Link Multiple Accounts for Family Sharing and Multiple Licenses for home PCs

[DarwinAce]

There`s various ways to get this done from a zero starting point, but considering the already in place structure of all the existing accounts, there´s various restrictions that we must workaround in order for steam to even consider doing something to help people who juggle multiple accounts to play games at home.

i hope to get contributions in order to propose a solution that steam can consider and plan to develop into the system.

Linked Accounts:

I think one way to develop this concept into steam is using the already family sharing setup that´s in place for the system, it just needs some tweaking.

- Playing other family member´s account games:

I really don`t get why family sharing accounts can`t play other games that i´m not playing.. i can understand that we both can`t play the same game at the same time, but, if i buy games retail, my family should be able to play the games i´m not playing... its perfectly normal.

Linked accounts should be able to play games that i own as long as its not the same that i´m actively playing,

I understand this poses a threat to the current income potential of having to buy the game to your kid so he can play it while you play other stuff... but this could be solved with a "premium account fee" enabling a master account to share its games, and make them playable on a second, or third account... increasing the fee with increasing linked accounts.. Linked accounts are fixed, and cannot be changed until the end of the paid period.

- Buying games for multiple accounts:

I think this is where most people have troubles with... In my case, i have multiple accounts at home, i have 5 accounts, and i have to juggle games around all 5 accounts... gifting is easy, but when i buy bundles and activate games on my account, it becomes a nuisance since i don`t want to waste the key, and i want to associate it to a secondary account, and i have no real way to check if my accounts other than switching one after another, to finally notice in the end after 5 checks that i have the game in all the accounts.

Even gifting... i have to buy the game 5 times and gift it while going thru the whole buying process each time...

A linked account should have the option to buy the game for its linked accounts too... when adding to cart, an optional expanding link on the game could enable to select linked accounts to buy the game into, right into the same basket interface.... discounts for buying more than 1 could be offered, etc...

When activating a key, if the game is already in a linked accont´s library, it should offer the posibility to activate it into another account, pretty much the same interface shown in the basket, or a drop down menu, to choose an elegible account you can activate the game into,

on a side note, it would be great too if one could convert keys into steam items to store in our inventory, another way to keep and distribute games among multiple elegible accounts. Again, if this skips some kind of revenue system, i belive charging a small transaction fee of 0.1 or 0.2 to convert the key into a tradeable steam item could be perfectly acceptable.

- Alternate way to manage multiple licenses on a single account:

Users could be able to buy more than 1 license per game, in order to allow another player to launch the game simultaneously via family library sharing.

- Able to work with the current structure

This way, each account remain independent accounts, each with their own games, able to be integrated with the current account structure, unlinkable in the future, as this method is presented as a service rather than a feature, Achievements and save data remain on the former linked account the same way games with free weekend keep their data on its user´s library. It makes easy to have multiple accounts with the same game to play at home or at the office,

What does the communty think about something like this?

[lloyd094]

I agree with the family sharing part (didn't really read the rest - too tired). If we share games in a family, that's fine! But why block off the whole library when you are only playing one game? Think of it this way:

Say each member in my family has their own computer. If they want to play a game that I own, all they need to do is borrow the game - not my computer. Therein, why would they have to borrow my entire library just to play one game?

[MainframeMouse]

This tread will get locked soon.
Best have these discussions on the official SFS forum.

First off all the library lock doesn't stop abuse nor does it protect publishers. The industry flurished before Steam, and the console industry continues to do so. All valve needed to do is make it difficult to share with strangers, which they did.

[MainframeMouse]

If they wanted to increase the risk of stranger sharing they could, if they wanted to make it so different games could be played on the same network they could.

[MainframeMouse]

I should not have to pay extra, either through account fees or re-buying the game, to let my children play a game (whose license) I have paid for when an entirely different game is in use on a completely different computer.

[MainframeMouse]

I've given up on VALVe showing any kind of compassion or logic to this matter. I use valve when i can not get the game elsewhere, and when I do I'm now making a new account foreach game

[DarwinAce]

Update -

Alternate way to manage multiple licenses:

Users could be able to buy more than 1 license per game, in order to allow another player to launch the game simultaneously via family library sharing.

[spec24]

I'm just looking into this family sharing thing and this appears completely stupid. Sharing on my Xbox One is simple, as I have two of them. It doesn't matter if I'm playing on one of the Xbox's OR playing the exact same game as long as my family members play on the system that is considered the "home" xbox they can play ANY of the games, EVEN the same game I am playing AND we can both play online, together, at the same time!!! How difficult would this be for Valve to have a simliar setup with PC's?

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by DarwinAce:

Users could be able to buy more than 1 license per game, in order to allow another player to launch the game simultaneously via family library sharing.

Isn't that basically the same than buying the game again for the other account???

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

If they wanted to increase the risk of stranger sharing they could, if they wanted to make it so different games could be played on the same network they could.

'Network' is a very elastic term.
My home is a network with over a dozen devices.
A college dorm is also a network with hundreds upon hundreds of devices.
I can tunnel a connection so a computer across the globe works as part of my 'network' and you can't tell it apart.

