Allow multiple execution of multiplayer/coop games

[Flori the Fox]

Hi there. I thought I'd find more suggestions like those, or maybe I ain't searched hard enough. Anyway, Steam has improved in many many ways over the last years, and I think especially streaming and the family mode are great ideas. I just got one suggestion to add. I often have friends coming over and we try to play some games together - on my hardware so they don't have to bring their own. We recently played Trine 1 and 2 in coop on the same machine, and it was great fun. Less fun is that most coop/multiplayer games require more than 1 PC, and even though I got 3 gaming PCs at home, I can only use one at the time to execute games like Age of Empires or Terraria with my own account.

And here is my suggestion: At least for multiplayer games, Steam could allow the execution of the same game of the same Steam account within the same IP network - lets say - 4 times.

This way you could have friends over to play multiplayer titles without requiring them to have their steam account activated on your PC, and without requiring them all to own a copy of the game.

Is there a chance for this to come?

[4D 69 72 65 6B]

Forget it....since there are VPN systems, this feature would be a selfkill for steam.

[Flori the Fox]

I don't know.. the same'd go for the family mode, too, right? It simultanously lets you play more than one game from the same account too, as long as those are "different" games. Only that for my multiplayer request you'd register up to 4 of your own PC's to steam so that you can simultanously execute the same multiplayer game of your own account up to 4 times. I think that's not that spectaculary different from what we already have in the family mode.

[4D 69 72 65 6B]

That is where you are wrong. You can't play a game, if anyone from your family is playing a game through your account. This person will be kicked out of the game after 5 minutes, if the owner of the account starts a game. It is not even possible to start a game from two different accounts, even if the owner is offline.

Imagine it that way. Steam works like a cloud. If anyone access the cloud, than noone else can access it. Just the owner of the cloud can access the cloud and kick out others that way. That is how the family mode works.

[Flori the Fox]

Shucks, you are right. I got that wrong with the family mode. Still my prayers go up to the Steam Cloud for Valve to find a solution for this xD

[Ray]

That would be not fair for steam, but also not fair for us XD. sad.