News - Steam Family Sharing beta arrives next week

[HEXUS]

“Share your Steam library of games with close friends & family”.

Read more.

[sykobee]

This is a good feature, and the no playing at the same time makes it a good analogue for the physical medium lending mechanism (without all that walking hassle).

I hope this doesn't lead to higher prices, as being able to borrow a game will surely mean fewer game purchases?

[Noxvayl]

Regional restrictions are ridiculous but I'd rather have this compromise than not be able to share at all.

[cheesemp]

Great news. Now I can let my brother access my steam library without having to worry about being locked out of my account.

[Dooms]

Apart from being more secure there is no different between this family share and just giving your family / friends the login details to your steam account, in fact its not as open as its only certain games.

I'll be interested once you can 'lend' out any game in your library to someone else, it becomes unplayable for you until you claim it back or they are finished and give it back.

[scaryjim]

How frustrating, I've only just bought a second copy of Skyrim, now my stepson and I could've shared the one we already had *sigh*

Good idea from Steam though - we've got three Steam users in the house and this will benefit all of us.

[KrisWragg]

From what I read on steams website it is actually going to be a lot more restricted than made out in this article.

If you share your account with a family member then if they are playing one of your games you are locked out from playing ANY of your library, not just the game they are playing. You can kick them off to play a game but then they have no access to your library until you stop playing.

So really, its just like sharing your account but without giving your password to them.

Lots of ranting going on about it on steams website here:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/familysharing

To be honest this is a very small step in the right direction, but they should be a bit more clear about it and if I was lending a physical game / CD / DVD to a friend I wouldn't lend them my whole collection would I?

[Ferral]

I have been reading the threads in the Steam group and its a bit weird from what I can make out in the way they are implementing it, granted its only in beta stage and this is still speculation by quite a few users with nothing completely set in stone just yet.

Say I was playing Borderlands 2 and a friend or family are wanting to play say Farcry 2.

As soon as I start playing the game then the other person playing the completely different game gets kicked off. Only one game from your account can be active at once.

You can probably get around that restriction though with one of the game players going into offline mode, I should imagine it would have to be the account holder with all the games.

Have to wait and see how it is going to be done once out of beta, its a good thing if done right.

[jnutt]

I can see me and my son using this a lot. Great idea +1 Steam

[BiblicalShower]

As was said by Dooms, it is a little bit of a redundant service, as if it's a shared home machine, you could just give your family member your log in details, or save Steam to auto log in anyway. It only really matters to family members who REALLY care about getting their own achievements etc.

This would be just that little bit better if it allowed you allow someone in your friends list to access your games from a *different* machine. E.g. if I'm playing CS:GO and my brother hasn't got it, I can still allow him to access my games from his steam account on his computer, and jump into a couple of multiplayer games for a while.

[crossy]

This sounds like a fantastic idea - actually one I'd be content to have as a (paid for!) "Premium" feature ... just hope no-one from Valve is listening! One of the kids fancied a shot at SR3 the other day - with this they could do it without me having to buy another copy.

One question though - fairly obvious - is there anyway to short circuit the need for your relative to redownload that game over the net - e.g. backup the game to a USB drive and then restore it on their PC?

Steam continues to make Origin, uPlay, etc look pretty shallow by comparison.

Say I was playing Borderlands 2 and a friend or family are wanting to play say Farcry 2.
As soon as I start playing the game then the other person playing the completely different game gets kicked off. Only one game from your account can be active at once.

Dammit! Hopefully this restriction is just down to the beta nature of the service at the moment. Otherwise it's a lot less useful to me (because my Windows PC is only there to game with)

As was said by Dooms, it is a little bit of a redundant service, as if it's a shared home machine, you could just give your family member your log in details, or save Steam to auto log in anyway. It only really matters to family members who REALLY care about getting their own achievements etc.

Asking my (high school) kids and they're saying that very few of their compatriots use a shared home machine - the vast majority with PC access have their own system. So that's perhaps less of an issue?

[BiblicalShower]

As was said by Dooms, it is a little bit of a redundant service, as if it's a shared home machine, you could just give your family member your log in details, or save Steam to auto log in anyway. It only really matters to family members who REALLY care about getting their own achievements etc.

Asking my (high school) kids and they're saying that very few of their compatriots use a shared home machine - the vast majority with PC access have their own system. So that's perhaps less of an issue?

That's *exactly* the issue though. The article says "It's all enabled by authorizing a shared computer.” So games can only be shared between multiple accounts on the *same* machine. So my example of one brother who doesn't own CS:GO wanting to play a quick few multiplayer games with the other brother is impossible.

[crossy]

That's *exactly* the issue though. The article says "It's all enabled by authorizing a shared computer.” So games can only be shared between multiple accounts on the *same* machine. So my example of one brother who doesn't own CS:GO wanting to play a quick few multiplayer games with the other brother is impossible.

Sorry, you're wrong ... the FAQ says

Borrowed games are only available on devices that have been authorized by the lender. Borrowed games will be unavailable on even an authorized device when the lender’s library is currently in use on another computer.

So unless Valve's got a strange, nonsensical interpretation of "another computer" that means a separate physical device. I suspect that the shared computer is perhaps used to define your "family" and perhaps to provide some kind of local install source?
In addition, the first line of this Hexus article says:

Valve is to add a new sharing service to Steam which will allow users to share their Steam library with up to 10 other devices owned by “close friends and family members”.

Again, until they do Steam-for-Android then "devices"= "other pc's".

[Kumagoro]

It seems more hassle than its worth if your a regular gamer.

You are better off having multiple accounts.

Lending out specific games you are locked out from makes sense.

[CampGareth]

It looks like the FAQ might have been rewritten recently with only minor changes, but it seems like the single item per library model wins (there was some confusion before). There's also some confusion in the text about whether this would be for a single shared machine or multiple (we know it's multiple at least).

Examples:
"remotely respond to a user’s Steam request to share your previously installed games via email." Wait, only previously installed games? What?

"See a family member's installed game that you want to play? Send them a request to authorize the computer. Once authorized, the lender's library of Steam games become available for others on the machine to access, download and play." Oh, well, I can't see if a remote family member has installed something, so this must be a single shared machine. Being able to download contradicts the 'previously installed game' part.

"Yes. A Steam account may authorize Family Sharing on up to 10 devices at a given time." Okay, so we're fairly sure it's multiple computers, contradicts the single machine stuff.

"Libraries are shared and borrowed in their entirety." Kinda suggests single item per library active model

"No, a shared library may only be accessed by one user at a time." Really suggests single item in use per library.

"If you decide to start playing when a friend is already playing one of your games, he/she will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing." and again.

[mikolaj87]

So happy to see that. I think that steam may win back some users!
Well done! Also I'm very excited about this feature as my friends have loads of games that I was looking forward to play one day but I could never be bothered with sharing account with them...