Family Sharing is Broken as it stands.

[Gearshock]

I'd like to make a feature request.
Allow more than one game from a single library to be played at once.

As it is built "family sharing" makes zero sense unless involved family members have completely different schedules.

I can get not allowing multiple people on a single game at a time due to restrictions from publishers. It sucks, but I can at least understand.

But why can't my wife play a game on the steam deck in our room, while I am at my computer playing a different game with my friends in the evening?
Or why can't my 3 kids each play different games on different devices from each other while I play Doom on my main PC?

I have hundreds of games on Steam. Why can't we all play something individually from that massive library? It really sucks not being able to actually share anything. A library with one patron isn't much of a library.

[Zarineth]

Because it's not meant to be used by multiple people at one time and never were. It works as intended.

[FFL2and3rocks]

Because they don't want you to tell people "My account has lots of games, pay me this much money over Paypal and I'll share my library with you!"

[Slav Mcgopnik]

Because under your system, people would just rent out their family sharing access and use it to sell off games secondhand, effectively.

It’s meant to allow you to share access to a game with a trusted individual or your family, not act as a rental library.

[Tito Shivan]

Family sharing was basically built so dad can let little Tim use his account without worrying about using the stored CC, or messing with his CSGO knife inventory.

[AROCK!!!]

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks:

Because they don't want you to tell people "My account has lots of games, pay me this much money over Paypal and I'll share my library with you!"

Which is something that can still be done.

People rent and sell accounts every day. STEAM'S family sharing as it is now is no different than DRM, it affects honest people more than anyone else.

[Ducks on Fire]

Originally posted by ÁROCK!!!:

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks:

Because they don't want you to tell people "My account has lots of games, pay me this much money over Paypal and I'll share my library with you!"

Which is something that can still be done.

People rent and sell accounts every day. STEAM'S family sharing as it is now is no different than DRM, it affects honest people more than anyone else.

The entire point of Steam is DRM. Family sharing is a way for someone to allow access to their account by their family members since it's against the ToS to have multiple people logging into the same account. Even if Valve did change the way it worked they likely aren't going to take away publisher's rights to opt in or out so it's likely a change like this would see less games even available for family share.

Plus just because a system doesn't entirely prevent something doesn't mean it should be done away with completely. As it is now if you want to sell or rent an account out you need to set up an account, buy games for it, and then allow access to another person and you'd have to do that with each person you sell/rent to. Under OP's proposed system you only need a single account and you can rent out to multiple people. It makes doing such things far easier and more cost effective.

[vanishedchief2021]

If you are playing a game in offline mode on the steam deck can someone still play a game on the PC using family share if not then this feature it's pointless.

[Crazy Tiger]

It's not broken, OP, it just doesn't work per your convenience. Which is fine (both how it works and what you think of it).

People being people and abusing such things is why I see Valve removing family sharing much sooner than opening it up further. Family sharing of other services (not just gaming) that are more lenient all have renting rings in the area, I can fully understand why some of those services are looking at ways to restrict things more.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by ÁROCK!!!:

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks:

Because they don't want you to tell people "My account has lots of games, pay me this much money over Paypal and I'll share my library with you!"

Which is something that can still be done.

People rent and sell accounts every day. STEAM'S family sharing as it is now is no different than DRM, it affects honest people more than anyone else.

It doesn't effect anyone at all since the alternatives are family sharing as is, or no family sharing at all.

Just because people break the rules doesn't mean you make it EASIER for them to break the rules with renting and selling accounts. That justification is just ridiculous. Oh people already speed, so just do away with speed limits since some people ignore them anyways

[AROCK!!!]

Originally posted by Ducks on Fire:

Originally posted by ÁROCK!!!:

Which is something that can still be done.

People rent and sell accounts every day. STEAM'S family sharing as it is now is no different than DRM, it affects honest people more than anyone else.

The entire point of Steam is DRM. Family sharing is a way for someone to allow access to their account by their family members since it's against the ToS to have multiple people logging into the same account. Even if Valve did change the way it worked they likely aren't going to take away publisher's rights to opt in or out so it's likely a change like this would see less games even available for family share.

