Steam Family Sharing is Now Avaliable

[Steven Bogos]

Steam Family Sharing is Now Avaliable

You are now able to authorize 10 computers, and 5 user accounts to share your game library with.

Steam has announced that its Family Sharing system [http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/], which allows friends and family members to share games temporarily with each other, is now out of beta and in its first full release. "Lenders" are able to authorize up to ten computers, and five Steam accounts, who can then request to "borrow" a game for a period of time. The lender can lend a game to the "borrower," who has free reign of it until the lender wants it back, and which point the borrower must return it or purchase his own copy. If the borrower does purchase their own copy, their progress is carried over.

Before you go out and try to lend all your games to your buddies, there is a considerable downside to the service. There is absolutely no way for users to authorize an account remotely, meaning your buddy has to come over to your house and physically log into his Steam account from your machine in order to become a borrower.

For family members though, it should work perfectly, as you'll easily be able to lend out specific games without having to log out of your own Steam account.

When the beta for Family Sharing opened last year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127698-Steam-Game-Sharing-Begins-Limited-Beta-Soon], Valve said the service "is designed for close friends and family members to play one another's Steam games while each earning their own Steam achievements and storing their own saves and application data to the Steam cloud."

Games with an additional third-party key cannot be shared between accounts, and regional restrictions will remain the same.

Source: Steam Community [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/familysharing#announcements/detail/1425692185723666823]

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[Fireprufe15]

I don't think you quite understand how it works. You can't lend out specific games. Once you authorize a computer +account (which is easily done via teamviewer) that person has full access to your steam game library. When you play any game, they can't play any game in youe library. If they are busy playing and you start playing, even if not the same game, they get booted out.

 

[Arawn]

I will be the first to say that this is rather reasonable approach to the sharing of games. The person logging into your account to become a borrower makes sense. Sure it limits your circle of shares. So I can't share with my buddy in IL or CA, but I could share with the guy that's 4 blocks down. My question is if MS had come out with this would people have accepted the Xbox One? No, I'm not trying to start a flames or anything else, I'm honestly asking if Xbox One was had such system would people still protest? Course Steam has the offline mode, but let's put that to the side for now. A sharing program with limited access and accessibility. Friend comes over and inputs there Xbox Live info and poof they can utilize your game library. No clue the duration of said borrowing nor the number of times available per game or user. The devs don't people constantly borrowing a game until they beat. No money in that. And can equally guess the friend won't like people just leeching games.

EDIT: Clicked the link to read the FAQ. Seems Steam must be online for you to share your library, so "always online". You cannot play games while someone is sharing your library, and only one person at a time can access said library.

 

[Therumancer]

That's some interesting news, I'll have to check it out.

In my household my father, stepmother, and I all have separate computers, and separate STEAM accounts, and have actually wound up buying the same game multiple times for ease of use. If this works like it sounds, it could be useful.

That said, one of the things that makes me wonder about the "number of computers" limit with STEAM in particular is whether these apply to an account pool in general, or just for that. As someone who has had several computers since he started using STEAM I've actually wondered what would happen if you hit a limit like that, if they are good about adding more, or if I could be left needing to play on an old computer for my STEAM account or lose everything, or what. Not sure if that applies here or not though. I've probably had like 5 personal computers at different times using my STEAM account over the years, maybe more.

 

[Therumancer]

I don't think you quite understand how it works. You can't lend out specific games. Once you authorize a computer +account (which is easily done via teamviewer) that person has full access to your steam game library. When you play any game, they can't play any game in youe library. If they are busy playing and you start playing, even if not the same game, they get booted out.

Ahh I should have read this first. That sounds substantially less useful for my particular situation.

 

[BartyMae]

Team Viewer can be used to enable it remotely rather easily, (having done it myself).

 

[Fireprufe15]

That's some interesting news, I'll have to check it out.

In my household my father, stepmother, and I all have separate computers, and separate STEAM accounts, and have actually wound up buying the same game multiple times for ease of use. If this works like it sounds, it could be useful.

That said, one of the things that makes me wonder about the "number of computers" limit with STEAM in particular is whether these apply to an account pool in general, or just for that. As someone who has had several computers since he started using STEAM I've actually wondered what would happen if you hit a limit like that, if they are good about adding more, or if I could be left needing to play on an old computer for my STEAM account or lose everything, or what. Not sure if that applies here or not though. I've probably had like 5 personal computers at different times using my STEAM account over the years, maybe more.

There's no limit to how many computers you can login to with your own account. I've gone through 20.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well for now it's only use is to monitor your kids gaming, i.e. you have the credit card account for buying games and then share select games with your kids when you see fit and kick them off when you want.

But other then that it is the most awkward and clunky system imaginable.

 

[major_chaos]

I was really excited and slightly baffled that Valve had finally given PC gamers the convenience of lending games. Then I actually read how this abortion works. That will teach me to be optimistic about Steam features.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Team Viewer can be used to enable it remotely rather easily, (having done it myself).

I think it's worth noting that using this workaround is still dangerous when sharing with people you don't trust, since it's entirely possible for someone to stop the remote program, change your email address and nick your account. Still, that's not something you need to worry about with friends and family.

