Steam Families isn't very well thought out

[Stella Veritas]

Or maybe it's intentionally engineered to be as unfriendly as they can reasonably can get away with.

I have to say, as both a PC gamer and a Steam customer for over a decade, I'm really disappointed by the new Steam Families feature. There's really only 1-2 upgrades with the rest of the system being straight up worse.

Family sharing a bit more user-friendly this time around. The account-based access instead of being limited to 10 specific devices? The smoother process for authorizing sharing is smooth and an outright upgrade compared to the clunky old process that you had to do every few months because Steam decided to freak out. Also you had to do it every time your friends or family got a new computer, or something like the Steam.

And locking only the games actually being shared rather than the entire library of the user it's borrowed from is a major upgrade. That might be the most requested upgrade over the last system, sans maybe sharing the exact same copy of the same game at the same time. Although that feature sounds like it would have been the most logical in the system they're pushing for.

If that's all they changed, this update would be universally praised. Unfortunately, there are bad parts too.

Let's just get this out of the way, even in the scenario where we're all using the new system as Valve "intended", there's quite a few problems with how it's structured.

Personally, I would prefer being able to share my games with any five people I chose, and preferably one way if necessary, as not everyone has games everyone else is interested in playing or even a library to borrow from. But even any five mutuals is fine really if Valve can't be bothered to do what they did a decade ago.

Being confined to a six person group, isn't ideal, but it's not bad. It's just mediocre. Unfortunately, how it's implemented seems intentional and laughably bad, and ironically it could more or less have been avoided if they didn't restrict it to a group.

First, if someone else is playing your game, you're just locked out of it. You can no longer kick someone off if you own it. Why? I know they're not locking you out of the entire library anymore, so it's not exactly 1:1, but why remove the functionality? Valve's suggested solution is to walk over to them (implying you're in the same house like they emphasize they really really want) and ask for them to get off so you can get on. Ok, what if they're on a laptop or the steam deck and not at home? Oops, I guess they didn't think about that. Or maybe they just don't care.

What if someone is AFK from the game and it's just sitting there, or what if someone is doing it intentionally so you can't play the one game you've been looking forward to getting into. Too bad, I guess you should have picked better family.

Which brings me to an even bigger issue. Anyone in your Steam Family can just kick anyone else out, or even delete the group. People do stupid things sometimes when they're feeling vindictive, and then you'll have to suffer with that for up to a year because Valve decided that a year was the only reasonable time frame they could allow for without people abusing it.

Oh, but they won't be able to do those things if they're set to a child account. If you treat the adult accounts like admin users and child users like non-admins, that'd surely fix the problem? Sort of, except then it also allows for them to enact parental controls on those accounts, and it doesn't address the fundamental flaw that there's always going to be a power imbalance in the current solution.

It seems Valve is absolving all responsibility from themselves and wants their users to figure it out amongst themselves because they hope it will cut down on non-families sharing I guess? I guess the cynical explanation is that they want to make it as painful as possible so we all avoid it and buy more individual licenses while forgoing the whole sharing thing. Because I guess it's a privilege Steam users even get a feature like this in the first place, and we should all be grateful to have anything at all.

Yes, there are people getting use out of it, and I'm happy for them. But then there's a ton of people praising the new changes while ignoring the guidelines and sharing amongst their six groups of friends that reside within the same country, because we obviously needed a region lock after ten years. Those few people buying keys in Brazil with their alt was really worth hurting all of the legitimate users. I'm sure it'll show them when they go to key sellers and just continue to buy it for cheap, or maybe they'll find other ways of playing those games.

PS: No hate to the Valve programmers, developers, and other staff that are just doing their jobs developing these features and keeping the site and service up and running. You guys are awesome, and it's nothing personal.

[Ash]

+1000. This is a bundle of restrictions masquerading as a "feature."

[Octaniko]

+1

[metalsamba]

+1

[vapula]

1) it's FAMILY sharing... And it's not mandatory.
So, if you're in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ family, just keep your games for yourself and you won't be locked out. It's meant to be used among people living together, not to share games between friends.

