Family Library is Family-unfriendly

[Gwyn]

I have two young children and a wife, all of whom are also avid gamers.

I have well over a thousand games in my steam library.

Unfortunately, if my son is playing Terraria, my wife cannot play House Flipper and my daughter cannot play Subnautica. And if I'm playing WURM, none of them can play.

The limit of one game in use from a library is ridiculous and pointless.

I can see a limit of one game in use from a library per account, and only one person able to play *the same game* at a time.

Punishing long-time people who've accrued thousands of games over the years, some of which were bought solely for a child under 13 to play (and therefore they are not allowed to make their own account) for... unclear and indecipherable reasons seems unexpectedly hostile.

Please fix this. Make it so that a family library can actually be used by a family!

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Crazy Tiger eredeti hozzászólása:

Gwyn eredeti hozzászólása:

How exactly would allowing a person to do this who lives in the same residence as me, with the same IP, authorized and linked to my account, create more opportunity for abuse?

Because it isn't just used by families on the same residence, but also groups of friends who reside in different countries.

Accounts currently get sold on Ebay with family sharing. All you have to do is promise you won't go online with the account.

See, this is why I was thinking, wouldn't an an IP check be more useful for dealing with this?

Sure, an IP check can be circumvented, but so can other restrictions such as those currently in place. I mean, other people have already pointed out going offline. It seems more burdensome to those people who legit want to share it with their own family, while being kinda trivially easy for anyone who would already have the know-how to circumvent it, so it's like it exists just to make things more of a pain.

(or maybe the idea is to make it a pain to nag people to buy the game?)

[Crazy Tiger]

Quint the Alligator Snapper eredeti hozzászólása:

Crazy Tiger eredeti hozzászólása:

Because it isn't just used by families on the same residence, but also groups of friends who reside in different countries.

Accounts currently get sold on Ebay with family sharing. All you have to do is promise you won't go online with the account.

See, this is why I was thinking, wouldn't an an IP check be more useful for dealing with this?

Sure, an IP check can be circumvented, but so can other restrictions such as those currently in place. I mean, other people have already pointed out going offline. It seems more burdensome to those people who legit want to share it with their own family, while being kinda trivially easy for anyone who would already have the know-how to circumvent it, so it's like it exists just to make things more of a pain.

(or maybe the idea is to make it a pain to nag people to buy the game?)

What would be the point of an IP-check? Take the example of my coworker, he family shares his account with his daughter who lives with his ex. They live in different cities (though he'll be moving closer next year). They have dynamic IPs. An IP-check wouldn't actually do much in that.

I don't think it's the latter you suggest. I think it's simply a feature they created at one point and don't want to do much about anymore. A bit like Big Picture Mode. I do think they won't do any changes to it that would open up things more, especially since the way Valve takes its stances (for example on the updates and such). They seem firmly in the "protect licenses at all cost" camp.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Crazy Tiger eredeti hozzászólása:

What would be the point of an IP-check? Take the example of my coworker, he family shares his account with his daughter who lives with his ex. They live in different cities (though he'll be moving closer next year). They have dynamic IPs. An IP-check wouldn't actually do much in that.

An IP check would unfortunately inconvenience them, because they live in different places, though not because they have dynamic IPs, unless they have multiple different home routers or such.

I'm going on the assumption that the typical family has only one home router.

[WolfEisberg]

Quint the Alligator Snapper eredeti hozzászólása:

Crazy Tiger eredeti hozzászólása:

What would be the point of an IP-check? Take the example of my coworker, he family shares his account with his daughter who lives with his ex. They live in different cities (though he'll be moving closer next year). They have dynamic IPs. An IP-check wouldn't actually do much in that.

An IP check would unfortunately inconvenience them, because they live in different places, though not because they have dynamic IPs, unless they have multiple different home routers or such.

I'm going on the assumption that the typical family has only one home router.

Yeah, they could do one game at a time when on different network, but multiple games at one time when on same network.

[Brian9824]

Jessie eredeti hozzászólása:

brian9824 eredeti hozzászólása:

Do you have a solution so that 10,20,30 friends don't just all share their accounts and cost Steam and the Developers billions in sales?

Solution to abuse is to restrict the number of accounts that can access family sharing, and have a very long cool-down on changes to it (removing access from one account does not free up the sharing slot for x days/weeks/years)

1 Game purchase / key should be playable from any shared account simultaneously.
My physical games are not restricted like that - if I buy 5 physical games, I can run them all at the same time on different machines.

We purchase a license to play the game, so the license to play should not be restricted - we should also be able to re-sell the license if we wish.

(Yes I know that is not how it *currently* works)

That doesn't stop the issue at all, people already set up gameshare groups and they will do so.

Gwyn eredeti hozzászólása:

brian9824 eredeti hozzászólása:

Do you have a solution so that 10,20,30 friends don't just all share their accounts and cost Steam and the Developers billions in sales?

Do you know how Steam Family Library works? It's restricted to your household and is limited (5 people max IIRC). So... unless all those friends live in the same house, that wouldn't happen.

Yes I do, but apparently you don't as there is no restriction to your houeshold......

[endrsgm]

I started diversifying from steam with family games and I'm now buying them from the Microsoft store.

games purchased at the Microsoft store let up to 5 accounts play the same game at the same time on pc and/or xbox. no restrictions.
I can play a game on my pc and my daughter join in on multiplayer through her pc while my wife plays a different game or same on single player on an xbox and my son plays the same or a different game multiplayer with his friends who also own the game.

THAT'S family sharing and how it is supposed to be.

its ironic how many have the Stockholm syndrome on steam and are literally arguing for less flexibility and less options as being better for everyone, including themselves.

