Steam Families Beta: Owner priority and offline library lock

[GamerLore007]

I was testing the families beta with a family member and when they borrowed a game, I as the game's owner was unable to play the game or kick the borrowing family member unlike the current library sharing. The play button was just greyed out. I think the game owner should have the option to play the game they purchased even if it requires the borrowing family member to get the 5 min warning that the current sharing has. The person borrowing from me had the child role so at the very least I recommend letting game owners be able to play their games normally when a child is borrowing the game.

In addition, that grey play button was still locked when steam was put into offline mode. The child left the game while my steam was offline but it still showed as them borrowing the game and not letting me launch the game while offline. I think that single player games should be able to be launched offline by the owner when someone especially a child is borrowing the game online like in the current system.

[armedpoop]

This answers the question I had: which was that if you own a game it just gets "added to the pile" essentially. Meaning that if 2 of the 6 people in the family own the same game, only 2 copies of it can ever be running among those 6 people regardless of who actually owns it. They really should allow owners to kick people off of the game if they want to play it, boot off whoever is playing your copy of the game.

[Ringlet]

Totally agree. Owner priority should be a thing.

This happens to me and my friend as well. But in our case, my friend owns the game and I'm the one borrowing his. He told me he could not access his game the past few days (the button was greyed out). Yup, no wonder, it was me who was robbing his session the whole time. And now I'm feeling really bad about it. Since he always has a heart to share any new releases to me.

[Aubrey]

I agree.
Wish they give us a button that says "Want to play" rather than only having play button greyed out. Then notify the current player that there are other people that would like to play the game.

[Diamondlp2003]

I was so confused about this at first, because in the old game sharing system you would have 5 minutes until the game closed for the Borrower and for them to be able to save their game in that time. It would be nice to at least have an option available to say "Hey this game should have priority access for the Owner" or something like that for favorite games or something. It feels rather weird that I can block my sister from playing her games and the other way around despite having paid for the game.

[S3id]

I have run into this also, this need to be fixed asap.

[Naruto]

Steam, please fix this asap. I am really stuck here.

[xNorbee]

Why the ♥♥♥♥ is this even still a thing...

[Gryxx]

I agree that there should be a way to stop non-owners from hoarding the game.