Family Sharing - Playing Owned Game From a Shared Library?

[{pDs} Rikaelus]

Scenario:
My library has Half-Life 2 and No Man's Sky.
My son's library has No Man's Sky.
We share each others' libraries.
My son starts playing Half-Life 2 from my library.
I can't play No Man's Sky from my library since it's in use, but also can't play it from his library.

Is there any way around this? I think there should really be some way to use his library to play the game. I'm essentially being penalized for having bought the game a second time for my own library.

[mimizukari]

No. If they're using your library you can't play any game you own. Buy Half-Life 2 for your son.

[Ogami]

Also, if you already own a game yourself you will not get it shared by anyone.
You will always play your own copy of it.

[{pDs} Rikaelus]

Well that is definitely ridiculous. If my library's in use then it should look to see if another library I've been shared is available. Really bad logic on their part.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by {pDs} Rikaelus:

Well that is definitely ridiculous. If my library's in use then it should look to see if another library I've been shared is available. Really bad logic on their part.

Not bad logic... The whole idea of Family Share is that you're not supposed to be using Steam games while someone else is utilizing your library... It's meant to be family share, using same copy, and you can only play 1 game on steam normally(or, that part might've changed but.... even then, family share isn't meant to give you a free pass to share game licenses with no downside)

[Ogami]

Originally posted by {pDs} Rikaelus:

Well that is definitely ridiculous. If my library's in use then it should look to see if another library I've been shared is available. Really bad logic on their part.

It was the requirement for the big publishers and developers to allow family sharing at all.
They were not to keen on it in the first place. And thus Valve had to implement a lot of restrictions and rules for Family Share.
So it was either this system or none at all.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by {pDs} Rikaelus:

Well that is definitely ridiculous. If my library's in use then it should look to see if another library I've been shared is available. Really bad logic on their part.

It was the requirement for the big publishers and developers to allow family sharing at all.
They did not want it in the first place. And though Valve had to implement a lot of restrictions and rules for Family Share.
So it was either this system or none at all.

I'd rather have none at all if you ask me... probably how a lot pf people get their accounts "hacked" because they trust someone with their account info for family share like they do on PlayStation Network & Xbox Live.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

I'd rather have none at all if you ask me... probably how a lot pf people get their accounts "hacked" because they trust someone with their account info for family share like they do on PlayStation Network & Xbox Live.

Yeah but honestly, my empathy is limited if you are so dumb to give your account login/password to some stranger on the internet because of Family Share.
The whole system is designed for users in the same household that preferably even use the same pc.

[{pDs} Rikaelus]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Originally posted by {pDs} Rikaelus:

Well that is definitely ridiculous. If my library's in use then it should look to see if another library I've been shared is available. Really bad logic on their part.

Not bad logic... The whole idea of Family Share is that you're not supposed to be using Steam games while someone else is utilizing your library... It's meant to be family share, using same copy, and you can only play 1 game on steam normally(or, that part might've changed but.... even then, family share isn't meant to give you a free pass to share game licenses with no downside)

Except that if I *didn't* buy the game, I could actually play it.

Steam doesn't prevent you from using someone else's library while they use yours. It easily could if that was the limitation they wanted. This is happening ONLY because I chose to buy the game a second time for my own library. If it weren't in my library then Steam would play it off my son's.

So as I said, I'm literally being punished for buying the game a second time. There's no logic to that. It's not in the interest of Steam or the game's developer and I'll be increasingly hesitant to buy second copies in the future.

[mimizukari]

Originally posted by {pDs} Rikaelus:

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Not bad logic... The whole idea of Family Share is that you're not supposed to be using Steam games while someone else is utilizing your library... It's meant to be family share, using same copy, and you can only play 1 game on steam normally(or, that part might've changed but.... even then, family share isn't meant to give you a free pass to share game licenses with no downside)

Except that if I *didn't* buy the game, I could actually play it.

Steam doesn't prevent you from using someone else's library while they use yours. It easily could if that was the limitation they wanted. This is happening ONLY because I chose to buy the game a second time for my own library. If it weren't in my library then Steam would play it off my son's.

So as I said, I'm literally being punished for buying the game a second time. There's no logic to that. It's not in the interest of Steam or the game's developer and I'll be increasingly hesitant to buy second copies in the future.

how about you don't punish the developers of Half-Life, and pay a 2nd time for HL2 for your son? Boom. problem solved.

[{pDs} Rikaelus]

Originally posted by Kurumi Tokisaki:

Originally posted by {pDs} Rikaelus:

Except that if I *didn't* buy the game, I could actually play it.

Steam doesn't prevent you from using someone else's library while they use yours. It easily could if that was the limitation they wanted. This is happening ONLY because I chose to buy the game a second time for my own library. If it weren't in my library then Steam would play it off my son's.

So as I said, I'm literally being punished for buying the game a second time. There's no logic to that. It's not in the interest of Steam or the game's developer and I'll be increasingly hesitant to buy second copies in the future.

how about you don't punish the developers of Half-Life, and pay a 2nd time for HL2 for your son? Boom. problem solved.

Uhm. You do understand that the developers of Half-Life are the same people who included Family Sharing in Steam, right? I'm not punishing them to take advantage of a feature they, themselves, designed and implemented.

Moreover, that's really just a lame response. Even if they weren't the same people, Family Sharing is still an offering that developers consent to when putting their games on Steam.

And besides THAT, if this were physical media instead of Steam this STILL wouldn't be an issue because he could play one of my games while I played one of his. Hell... I could have played one of my own games while he borrowed one of mine.

In short, to call what I'm trying to do "punishing the developers" is just absolutely ridiculous and, at this point, it sounds like you just want to argue. Which isn't a shocker. I was actually surprised the thread went as long as it did before it devolved.

[Ogami]

A simple trick is to go offline with the main library.
So, if you want to play No Man Sky, set your Steam to "offline mode", the game will still work ( minus the online functions of course) and your son can play another game from your library at the same time without getting kicked out because you are playing something.
Not ideal but it works.

[{pDs} Rikaelus]

Originally posted by Ogami:

A simple trick is to go offline with the main library.
So, if you want to play No Man Sky, set your Steam to "offline mode", the game will still work ( minus the online functions of course) and your son can play another game from your library at the same time without getting kicked out because you are playing something.
Not ideal but it works.

Hmm. I'll try that, but I was under the impression that if I go into Offline Mode that my library would be unavailable. But that *would* seriously undermine Family Sharing if a computer had to be on with an account logged in for the library to be available. So maybe...

And no big deal with offline mode with NMS. I actually disabled multiplayer a while back due to a problem it was having and never turned it back on. It's not part of the game I get into.

[Ogami]

Definitely works, did it myself multiple times.
Just make sure that you started the game you want to play in offline mode at least once while being online.
Then it should work without a problem.