Family Sharing problem "Shared game unavailable"

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76561198016717069 Aug 28, 2014 @ 3:50am

My brother already shared his library of games. Recently whenever he is playing Dota2, all of his games become unavailable for sharing. I can only play the games such as borderlands, CIV, etc, when he is offline. Is this a bug?

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Showing 1-15 of 39 comments

Kargor Aug 28, 2014 @ 3:55am

Yes and no.

Generally, when a library is in use, nobody else can use it. So -- not a bug, it's intentional.

HOWEVER, there appears to be a bug with Free2Play games blocking access to libraries even though they are free games, and there might be another bug when playing an owned game might be treated as playing the shared game that happens to be in a library.

So, for Dota2, which is a Free2Play game, this is a bug.

TirithRR Aug 28, 2014 @ 4:01am

Originally posted by Kargor:
HOWEVER, there appears to be a bug with Free2Play games blocking access to libraries even though they are free games, and there might be another bug when playing an owned game might be treated as playing the shared game that happens to be in a library.

So, for Dota2, which is a Free2Play game, this is a bug.

Not so much a "bug" but a feature that has not been implemented yet.

Free 2 Play games count as games in your library. Maybe in the future they'll update it so they do not count. Heck, maybe that's why they did so much the last few weeks with updated Free 2 Play games as not counting toward your profile game count.

But for now, they are games in your library and disable your library sharing while being played.

Saying it's a bug is misleading. It's just a feature that has not been implemented.

Last edited by TirithRR; Aug 28, 2014 @ 4:01am

76561198016717069 Aug 28, 2014 @ 4:46am

Originally posted by Kargor:
Yes and no.

Generally, when a library is in use, nobody else can use it. So -- not a bug, it's intentional.

Is this means if the owner is playing any of the games, automatically all his/her games is blocked from sharing. If I read it properly in the FAQ, i thought only 1 person allowed to play any specific game in the library?

ReBoot Aug 28, 2014 @ 5:05am

You didn't read it properly.

TirithRR Aug 28, 2014 @ 5:06am

It's the whole library that is locked out. Reread the FAQ cause it explains it. One user per library, not game.

ReBoot Aug 28, 2014 @ 5:08am

Arg. Ignore my post above.

TirithRR Aug 28, 2014 @ 5:11am

We posted at the same time.

ReBoot Aug 28, 2014 @ 5:14am

I mean everyone else. SFS is per-library, this is the way it is and I implied otherwise above.

Rockovissi Oct 19, 2014 @ 9:05pm

How about the shared games not being available and the person sharing is not even logged on?

ReBoot Oct 20, 2014 @ 7:32am

How do you know he's not logged on?

#10

 KARR™ Oct 20, 2014 @ 9:03am

Originally posted by Rockovissi:
How about the shared games not being available and the person sharing is not even logged on?

They may be online in invisible mode, or someone ELSE may be playing a game from their shared library.

#11

jakthebomb Feb 19, 2016 @ 9:51pm

I know this thread is old however I wanted to Play my roommate's copy of Life is Strange while she was playing Warframe, well... I just don't understand the whole concept of Family Sharing if playing one game locks out all of the other games from being played.

When you apply some Physical logic to this, it really doesn't make one bit of sense. I literally slammed a stack of Wii U games on my roommate's desk, I said go ahead grab one. Once she picked up Pikmin 3, I flinged the whole remaining stack against a wall and said "now I can't play Super Smash Bros"

With all of the verification required to enable the feature and both PCs are under the same IP Address, Why is this limitation even in place? This is an artificial limitation that defies logic. This would be like BlockBuster locking down the whole store because there is one movie out.

#12

ReBoot Feb 20, 2016 @ 3:04am

Originally posted by jakthebomb:
With all of the verification required to enable the feature and both PCs are under the same IP Address

Whoever told you that, lied. There's no "same IP address" requirement and here's exactly the reason: Should Valve allow per-game sharing, game sales will drop as people will start gamepooling.

#13