Well, for one thing, it adds protecting you from yourself apparently.
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Steam Announces Family Sharing
- Thread starter MRORANGE
- Start date
Well, for one thing, it adds protecting you from yourself apparently.
It lets you share your games without being the idiot that shares important passwords with other people.
Wickerbasket
Member
How would they know? Once it's set to offline mode it doesn't connect to the net.
You could just log in on another PC and set it to online mode.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
not having to share your password across devices/friends and it not being possible for your friends to boot you out by connecting to steam?
NullPointer
Member
For one it allows you to stop sharing your credentials, which is in your best interest.
Wow: Beaten like something that gets beaten like crazy.
But seriously, its not wise to share account credentials. You're asking for trouble, if not now, then down the line.
More secure because everyone uses their own account and only the LIBRARY is shared, and it prevents anyone from getting locked out or abruptly boooted.
I can perfectly share with someone who works in the morning, because I work 5 days a week 2pm-10pm specifically. I'm sleeping by 12-1am. Come at me GAF! Certain days a week it wouldn't line up of course, but its much better than nothing!
Yeah, the system as described is -- depending on the circumstances -- actually worse than the alternative of signing into your account on a friend's PC, having them download the games they want to play, and then switching to Offline Mode.
- Security so you don't have to share passwords
- Insurance that you can play your games when you want without booting other people off without warning (or them booting you off)
- Your friends will now be able to use their own accounts for achievements etc.
It's a pretty good free upgrade.
Sanic
Member
I wonder if setting up a service to faciliate account sharing with randoms online would be against the ToS.
The 'cleanest' way for such a thing to happen would likely involve handing over your account credentials to said third party. Which would be a no-no. I wouldn't use such a service, but I do like seeing all of the micro businnesses that pop up around Valve's stuff.
The 'cleanest' way for such a thing to happen would likely involve handing over your account credentials to said third party. Which would be a no-no. I wouldn't use such a service, but I do like seeing all of the micro businnesses that pop up around Valve's stuff.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Also: no random jerk-bag mates spending all your Steam cash on shiny hats.
The thing is, this:
Might also mean that it's exactly like steam. People just made the assumption that it can be you (as the owner) + someone else, but "any one of your family members" can very well include the owner as well. The "you can always play your games" might just be the same thing than Steam, as in you've got priority over other users.
Otherwise, it doesn't quite make sense that it would be allowed for any game other than the one someone is playing already.
Well there is one additional thing compared to just sharing login/passwords, that someone can access games they didn't pay for and still play from their steam account (and then personally get achievements etc). But yeah, other than that minor benefit it's exactly the same.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
Damn awesome. I know some will call hypocrisy or something because of what the Xbox did, the difference is, this is on one computer and Steam knows how to take it slow and do things right. Xbox tried to throw you into an entirely different world with a cannon, instead of just easing you into it. It won't affect me, but for families, this is damn cool.
Gangxxter
Member
Sharing account details is prohibited by Valve and the may ban you if they find out.
The new Family Sharing is the legal way to share your account.
This is just officially sanctioned account sharing -- which you can already do now, just without a safety net.
If they really wanted to impress, they should treat each game in your library as a "real entity" -- that means, I can loan out a game in my library to a friend on Steam, and I cannot access it until my friend "returns it" or until I request a return (which would force it back into my library). I should of course be able to play any other game in my library during this time. When I share a game with a friend in the real world, I'm not suddenly locked out of all my other games -- just the one.
This is nothing new; just makes sharing accounts more "official" and safe.
If they really wanted to impress, they should treat each game in your library as a "real entity" -- that means, I can loan out a game in my library to a friend on Steam, and I cannot access it until my friend "returns it" or until I request a return (which would force it back into my library). I should of course be able to play any other game in my library during this time. When I share a game with a friend in the real world, I'm not suddenly locked out of all my other games -- just the one.
This is nothing new; just makes sharing accounts more "official" and safe.
I'm guessing that sharing your library puts a flag on your account that blocks or limits going into offline mode.
It's murky beyond that, though.
it will probably happen and i doubt valve will stop it, but any service like that would be instantly abused and the accounts involved would have their sharing privilege revoked
That method needs Sandboxie if you want to play anything other than those games, though.