2) Any adult can kick you out... well, you are both adults, manage it as adults.
I'll remind you that you're meant to be responsible for what your spouse does in many aspects... You don't whine at Credit Cards companies and other for their rules and the action of these may have a much greater impact.

Your complain looks like you're sad to not be abusing FAMILY-sharing as a friend-sharing instead.

If you don't feel right with that system, you're free to not use it and buy the games in your library.

[Octaniko]

Originally posted by vapula:

1) it's FAMILY sharing... And it's not mandatory.
So, if you're in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ family, just keep your games for yourself and you won't be locked out. It's meant to be used among people living together, not to share games between friends.

2) Any adult can kick you out... well, you are both adults, manage it as adults.
I'll remind you that you're meant to be responsible for what your spouse does in many aspects... You don't whine at Credit Cards companies and other for their rules and the action of these may have a much greater impact.

Your complain looks like you're sad to not be abusing FAMILY-sharing as a friend-sharing instead.

If you don't feel right with that system, you're free to not use it and buy the games in your library.

Companies get away with restrictions and anti-consumer practices because of people like you

[Pua]

Originally posted by vapula:

1) it's FAMILY sharing... And it's not mandatory.
So, if you're in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ family, just keep your games for yourself and you won't be locked out. It's meant to be used among people living together, not to share games between friends.

2) Any adult can kick you out... well, you are both adults, manage it as adults.
I'll remind you that you're meant to be responsible for what your spouse does in many aspects... You don't whine at Credit Cards companies and other for their rules and the action of these may have a much greater impact.

Your complain looks like you're sad to not be abusing FAMILY-sharing as a friend-sharing instead.

If you don't feel right with that system, you're free to not use it and buy the games in your library.

Exactly. In theory, you are only sharing games with your family.

If, like OP said, adults of a same family start doing vindictive or stupid things with your accounts, I think you are having bigger problems in your life that needs to solve before worrying about what games you can play.

If you are living with people you don't trust (♥♥♥♥ sometimes happens in life), just don't share your library. Simple as that.

[Stella Veritas]

Originally posted by vapula:

1) it's FAMILY sharing... And it's not mandatory.
So, if you're in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ family, just keep your games for yourself and you won't be locked out. It's meant to be used among people living together, not to share games between friends.

2) Any adult can kick you out... well, you are both adults, manage it as adults.
I'll remind you that you're meant to be responsible for what your spouse does in many aspects... You don't whine at Credit Cards companies and other for their rules and the action of these may have a much greater impact.

Your complain looks like you're sad to not be abusing FAMILY-sharing as a friend-sharing instead.

If you don't feel right with that system, you're free to not use it and buy the games in your library.

Originally posted by Pua:

Exactly. In theory, you are only sharing games with your family.

If, like OP said, adults of a same family start doing vindictive or stupid things with your accounts, I think you are having bigger problems in your life that needs to solve before worrying about what games you can play.

If you are living with people you don't trust (♥♥♥♥ sometimes happens in life), just don't share your library. Simple as that.

Family > Household members.

Let me tell you a story I know you won't care about since you guys just run to every thread to tell people they're wrong.

There was a point a couple years ago where I was living with someone else, and then two other people moved in at the same time. The first person and I were sharing games, and she's cool and we're still living together. The other two people were fine at first, I had no reason not to trust them. But living situations can change, and after a few months, they became extremely vindictive.

If Steam Families existed back then as it does now, they would have deleted the Steam Family just to be spiteful, and the one housemate I still live with, we would have been locked out of each other's libraries for up to a year for no reason at all.

[Pua]

Originally posted by Stella Veritas:

Originally posted by vapula:

1) it's FAMILY sharing... And it's not mandatory.
So, if you're in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ family, just keep your games for yourself and you won't be locked out. It's meant to be used among people living together, not to share games between friends.

2) Any adult can kick you out... well, you are both adults, manage it as adults.
I'll remind you that you're meant to be responsible for what your spouse does in many aspects... You don't whine at Credit Cards companies and other for their rules and the action of these may have a much greater impact.

