Confusion over Steam Family

All Discussions > Steam Forums > Help and Tips > Topic Details

Neon_Pickles Mar 8 @ 4:02pm

Hello there! I am a bit confused as to how Steam Family works and thought I might ask you guys for assistance. So here's my current situation. I own a copy of BeamNG Drive, and I would like my brother to be able to play. From what I can tell, there is no way for us to both play the game at the same time using the same Steam account. He would have to own a copy of the game for us to both play the game at the same time on our respective PCs. Is there any way that he can play BeamNG on his account without him actually owning it? Is there a function where we can effectively "share" libraries when I am offline, so when I am not playing, he can play instead on his PC and on his account? I've logged in to my Steam account on his PC and downloaded BeamNG, but I think it's just transferred the game along with all my mods to his PC and uninstalled it from mine. Thank you everyone, sorry I'm dumb lmao

< >

Showing 1-5 of 5 comments

ْSmoke™ Mar 8 @ 4:09pm

setup a family and invite him to your family, and if you have one copy of the game only one can play it at a time.

cSg|mc-Hotsauce Mar 8 @ 4:29pm

Originally posted by Neon_Pickles:
Confusion over Steam Family

Hello there! I am a bit confused as to how Steam Family works and thought I might ask you guys for assistance. So here's my current situation. I own a copy of BeamNG Drive, and I would like my brother to be able to play. From what I can tell, there is no way for us to both play the game at the same time using the same Steam account. He would have to own a copy of the game for us to both play the game at the same time on our respective PCs. Is there any way that he can play BeamNG on his account without him actually owning it? Is there a function where we can effectively "share" libraries when I am offline, so when I am not playing, he can play instead on his PC and on his account? I've logged in to my Steam account on his PC and downloaded BeamNG, but I think it's just transferred the game along with all my mods to his PC and uninstalled it from mine. Thank you everyone, sorry I'm dumb lmao

You can not play the same game at the same time using 1 copy of the game, no.

Can we go through a real world example of how a Steam Family might share games?

Of course! Let's say that you are in a family with 4 members and that you own a copy of Portal 2 and a copy of Half-Life. At any time, any one member can play Portal 2 and another can play Half-Life. If two of you would like to play Portal 2 at the same time, someone else in the family will need to purchase a copy of the game. After that purchase, there are two owned copies of Portal 2 across the family and any two members can play at the same time.

In this example, if your family choose to not buy a second copy, you can play any other game in your library while waiting for your family member to finish playing your copy of Portal 2.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/054C-3167-DD7F-49D4#frequent