Nailed it. Precisely my thoughts when I read this. Good on Steam though, capitalizing on Microsoft's blunder.
Edit:
lol...should have known, typical GAF thread to have 500+ replies in an hour and a half...beat by lightyears
Some in this thread are really downplaying how much of a workaround having someone login with your account, install a game, go offline, and not be able to play online or log back into their own account without restarting the process currently is. Yes, this is a big deal.
Even locking the whole library down is still leagues above the current method.
Even locking the whole library down is still leagues above the current method.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
I still don't know if I've ever seen a more punchable face this his.
If you get logged out of a game it pops up asking if you want to buy it right then and there.
Pubs are going to love this.
Q
Queen of Hunting
Unconfirmed Member
and gaf is happy because this is gonna get abused to fuck will be like piracy levels. why have 10 people buy the game when i can just share it with them, gaf already does it with numerous demos in other countries
That and devs don't have to make a demo if they're on PC and Steam, sharing will serve the same purpose.
Yeah, I have to agree - if you're borrowing someone's account and going offline to play game X, if you want to play game Y on your own account, you have to switch accounts and jump through a bunch of hoops to go from playing X to Y then back to X.
charlequin
Banned
Yeah, I was initially pretty excited about this -- there's a bunch of stuff in my collection that my wife is the main potential consumer of, and it'd be really convenient to let her log into her own account to play that stuff -- but as currently laid out, I'll just have to stick to offline mode to do that.
If they'd just add a lending library concept, though (games you explicitly select can be lent out, everything else can't, you only boot people when you play a lending-library game) it'd be pretty sweet though.
I can imagine a lot of people being booted out a game and going "Fuck it I'll just buy it".
for me it just makes playing stuff on my girlfriend's computer/account less of a ball ache. certain games are totally optimised for a single user, steamcloud'd up the wazzoo, while most multiplayer games have some kind of persistent tie in to a single steam profile.
like i said earlier, it's just valve saying "we know you're going to do this anyway, so let's make it a better experience".
People are suggesting that you may have to be online to share your library, but the perfect time to share is when you are offline.
I'm on vacation
My network is down
I'm rebuilding my PC (or it's on the fritz)
that's when I'd tell my friends, "Hey, I'm not using my Steam account, so go ahead and play all my games."
I'm on vacation
My network is down
I'm rebuilding my PC (or it's on the fritz)
that's when I'd tell my friends, "Hey, I'm not using my Steam account, so go ahead and play all my games."
Arrowgigantic
Member
It absolutely is and I was completely disappointed when Microsoft walked back their scheme. I can't even blame the flotilla of online loudmouths that conned them into doing it. Microsoft should have known better. At least Gaben has it together.
SolidSnakeUS
Member
The difference is that Steam pretty much saved PC gaming, but also knew that it took time to do this kind of shit. You can't just force it onto people in a radical shift. This has been gradual over the past 10 years for Steam.
jim-jam bongs
Member
And if they do, they can pick up exactly where they left off. Everyone wins.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Yeah, I can see the utility of scenarios like this as well. Really, it's a cool feature. It may not be the gamechanger that some hoped Microsoft's now-abandoned Family Share plan would be, but certainly useful all the same.
The problem from Valve's end in those scenarios is that you could just as easily be offline playing all your Steam games in offline mode.
People are already abusing Steam account, dude, even without this sharing features. It's better this way.
Lasthope106
Member
And with one swift blow Valve has killed both the PS4 and Xbone. Based Gaben shall takes to the promised land.
Yeah it's possible. I guess we'll never really know. Even if Microsoft brings it back who knows what form it was originally going to be in. I read all the comments from Microsoft folk. The confusion around this was annoying and the misinformation spread by different people at Microsoft (and supposed leakers) made it all the more confusing. Like this
and then this
@XboxSupport2 If I have 5 games shared, can all 5 games be accessed by different "family" members at the same time?
@nowak911 Yep! You can can have 6 different consoles, with 6 different games being played by 6 different family members!^ML
Awesome! My brother-in-law and I already share accounts, sort of. We've activated our accounts on each other's computers, with the passwords saved. The downside is that save games and achievements are pooled together. We don't care about achievements, but it can be annoying trying to distinguish whose save game is whose. This family sharing plan should fix that. We'll be signing up for sure.