Simultaneous Account Login/ Sub accounts/ Game Transfer

[Maccas]

This post seems to be missing. Can someone from Steam reply?

Dear Steam,

I now have multiple PC's at home for me and my kids, and we have a library of over 40 games on Steam that we all play. Unfortunately, your system will not allow more than 1 PC to login to Steam at a time using the same account where all the games are. You will also not let me transfer games to another steam account if I was to create one.

I only want to have one system able to access a game on one computer and have another family member access another game on another computer at the same time. I am told that the only way to do this is to have one system go "off line", however, most of the games require on line access to play.

I have paid a lot of money for each of these games and it appears that the only reason I cannot use the licence and the hardware I have payed for is that Steam have this issue with their system.

Surely it is a techically possible to allow simlutanious logins or even sub accounts as long as the instances of an individual game running is less than or equal to the number of licences owned. This would also allow you to sell multiple licences of the same game to the same account so that my kids can play each other? Before Steam, and in non Steam games this is a simple matter. With Steam dependent games this is impossible unless you want to create and manage multiple accounts that can not transfer licences at a later date.

Is there any chance of this being rectified or is this just the way it is? If so I will have to make sure I only purchase non Steam linked games for the PC in future and if there is a title that we still want then the PS3 version will have to do. At least I can trade those games in at a later date.

Frustrated customer,
TMac

[Fact_Sphere]

One account has one owner. You need one account per person. Your account is not meant to be shared.

Also, multi-logins could be abused.

Also companies would consider those playing on a multi-accessed account as a lost sale.

Your idea will never happen... and if there were multiple logins you surly wouldn't be allowed to play more than one game on several different logins.

The amount you have spent doesn't mean that Valve have to entertain your idea.

[ChrisW]

What you want is a cyber-cafe license.

[Maccas]

How abused? Again - a multi access account would not allow more instances to be running of a given game than licenses purchased, therfore, more sales. One account would effectively buy two licences if they want to have two instances running at the same time.

I just want to play one game on one system and another on another system to stop the kids fighting. I can do that now as long as one of the games is not on Steam. I would have thought Steam would want to remove any issue that would restrict their sales.

I am curious how the internet cafe's handle this, as they have multiple systems to manage one owner, and multiple instance of the same game running on different systems.

Customer feedback should always be valued by a company.

[Maccas]

LOL. Chris is psycic!

Is there such a thing? Can families buy a version of that model?

[Fact_Sphere]

I don't believe it would make them sales. At all. People would just share their Steam account leading to lost sales... rather than the second person buying their OWN copy of a game.

[Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel]

Originally posted by ^1^4MCA^1^4TMac:

LOL. Chris is psycic!

Is there such a thing? Can families buy a version of that model?

I can tell you now, it's not worth it.

[Maccas]

Originally posted by CPoG Vulpine Vixen:

I don't believe it would make them sales. At all. People would just share their Steam account leading to lost sales... rather than the second person buying their OWN copy of a game.

I am coming at this from a family perspective and sub accounts could be heavily limited and linked to the external IP address. Again, more sales if the kids want to play against each other.

[Fact_Sphere]

Originally posted by ^1^4MCA^1^4TMac:

Originally posted by CPoG Vulpine Vixen:

I don't believe it would make them sales. At all. People would just share their Steam account leading to lost sales... rather than the second person buying their OWN copy of a game.

I am coming at this from a family perspective and sub accounts could be heavily limited and linked to the external IP address. Again, more sales if the kids want to play against each other.

My partner has 2 accounts on one email address. It means you can't win any compatitions but it means you have access to the account than your children. I am sure an email address is the last thing you want them to have if they're young.

It does mean that you'd have to buy certain games again... though. It would mean that you could friend the second account and see what they're playing etc and talk to them.

I am not sure how my partner set up a second account but I do know it's possible.

It's not what you want, which I still don't think would work, but it may be the only middle ground you have right now.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by ^1^4MCA^1^4TMac:

I am coming at this from a family perspective and sub accounts could be heavily limited and linked to the external IP address. Again, more sales if the kids want to play against each other.

