komarimaru]

Originally posted by lastbreath:

What about my comment?

Originally posted by lastbreath:

I mean if my brother can play my copy of the game, why can't my friend? As customers they are literally the same. In any case rights owner looses one buyer. And there is no difference if he is my family member, friend or some random guy from Brazil!

I'll give one scenario on why it's limited.

It's to prevent leasing aka, selling sharing rights to a game to play it, pretty much.

Some countries can get games dirt cheap, then they sell the rights to share it to someone else. Seems cheap to the person buying the access, but it's a lot of money for the person sharing.

[lastbreath]

Jesus, forget about that polish guy, it was just an example. I wanted to share my library with my friend in my own city and couldn't do this. That's why I created this thread!

Your comment about region pricing is valid, I agree. Random brazil guy doesn't fit here, OK. But my local friend still remains. And there is no difference between him and my brother as a customer.

[Komarimaru]

Originally posted by lastbreath:

Jesus, forget about that polish guy, it was just an example. I wanted to share my library with my friend in my own city and couldn't do this. That's why I created this thread!

It should work just fine in the same country. What's the issue then?

[lastbreath]

Originally posted by Komarimaru:

Originally posted by lastbreath:

Jesus, forget about that polish guy, it was just an example. I wanted to share my library with my friend in my own city and couldn't do this. That's why I created this thread!

It should work just fine in the same country. What's the issue then?

IT DOESN'T!

[Yujah]

Originally posted by lastbreath:

Jesus, forget about that polish guy, it was just an example. I wanted to share my library with my friend in my own city and couldn't do this. That's why I created this thread!

If both accounts have the same store country set (which may require one or both accounts to have a recent purchase using a payment method from that country -- for whatever definition of "recent" applies here) then things should work.

I've seen people that have paid more attention than me claim that it may also still be good to have the to be shared to account log in on your system once, as was the thing in the old system, but I don't know if that's true.

[lastbreath]

Originally posted by Yujah:

recent purchase

Nice catch. This could be an issue. My friend rarely buys games.

[Yujah]

It's been reported as a problem also e.g. for fully new accounts that don't yet have any store region set. Yes, suboptimal. Maybe have them buy a very cheap game (or load up some wallet funds).

[Drako]

The IP its the problem, it onlly will work if: You have the same conecction/the same wifi, the same store, etc, bassically what steam did its "will only work with people that you livein the same house" not even people that its 200 meters close of your house, so, the only way is live in the same country and have the same ip in the account, idk if yall will understand me, im spanish and im looking thought internet how to use the old metod of family share

[Yujah]

A note is that Drako's comment is not generally true. There are people using the new Family Sharing that live hundreds of kilometers apart and who are on completely different connections.

As to when it is true for now only Steam knows for certain...

[Chompman]

Originally posted by Drako:

The IP its the problem, it onlly will work if: You have the same conecction/the same wifi, the same store, etc, bassically what steam did its "will only work with people that you livein the same house" not even people that its 200 meters close of your house, so, the only way is live in the same country and have the same ip in the account, idk if yall will understand me, im spanish and im looking thought internet how to use the old metod of family share

This new version is how it is for now and the previous version is no longer going to be used so you cannot switch back.

Too many abused the regional account sharing and with the new version since multiple people can use the same account of games they have to set up more restriction or no game company would use it since it means a lot less sales of their game.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Chika Ogiue:

Blame the people who used the old family sharing system to share with their friends and strangers.

If you look in the right places you can see now a lot of orphans looking for gamer adopting families...within their own borders.

Originally posted by Drako:

The IP its the problem, it onlly will work if: You have the same conecction/the same wifi, the same store, etc

Nope. You're only required for all accounts to have the same store region.

[Chompman]

Originally posted by Yujah:

A note is that Drako's comment is not generally true. There are people using the new Family Sharing that live hundreds of kilometers apart and who are on completely different connections.

As to when it is true for now only Steam knows for certain...

That's because people added others to their steam families when they were in the same location and then moved away or were sharing their account info to do that and steam will more then likely fix this when the abuse gets too out of hand.

I can see them not allowing the family share to work at all unless everyone is on the same network / ip with each other and then more people will complain when they are the reasons that cause problems.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

Requiring everyone being in the same region breaks apart families as they may legit be living in different countries. Is Valve against the concept of the family unit while ironically using the word in the feature that divides them?

It's meant for families that live in the same household. E.g., parents and their children. When the children grow up and potentially move overseas, they are no longer a part of that household. That's typical of most systems that offer similar family sharing, some even go so far as to only allow sharing while you're all physically in the same house. Now, my sister lives in a different country to me. As did my parents while they were alive. None of use thought being in different countries "broke" apart our family because we couldn't use a Steam feature.