Playing against yourself

[Lord McDuck]

Hi everybody,
Does anyone know whether it's possible to play against a family member (or yourself) with only your own copy, or is this only possible by buying a second copy?

Also: is it right that it is impossible to buy a second copy of a game you already own, even if you just want to gift it to someone else?

[Cyber⁧⁧󠁳Syns]

As far as I know you can't use the same game online on two family accounts with a shared game that only 1 account has. Might be possible to do it offline with your home network if the game supports LAN functionality.

To answer your second question, no. That's not true. You can gift a game to someone even if you already own it. Just add it to your cart and make sure it says it'll be used as a gift.

[xarvn]

You can play games that support "Remote Play Together" with friends. Friends can join a game session through remote play streaming. Only one person needs to have the game. The caveat is that the game has to support "Remote Play Together" and that everyone has to have fast and stable internet; in particular the owner of the game must have fast upload speeds.

https://store.steampowered.com/remoteplay#together

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Lord McDuck:

Also: is it right that it is impossible to buy a second copy of a game you already own,

It's not impossible, but even if you manage to do it, it doesn't work the way you'd hope. You can have multiple licenses granting the same game, but for all intents and purposes, Steam treats it as just one license anyway (so, for example, you can't have 2 people play the game via family sharing even if you own two licenses).

As an example, I have this on my account:

[***] command> show-license 212480
You have 3 licenses related to 212480 ("Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection"):
   package 18947 ("Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection") (BillOnceOnly) purchased 2013... (CreditCard)
      Game 212480 ("Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection")
   package 39880 ("Sega - Humble Bundle (2 DE)") (BillOnceOrCDKey) purchased 2014... (ActivationCode)
      Game 212480 ("Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Collection")

As you might be able to see, I bought the game in 2013, and got a key giving me the same game in 2014.

So yes, this kind of "multiple licenses" needs suitable packages to "pull it off", and its order sensitive as well: I would not have been able to buy the game if I already had the bundle.

even if you just want to gift it to someone else?

You can always buy a gift, that's no problem. Unless it's "complete your collection" bundle; these can't currently(?) be gifted.