IP limiting is as unreliable as it can be.
Besides that, Steam cannot tell who is using the account. A household of 4 members would be the same from Steam perspective than a CiberCafe with 4 machines running the same license on 4 different machines and making money from it.

[Maccas]

Originally posted by CPoG Vulpine Vixen:

Originally posted by ^1^4MCA^1^4TMac:

Originally posted by CPoG Vulpine Vixen:

I don't believe it would make them sales. At all. People would just share their Steam account leading to lost sales... rather than the second person buying their OWN copy of a game.

I am coming at this from a family perspective and sub accounts could be heavily limited and linked to the external IP address. Again, more sales if the kids want to play against each other.

My partner has 2 accounts on one email address. It means you can't win any compatitions but it means you have access to the account than your children. I am sure an email address is the last thing you want them to have if they're young.

It does mean that you'd have to buy certain games again... though. It would mean that you could friend the second account and see what they're playing etc and talk to them.

I am not sure how my partner set up a second account but I do know it's possible.

It's not what you want, which I still don't think would work, but it may be the only middle ground you have right now.

That could be a good way to do it if they could allow transfer of a game between accounts on the same email address. I could put half the games on one (say the ones suitable for the 8 year old) and we could have the older boys playing theirs on the second account at the same time. It is the combination of non transferable and only one login at a time that is annoying.

As you say...

it may be the only middle ground you have right now.

[DarwinAce]

i can see where you're coming from 4MCA (are you some kind of robot or somthing with a name like that?)

i just have several steam accounts.. what i hate, is that whenever i want to buy a game that doesn't have that 4pack deal, i have to buy once, and again, and again, and again, for each copy of the game that i get. would be nice to have a "buy more than 1" discount and being able to buy 8 at a time or something...

now. for the child accounts, i've never understood why steam won't let you transfer your old games into other accounts... that's as bs as the fact that you can't get a bundle without losing all those games you already have. no idea why this is like that... i'd love to transfer my extras to the other accounts for online play.

Now, what you describe with your kids fighting over the game can be done with offline mode, unles the game requires you to be online, you can even play the same game on both computers as long as it's not online, with the same account... or at least you could a while ago.

[DarwinAce]

yea, still works, i used to do this when i had one account, load the game on my girlfriends computer, go offline, run the game, and i'm off to my own pc online to play whatever i wanted...

the only thing is, it works only on games that don't require internet connectivity, or solo play.

[gardian06]

Originally posted by DarwinAce:

i can see where you're coming from 4MCA (are you some kind of robot or somthing with a name like that?)

i just have several steam accounts.. what i hate, is that whenever i want to buy a game that doesn't have that 4pack deal, i have to buy once, and again, and again, and again, for each copy of the game that i get. would be nice to have a "buy more than 1" discount and being able to buy 8 at a time or something...

now. for the child accounts, i've never understood why steam won't let you transfer your old games into other accounts... that's as bs as the fact that you can't get a bundle without losing all those games you already have. no idea why this is like that... i'd love to transfer my extras to the other accounts for online play.

Now, what you describe with your kids fighting over the game can be done with offline mode, unles the game requires you to be online, you can even play the same game on both computers as long as it's not online, with the same account... or at least you could a while ago.

because by Valve is a business, and by allowing for things like transfers/trades 1st it devalues the games being moved (potentially to a great degree), and 2nd it lowers the amount of sales that Valve receives profit from, and other business points that you probably wont even want to read as you are probably already thinking about how to yell at me.

[DarwinAce]

i understand how the trade could affect the game value, yet, valve doesn't stop from getting their profit when they sell a pack that includes games that you already own, the only one losing there is us... if you didn't had the game before, you're still buying it.

4MCA's problem is usually easily avoided with offline mode, unless they want to play something online, in which case i suggest just buying the game in another account... it's what i do, and what most people do i think..

for example... i'm DYING to buy tha THQ deal at 30 bucks or so, it has so many games that i want for my collection, but i'll be losing like 5 games that i would LOVE send to my other accounts because they are multiplayer games, like titan's quest, company of heroes, warhammer.... the deal is so great, that i'm tempted just to buy it for my other account and store the other games there, but i don't want to split my collection, it sucks.

[Savage]

All With new 2013!!! I drunk, but...