OT: God fucking damnit, Steven. Six months after the initial accouncement and journalists like you are STILL giving people the impression that they can share games on an individual basis.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

I was really excited and slightly baffled that Valve had finally given PC gamers the convenience of lending games. Then I actually read how this abortion works. That will teach me to be optimistic about Steam features.

Seconded. I've known for months about the limitations of the service, so it's pretty annoying to see Steven spreading false information. Sorry Steven, I like most of your other articles, but the information you're giving is misleading.

 

[heroicbob]

that person has full access to your steam game library. When you play any game, they can't play any game in [your] library. If they are busy playing and you start playing, even if not the same game, they get booted out.

Is this a Problem?

I think this will drive sales for multiplayer games

and if I wanted someone to take a look at say, Mass Effect I could give them the experience for free
given how many games I buy and never play like an idiot i think its a cool feature and I plan on using it
then again i'm not planning on enabling it with anyone outside my family

 

[Fireprufe15]

that person has full access to your steam game library. When you play any game, they can't play any game in [your] library. If they are busy playing and you start playing, even if not the same game, they get booted out.

Is this a Problem?

I think this will drive sales for multiplayer games

and if I wanted someone to take a look at say, Mass Effect I could give them the experience for free
given how many games I buy and never play like an idiot i think its a cool feature and I plan on using it
then again i'm not planning on enabling it with anyone outside my family

It's not a problem, I have been using family sharing myself for months now, I was just correcting the false info in the news post.

 

[josemlopes]

I would have prefered if I could choose wich games each person gets to play while I am free to play all the other games that I currently own. Kind of like how real life lending works.

 

[Fireprufe15]

I would have prefered if I could choose wich games each person gets to play while I am free to play all the other games that I currently own. Kind of like how real life lending works.

You can play your games any time you want, it just kicks you friend out when you do.

 

[Fireprufe15]

I would have prefered if I could choose wich games each person gets to play while I am free to play all the other games that I currently own. Kind of like how real life lending works.

You can play your games any time you want, it just kicks you friend out when you do.

 

[lancar]

Me and a friend experimented with this a bit last night. It's true that only one person can use a specific game library at a time, however if you both lend each other your libraries you can both play at the same time. I just have to play a game that's unique to his library, and he has to play one from mine. Then it works.

While I can understand Steam would want to limit this feature somewhat, this implementation is significantly less awesome than I originally thought.

 

[josemlopes]

I would have prefered if I could choose wich games each person gets to play while I am free to play all the other games that I currently own. Kind of like how real life lending works.

You can play your games any time you want, it just kicks you friend out when you do.

What I meant is that he would also be free to play the games I chose him to play, like if I picked Star Wars Battlefront 2 I couldnt play it untill I got it back but he could play all he wanted while I could still play the other games from my list.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Steam Family Sharing is Now Avaliable

You are now able to authorize 10 computers, and 5 user accounts to share your game library with.

Steam has announced that its Family Sharing system [http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/], which allows friends and family members to share games temporarily with each other, is now out of beta and in its first full release. "Lenders" are able to authorize up to ten computers, and five Steam accounts, who can then request to "borrow" a game for a period of time. The lender can lend a game to the "borrower," who has free reign of it until the lender wants it back, and which point the borrower must return it or purchase his own copy. If the borrower does purchase their own copy, their progress is carried over.

Before you go out and try to lend all your games to your buddies, there is a considerable downside to the service. There is absolutely no way for users to authorize an account remotely, meaning your buddy has to come over to your house and physically log into his Steam account from your machine in order to become a borrower.

For family members though, it should work perfectly, as you'll easily be able to lend out specific games without having to log out of your own Steam account.

When the beta for Family Sharing opened last year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/127698-Steam-Game-Sharing-Begins-Limited-Beta-Soon], Valve said the service "is designed for close friends and family members to play one another's Steam games while each earning their own Steam achievements and storing their own saves and application data to the Steam cloud."

Games with an additional third-party key cannot be shared between accounts, and regional restrictions will remain the same.

Source: Steam Community [http://steamcommunity.com/groups/familysharing#announcements/detail/1425692185723666823]

Permalink

I've been in the beta for this service for a little while, and you've got it kinda wrong. What Family Sharing allows is someone to use any game from your library as long as you're not using any games from you account at that time. Once you start up any game in your library, they get a notification telling them they have a minute or so to save and quit, or purchase the game.

 

[BartyMae]

Team Viewer can be used to enable it remotely rather easily, (having done it myself).

I think it's worth noting that using this workaround is still dangerous when sharing with people you don't trust, since it's entirely possible for someone to stop the remote program, change your email address and nick your account. Still, that's not something you need to worry about with friends and family.

Absolutely...but you shouldn't be trying to give access to people you don't trust to begin with, anyways.

Haha at people still getting GAME Sharing confused with LIBRARY Sharing. The (pretty much open?) beta for this has been going on for months - can't believe people still don't quite fully understand it...it takes literally about 2-3 minutes to figure out via Google.