Slashdot Mirror
Valve Announces Family Sharing On Steam, Can Include Friends
Deathspawner writes "Valve has today announced its next attempt at a console-killer: 'Family Sharing' is a feature that will allow you to share your Steam library with family and close friends. This almost seems too good to be true, and while there are caveats, this is going to be huge, and Valve knows it. As Techgage notes, with it you can share nearly your entire Steam library with family or friends, allowing them to earn their own achievements, and have their own saved games. 'Once a device is authorized, the lender's library of Steam games becomes available for others on the machine to access, download, and play. Though simultaneous usage of an account’s library is not allowed, the lender may always access and play his games at any time. If he decides to start playing when a friend is borrowing one of his games, the friend will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing.'"
As long as Steambox allows me to play games with a keyboard and mouse, it will be a superior choice to any other console.
Sorry, I think I need to go to the hospital, I think I broke something laughing so hard.
Perhaps that will come. But still, this is a step that Valve didn't have to take, and another reminder that as far as global companies controlling intellectual property are concerned, Valve is about the closest we've got to a "good guy" to root for.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Having the "family sharing" plan lock you out of your entire Steam library while a family member plays a game from your list is not family sharing. This is basically just a way to give your account to someone without having to give them your password. Also, they get to keep their achievements, whoop de doo.
I'm extremely disappointed. I was hoping for a real family sharing option, so I could play Portal in my mancave while my wife plays Gone Home up in the living room, but that's not what this is. It's almost completely useless to me. If Netflix can allow my family to stream multiple movies at once, why cant Steam allow them to play multiple games at once?
Maybe I should just make a new steam account for every game I buy? That way I can have one master account with my friends list, and everything I buy with the account will be a gift for the actual game account. That would let me actually lend games out and maybe even resell them. It would be a bit of a pain to manage, but seems better than this solution where letting someone borrow a game locks you out of every other game you own.
I read the internet for the articles.
Still no ability to play multiplayer with somebody without them buying the game, the one spot where I feel consoles definitely have the advantage over PC games.
Don't console gamers have to have two copies of the game to play multiplayer, too?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I believe so. Maybe he's talking about split-screen on the same console, which seems to be available on more console games than PC games.
Read more carefully. The ENTIRE LIBRARY is shared. And not on a per-game basis, it's all or nothing. And if you (as the sharer) decide you want to play one of your games while someone is using your library, they get booted, even if it's not the same game. And if you're sharing your library with two other people, only one of them can play any game at a time. So you can't play Portal while friend A plays CS:GO and friend B plays HL2.
This isn't as good as I'd hoped. But its not "bad". Its not taking anything away we didn't have before, and it gives us options we didn't used to have.
I am happy about this feature, but not satisfied with it.
It lets me create steam accounts for my kids and let them use my library. This is good -- now my friends won't message them, invite them to play games, etc. Now they can each have their own steam-cloud save files, and their own acheivements, etc.
Up until now I've just logged in for them, told them they aren't allowed to buy anything, and to ignore any messages or invites. And they've been good about it but this still makes it better.
But the big problem I had (and still have) with steam is the complete lock on the entire library. If my kids were playing on my account before, I couldn't play. I couldn't play the same game (and I was fine with that) but I also couldn't play a different game -- if my son is playing scribblenauts I can't play Left 4 Dead. And I have always disagreed with that.
As it stands now, the situation there hasn't changed. If my son is logged in to his account, playing a game on my library I still can't play a different game. So for me, although this feature is a step forward it still falls short.
Steam must be for hard-core gamers only, and just because they may not use this feature, it's now "barely added functionality"?
I'm glad I can let my brother play my games without having to worry about him mucking up my profile, market, inventory, friends, CC# info, etc. I guess I'm sad that I cannot let 10 of my friends play free games off my account at the same time while I'm also using my games and account?
It's really grasping for straws to shake angrily at Valve here.