Originally posted by spec24:

I'm just looking into this family sharing thing and this appears completely stupid. Sharing on my Xbox One is simple, as I have two of them.

There's a fundamental difference between consoles and PCs. Consoles are closed systems. They're fingerprinted and 'can't' be tampered. PCs on the other hand are open and the user (the one your trying to control from advising the system) is the very owner of the system you're supposed to work on.
Precisely, the openness and modalibility of PC as a platform is a bane in regards controlling the user. Same why dealing with cheaters on PC is so hard.

[MainframeMouse]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by DarwinAce:

Users could be able to buy more than 1 license per game, in order to allow another player to launch the game simultaneously via family library sharing.

Isn't that basically the same than buying the game again for the other account???

No, its more like having multiple seat licensing. A company doesn't buy MS Office for David, Tom and Harry, they buy 3 licenses.

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

If they wanted to increase the risk of stranger sharing they could, if they wanted to make it so different games could be played on the same network they could.

'Network' is a very elastic term.
My home is a network with over a dozen devices.
A college dorm is also a network with hundreds upon hundreds of devices.
I can tunnel a connection so a computer across the globe works as part of my 'network' and you can't tell it apart.

A college dorm would have a recognisable external IP. It most likely won't be a class C Subnet.
VALVe could easily get a simple topography of a network, the computers on it and the connection history of the computer. They already do most of it for In Home Streaming.
Simple peer to peer communication between steam Clients is all that is really needed. User A start user B's game Game_101. Steam checks with valves server, is User B's library being used? Yes. Next step, is User B active on this subnet? No, don't launch game, Yes Next Step. is User B playing Game_101, Yes don't launch game, No launch game.

As for tunneling. Basic computer to computer tunnels like himachi are easily detected either through the installed software or virtual devices they create. It is possible to VPN at router level, though someones entire internet will be limited to the others upstream. Some expensive commercial router do allow routing on a port basis. All that is moot, the level of trust and effort required to create and maintain such a VPN clearly displays the two parties are not Strangers.

[spec24]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by DarwinAce:

Users could be able to buy more than 1 license per game, in order to allow another player to launch the game simultaneously via family library sharing.

Isn't that basically the same than buying the game again for the other account???

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

If they wanted to increase the risk of stranger sharing they could, if they wanted to make it so different games could be played on the same network they could.

'Network' is a very elastic term.
My home is a network with over a dozen devices.
A college dorm is also a network with hundreds upon hundreds of devices.
I can tunnel a connection so a computer across the globe works as part of my 'network' and you can't tell it apart.

Originally posted by spec24:

I'm just looking into this family sharing thing and this appears completely stupid. Sharing on my Xbox One is simple, as I have two of them.

There's a fundamental difference between consoles and PCs. Consoles are closed systems. They're fingerprinted and 'can't' be tampered. PCs on the other hand are open and the user (the one your trying to control from advising the system) is the very owner of the system you're supposed to work on.
Precisely, the openness and modalibility of PC as a platform is a bane in regards controlling the user. Same why dealing with cheaters on PC is so hard.

I'm not convinced that the few people who have the know-how or the gumption to circumvent any possible protections Steam might implement is worth punishing/limiting the Steam gaming community as a whole.

[MainframeMouse]

Its not.
Creating a router based, port dependent VPN over a consumer broadband is tricky.
To do so, with low chance of VALVe noticing very difficult.

All this just for two close friends, because that what it would have to be to go into this amount of work, to share their games (something that was perfectly legal, and is now in a grey area).

No-one in their right mind would let a stranger have permanent access to their unprotected network.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by MainframeMouse:

No-one in their right mind would let a stranger have permanent access to their unprotected network.

People are already sharing their steam credentials and RAT'ing their computers across the globe for the sake of sharing some games with a Steam 'Friend' on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

Excuse me if i have less confidence in people's common sense than you seem to.

[MainframeMouse]

Giving your credentials out thinking you can just change your password afterward, or remote accessing not knowing what the other person can do is partly down to lack of knowledge and the rest is stupid greed, however its a single act of stupidity.

Setting up such a VPN system takes time and knowledge. Doing so with a stranger requires many steps of stupidity.

[DarwinAce]

i don´t know how we got here, the idea isn´t to trick the system... contrary, the idea is to ease the way on how a single account can share multiple licenses, just like the way one would if you buy them retail... you just hand them the DVD... or the license carrier, whatever that is.

surely there will be ways to trick it, still it´s easier to get games thru piracy than using tricks for steam to do it... one would start assuming the people who use steam, use it because they like keeping their games legit, and support the industry.

[MainframeMouse]

What I forhot to add to my earlier post was.

Why go through all the hastle and danger of using SFS over a VPN with a stranger to get free games, when simpler (though equally illegal) options exist.

Back on topic.

I would love consumer licensing to work like comercial licensing. I'd like to buy x licenses of this product on a per seat basis registered to me as the governing owner of purchased licenses.