Your complain looks like you're sad to not be abusing FAMILY-sharing as a friend-sharing instead.

If you don't feel right with that system, you're free to not use it and buy the games in your library.

Originally posted by Pua:

Exactly. In theory, you are only sharing games with your family.

If, like OP said, adults of a same family start doing vindictive or stupid things with your accounts, I think you are having bigger problems in your life that needs to solve before worrying about what games you can play.

If you are living with people you don't trust (♥♥♥♥ sometimes happens in life), just don't share your library. Simple as that.

Family > Household members.

Let me tell you a story I know you won't care about since you guys just run to every thread to tell people they're wrong.

There was a point a couple years ago where I was living with someone else, and then two other people moved in at the same time. The first person and I were sharing games, and she's cool and we're still living together. The other two people were fine at first, I had no reason not to trust them. But living situations can change, and after a few months, they became extremely vindictive.

If Steam Families existed back then as it does now, they would have deleted the Steam Family just to be spiteful, and the one housemate I still live with, we would have been locked out of each other's libraries for up to a year for no reason at all.

I could understand, I lived something similar many years ago. But that is not a common scenario that would happen to everyone or even more than once. A year of cooldown is something reasonable under those circumstances.

And personally, after having lived something like this, I would frankly never share my library with a roommate, like I wouldn't share my car or my mobile phone or things like that.

[Stella Veritas]

Originally posted by Pua:

I could understand, I lived something similar many years ago. But that is not a common scenario that would happen to everyone or even more than once. A year of cooldown is something reasonable under those circumstances.

And personally, after having lived something like this, I would frankly never share my library with a roommate, like I wouldn't share my car or my mobile phone or things like that.

The thing is, there should never be a need to kick someone from the family or a reason to delete the group. If there's problems, people should just leave on their own and start a new group. Or additionally/alternatively, people that were already in a family should be able to reform without a cooldown.

[super5aj123]

Originally posted by Stella Veritas:

Originally posted by Pua:

I could understand, I lived something similar many years ago. But that is not a common scenario that would happen to everyone or even more than once. A year of cooldown is something reasonable under those circumstances.

And personally, after having lived something like this, I would frankly never share my library with a roommate, like I wouldn't share my car or my mobile phone or things like that.

The thing is, there should never be a need to kick someone from the family or a reason to delete the group. If there's problems, people should just leave on their own and start a new group. Or additionally/alternatively, people that were already in a family should be able to reform without a cooldown.

I'm pretty sure that people can already rejoin families they were in without waiting for the cooldown. Not sure how that would work if the entire family is deleted though, that would be more of a question for support (or someone willing to risk getting the cooldown, lol).

[Stella Veritas]

Originally posted by super5aj123:

Originally posted by Stella Veritas:

The thing is, there should never be a need to kick someone from the family or a reason to delete the group. If there's problems, people should just leave on their own and start a new group. Or additionally/alternatively, people that were already in a family should be able to reform without a cooldown.

I'm pretty sure that people can already rejoin families they were in without waiting for the cooldown. Not sure how that would work if the entire family is deleted though, that would be more of a question for support (or someone willing to risk getting the cooldown, lol).

People can rejoin, but only if the family accepts it. If you and one or more other people get kicked, you can't start a new group even amongst those people. If the group is deleted, then you all get locked out of families till the cooldown is over, you can't restore the group or create a new family with the same members.

[76561199015739176]

Originally posted by Ash:

+1000. This is a bundle of restrictions masquerading as a "feature."

<3

crusade against pirates, but called an "update". like nuking entire city, to root out some freedom fighters, all in a name of peace and freedom.

i wonder why steam decided to invest in this "feature" now? did they notice dip in sales and attributed it to growing piracy? when online service starts to be worried about money it is never a good sign...

all is left is to vote with wallets.

[JBlackCZ]

Here comes the Second Great Pirate Era!

[CRASHARKI]

Originally posted by ash2x3:

+1000. This is a bundle of restrictions masquerading as a "feature."

This, +1000

[Leo]

Well said.