[Crashed]

Eisberg eredeti hozzászólása:

I don't know about Sony/MS, but Nintendo allows multiple switches on an account to play multiple games at the same time, all online. Oculus Quest accounts allow this as well, heck, they allow playing the same games at the same time on multiple headsets from the same account.

These 2 companies aren't worried about "losing" money, no reason for Valve to be.

But if they really want to be that paranoid, then they can use technologies that detect VPNs and block them, and then allow multiple games to be played from the same account at the same time when being played on the same network.

When you say detecting VPNs do you mean the PC is connected to a known VPN or that the other "LAN" IP is on a mismatched subnet?

[Gwyn]

brian9824 eredeti hozzászólása:

The fact is the CURRENT family share with all its restrictions is so widely abused its not even funny.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cyberpunk-2077-PC-Steam-Offline-Account-Instant-Delivery/383903587188?hash=item59626fdb74:g:2okAAOSwRFlf-127

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Football-Manager-2021-FM21-Editor-Included-Steam-Offline/402696477067?hash=item5dc294998b:g:unAAAOSwkwFgK-Fy

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nba-2k21-PC-STEAM-Offline-All-Regions-Instant-Delivery/303876122872?hash=item46c06da8f8:g:PrMAAOSwSoVgFCSX

Funny, all of those have to do with offline mode, not family library.

You can't use the family library in offline mode.

[Gwyn]

endrsgm eredeti hozzászólása:

I started diversifying from steam with family games and I'm now buying them from the Microsoft store.

games purchased at the Microsoft store let up to 5 accounts play the same game at the same time on pc and/or xbox. no restrictions.
I can play a game on my pc and my daughter join in on multiplayer through her pc while my wife plays a different game or same on single player on an xbox and my son plays the same or a different game multiplayer with his friends who also own the game.

THAT'S family sharing and how it is supposed to be.

its ironic how many have the Stockholm syndrome on steam and are literally arguing for less flexibility and less options as being better for everyone, including themselves.

I've been a long-time Steam user, but you're right. Perhaps I need to start looking into Epic Games and the other competing options at this point.

[Crazy Tiger]

Gwyn eredeti hozzászólása:

brian9824 eredeti hozzászólása:

The fact is the CURRENT family share with all its restrictions is so widely abused its not even funny.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cyberpunk-2077-PC-Steam-Offline-Account-Instant-Delivery/383903587188?hash=item59626fdb74:g:2okAAOSwRFlf-127

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Football-Manager-2021-FM21-Editor-Included-Steam-Offline/402696477067?hash=item5dc294998b:g:unAAAOSwkwFgK-Fy

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Nba-2k21-PC-STEAM-Offline-All-Regions-Instant-Delivery/303876122872?hash=item46c06da8f8:g:PrMAAOSwSoVgFCSX

Funny, all of those have to do with offline mode, not family library.

You can't use the family library in offline mode.

Yes it does. The main account, which owns the library, has to be in offline mode. The account that is being shared to has to be online due to verifying that they're allowed to access the other library.

It's a standard workaround for family sharing, so 2 people can access the library at the same time.

[Gwyn]

Crazy Tiger eredeti hozzászólása:

Gwyn eredeti hozzászólása:

Funny, all of those have to do with offline mode, not family library.

You can't use the family library in offline mode.

Yes it does. The main account, which owns the library, has to be in offline mode. The account that is being shared to has to be online due to verifying that they're allowed to access the other library.

It's a standard workaround for family sharing, so 2 people can access the library at the same time.

Offline mode as a way to share a library is nothing new and is independent of Family Library.

I'm literally asking for a way for people to share my library while *online*.

[cinedine]

The only time it doesn't work is when everyone wants to access the same library.
Either they have to learn to compromise (not different than only one PC or console available) or if they are old enough they should have their own Steam account already.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

endrsgm eredeti hozzászólása:

I started diversifying from steam with family games and I'm now buying them from the Microsoft store.

games purchased at the Microsoft store let up to 5 accounts play the same game at the same time on pc and/or xbox. no restrictions.
I can play a game on my pc and my daughter join in on multiplayer through her pc while my wife plays a different game or same on single player on an xbox and my son plays the same or a different game multiplayer with his friends who also own the game.

THAT'S family sharing and how it is supposed to be.

its ironic how many have the Stockholm syndrome on steam and are literally arguing for less flexibility and less options as being better for everyone, including themselves.

Agreed.

There was another thread, about the ability to play games without need to wait for pending updates, where some other users were arguing against it by saying that it just can't be done, but someone mentioned that other companies, even ones that aren't DRM-free, can do that.

Obviously DRM-free games don't cause this kind of hassle, but does anyone here know whether Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, Epic, etc. have better family-sharing innovations?

[Crazy Tiger]

Gwyn eredeti hozzászólása:

Crazy Tiger eredeti hozzászólása:

Yes it does. The main account, which owns the library, has to be in offline mode. The account that is being shared to has to be online due to verifying that they're allowed to access the other library.

It's a standard workaround for family sharing, so 2 people can access the library at the same time.

Offline mode as a way to share a library is nothing new and is independent of Family Library.

I'm literally asking for a way for people to share my library while *online*.

You're not understanding. You said the links Brian posted don't have to do with Family sharing. They do, those are family shared accounts being sold.

[Nx Machina]

Quint the Alligator Snapper eredeti hozzászólása:

Obviously DRM-free games don't cause this kind of hassle, but does anyone here know whether Origin, Uplay, Battle.net, Epic, etc. have better family-sharing innovations?

DRM-free games have a personal use only licence, not a family share option or are you advocating piracy?

Family sharing on Origin, Uplay, Battlenet, Epic - NO.