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Steam family sharing


Insanehuman

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Steam have announced that they are implenting a feature that lets you share your game libary with your family and close friends (Up to 10 people).

Also if the owner of the game is playing it and the family/friend was playing it before hand they get a few minutes to buy the game or get kicked off.

 

What i'd like to know is if you'd use it?

 

If you think its harmfull to devs?

 

The Pros and Cons to family sharing?

 

http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/

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i like it. now my girlfriend can have her "10 minutes" on every game i own while i'm able to use my account for other things (clyde)

I am pretty sure it works like this someone plays one game and you can play anything else in your library if you want to play the game their playing they have a few minutes till they are booted out.

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i like it. now my girlfriend can have her "10 minutes" on every game i own while i'm able to use my account for other things (clyde)

I am pretty sure it works like this someone plays one game and you can play anything else in your library if you want to play the game their playing they have a few minutes till they are booted out.

 

Nope.

CAN A FRIEND AND I SHARE A LIBRARY AND BOTH PLAY AT THE SAME TIME?

No, a shared library may only be accessed by one user at a time.

Source.

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Stupid Idea is stupid.

 

How many times have you leant a game and said:

"Hey you can play Skyrim but you better damn well take GTA IV and Terraria with you."

 

The idea of being locked out of an entire library because one game is being played is simply stupid.

 

You have a right to share your game, I can give my phyical discs to a friend and let them play it but for some reason steam is stupid and refuses to enact this policy of "Temporary sharing" in an intelligent way.

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Stupid Idea is stupid.

 

How many times have you leant a game and said:

"Hey you can play Skyrim but you better damn well take GTA IV and Terraria with you."

 

The idea of being locked out of an entire library because one game is being played is simply stupid.

 

You have a right to share your game, I can give my phyical discs to a friend and let them play it but for some reason steam is stupid and refuses to enact this policy of "Temporary sharing" in an intelligent way.

 

You won't be locked out, you still have pritority over whoever is using your games

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I'm in favour of this but I'm sure that its going to be hideously abused.

 

I'm still looking forward to the day they implement a cloud service whereby you can play your games on your desktop remotely through a portable laptop thereby fulfilling my dream of playing a game like COD whilst in an actual warzone or racing game at a grand prix.

Best though would be to play some form of God game from the top of Everest whilst wearing a long flowing fake grey beard.

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I don't see why people would complain about this... it might not go as far as you want (and who knows, maybe it will some day), but it's a lot better than not being able to share your account at all (which I think was actually bannable before).

 

It might not make sense in terms of physical disks, but this isn't physical, it's digital. It's unreasonable for some people to claim that piracy isn't stealing, while also stating digital = physical only when it suits them.

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I just see this as a way to legitimize what's already happening anyway.

 

I already share Steam games with my sister by logging in on her computer, downloading the game, then switching to offline mode and staying that way.  She doesn't play games online so she doesn't care about not having an account.  I could theoretically do this with as many people as I wanted as long as I trusted them with my account and password.

 

This also made me think of a hypothetical scenario where a group of friends could collectively own a single account through which they bought all their single-player games.  They'd coordinate download times and then switch to offline mode to play as much as they wanted.  If one player bought a new game everyone in the group would benefit.  I don't know if this is bannable (or if anyone at Valve would be able to tell you're doing this without reason to check) but it seems possible, at least.

 

On the other hand, if Valve comes up with a legitimate channel for doing this they can at least control how and when people play shared games.  You'll be limited to the number of people you can share with and they can't play your games as the same time you are.  Further, integrating the game and its progression to the borrower's Steam account gives them more incentive to buy the game.  They won't lose their progress, for one.  

 

Second, having access to your Steam friends while playing means you can meet and make friends with people while playing a shared multiplayer game.  if you get booted off a single-player game because the owner started playing you can just pick it up later, but if I know that my Payday crew is going to have to go on without me I'll probably be a lot more tempted to buy the game.

 

Plus you can share your account without giving up your password or risking a ban or any of the other risks outlined in this thread.

 

Ultimately I don't think this is going to change how I share games around the house.  It'll be nice to give internet friends access to my library, though, especially if I've got a game I really want them to try.  It'd be nice to only be restricted to not playing the same game at the same time instead of any game.  Hopefully we'll see that in the future, but even if not I think this is a great step forward for us Steam gamers. 

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