Plus just because a system doesn't entirely prevent something doesn't mean it should be done away with completely. As it is now if you want to sell or rent an account out you need to set up an account, buy games for it, and then allow access to another person and you'd have to do that with each person you sell/rent to. Under OP's proposed system you only need a single account and you can rent out to multiple people. It makes doing such things far easier and more cost effective.

When you actually look at it, and think, you quickly come to the conclusion that all these reasons why "not" are all BS.

With PlayStation a friend or family member can play one of my games while I'm playing, in fact, they can play the exact same game at the same time, and those games are made by the same developers and studios as the games here.

If I play a game on my STEAM account, and after an hour log off and my family member then uses FS to play games from my account, the end result is the same, period.


stop regurgitating worn out and debunked arguments in defense of billion dollar corporations and developers/studios.


And BTW, using DRM to milk users and developers for money is the entire point of STEAM

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by ÁROCK!!!:

Originally posted by Ducks on Fire:

The entire point of Steam is DRM. Family sharing is a way for someone to allow access to their account by their family members since it's against the ToS to have multiple people logging into the same account. Even if Valve did change the way it worked they likely aren't going to take away publisher's rights to opt in or out so it's likely a change like this would see less games even available for family share.

Plus just because a system doesn't entirely prevent something doesn't mean it should be done away with completely. As it is now if you want to sell or rent an account out you need to set up an account, buy games for it, and then allow access to another person and you'd have to do that with each person you sell/rent to. Under OP's proposed system you only need a single account and you can rent out to multiple people. It makes doing such things far easier and more cost effective.

When you actually look at it, and think, you quickly come to the conclusion that all these reasons why "not" are all BS.

With PlayStation a friend or family member can play one of my games while I'm playing, in fact, they can play the exact same game at the same time, and those games are made by the same developers and studios as the games here.

If I play a game on my STEAM account, and after an hour log off and my family member then uses FS to play games from my account, the end result is the same, period.


stop regurgitating worn out and debunked arguments in defense of billion dollar corporations and developers/studios.


And BTW, using DRM to milk users and developers for money is the entire point of STEAM

Not really, you just don't understand the market. If a developer balks at Sony's stance, they have no options. If they want to release on Playstation they HAVE to abide by Sony's stance or lose out on the entire market.

Steam doesn't have that power, if Steam tried that they could release on EPIC, GOG, Microsoft or another store, and not lose out on the PC market. It's not a closed ecosystem like consoles, so Steam doesn't have the ability to do what the console manufacturers can.

[Gearshock]

I mean one way to restrict it to avoided rent rings might be to stipulate a single public IP. I can think of ways around that, but I don't know that things would be any worse than now if rent rings are the concern. I just want to play games at the same time as my kids from my library. If I have to have the same public IP and accept access via an MFA push or MFA Code at the start I wouldn't care. Hell, have the stipulation that the push device be at the same IP too and no more than 5-6 people at a time. It just seems to me that the much brighter people at Valve could figure a system that, if not perfect would at least be as good as we have now, but with a better, more useful feature set.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Gearshock:

I mean one way to restrict it to avoided rent rings might be to stipulate a single public IP. I can think of ways around that, but I don't know that things would be any worse than now if rent rings are the concern. I just want to play games at the same time as my kids from my library. If I have to have the same public IP and accept access via an MFA push or MFA Code at the start I wouldn't care. Hell, have the stipulation that the push device be at the same IP too and no more than 5-6 people at a time. It just seems to me that the much brighter people at Valve could figure a system that, if not perfect would at least be as good as we have now, but with a better, more useful feature set.

IP's don't work, they change constantly just by unplugging your router or by your ISP pushing a new one

[_@N+0n_n3trUnnER_]

Family sharing implicitely meant to be inconvenient enough to motivate you to buy games on different accounts.

However on your main account you can go offline and play any games, and some other account with family sharing will have a free slot for playing that way.