Steam Game Sharing Begins Limited Beta Soon

[Tanakh]

I mean, it's not like you can play TF2 while your friend is playing Skyrim from your account.

Actually it should be exactly like this, as long as the Skyrim playing dude keeps the account offline.

I find it magnificent, it will allow me to lend my 200+ game library with some close people which don't live with me, and since they are offline gamers will cause zero hassles. But can see how it might be an issue for some people, I would say spoiled people, but I am a bad mannered sob.

 

[thethird0611]

Man, kinda nice to see how Microsoft spurred on a new way for Steam to make its customers happy.

Props to both Microsoft for the idea and Steam for refining it.

 

[Frezzato]

This is clearly a hoax. After all, it can't be done [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.819419.19752583] because the publishers would hate it.

Well now, that's fairly passive-aggressive of you, don't you think? Linking to a 3-month old thread, using it in a sarcastic manner without the OP's knowledge, just to take another jab at them? I've read your comments and you're pretty intelligent. This is beneath you and you know it.

Look, I would love to see Microsoft implement the family sharing feature on the Xbox One as well. It would be nice to see something different out there. I honestly think that Valve would never have tried this had it not been for Microsoft, and now Microsoft may very well carry through with their original plans.

 

[Agayek]

Well now, that's fairly passive-aggressive of you, don't you think? Linking to a 3-month old thread, using it in a sarcastic manner without the OP's knowledge, just to take another jab at them? I've read your comments and you're pretty intelligent. This is beneath you and you know it.

Look, I would love to see Microsoft implement the family sharing feature on the Xbox One as well. It would be nice to see something different out there. I honestly think that Valve would never have tried this had it not been for Microsoft, and now Microsoft may very well carry through with their original plans.

I may be wrong, but if memory serves, there were rumors of Valve working on this from several months before the XBone's reveal. I could easily be wrong, but I vaguely remember hearing about it.

Then again, Newel is a former Microsoft employee and both companies are based in the same city. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he, or someone else that works at Valve, had a source inside Microsoft that leaked the news early and they latched onto it.

 

[lacktheknack]

This is clearly a hoax. After all, it can't be done [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.819419.19752583] because the publishers would hate it.

On Xbox, everyone assumed it would be simultaneous play, which is why they mentioned taking an Xbox to their friend's house for co-op, among other things.

Steam isn't allowing that. One copy can be active at once, and one only. Heck, only one LIBRARY can be in use at any given time.

And that makes aaaaaaaall the difference on the publisher's side.

And hey... if the publisher doesn't like it, all they have to do is add a CD key to remove their game from the program.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

This seems fantastic and all, but I was reading the FAQ and it said it said that you couldn't share games

that require an additional third-party key, account, or subscription

and I've got a shitload of games that require keys (although oddly Steam would pop a message showing them, but the game would never ask for them, or in the case of Borderlands the game would freeze the moment I start a DLC campaign and demand I insert the key). Not trying to spoil everyone's day, but it's worth keeping this in mind. Don't expect everything to be able to share absolutely everything around.

I also have my doubts whether the borrower will be able to be offline, too. No point kicking the borrower off when the lender wants to play a game, then letting the borrower play it offline so that his computer will never know...

That and the beta's only open to the first 1000 people. The group handing out the beta has 77000 members now. Damnit...

This is clearly a hoax. After all, it can't be done [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.819419.19752583] because the publishers would hate it.

I read the article you mentioned. Quite funny, really. UnnDunn, I disagreed with you in many ways, but even though I think you may have a point here, come on. As someone else has said, you must be capable of expressing your opinion in better ways than making a cheap, snarky stab at someone who said something you didn't like about your favorite console.

Oh, and while you're here, can you send me a link to footage showing the Kinect 2.0 being used in-game, please? I've searched the internet and pestered other hardcore Xbox fans for it, but all I've gotten are corporate promises about how wonderful the thing is going to be, opinions from random people and the occasional tech demo. I know this is incredibly off topic, but you would have thought that they would have revealed Kinect Adventures 2 or something by now, to prove that the system is as wonderful as they're claiming...

 

[Lunar Templar]

So it's essentially what the XB1 was going to have before MS acted like a spoilt child and took it out with the DRM?

Thought it was a neat idea then, still a neat one now. Hopefully if it does well, it'll put a bit of pressure for the likes of MS to put it back in.

As I recall, the XBone game share was more a glorified Demo service, this, sounds more like ye olde 'borrowing your friends disk/cartage'

 

[shiajun]

So it's essentially what the XB1 was going to have before MS acted like a spoilt child and took it out with the DRM?

Thought it was a neat idea then, still a neat one now. Hopefully if it does well, it'll put a bit of pressure for the likes of MS to put it back in.

As I recall, the XBone game share was more a glorified Demo service, this, sounds more like ye olde 'borrowing your friends disk/cartage'

Except that in this case it's more akin to carrying your entire cartridge library to your buddy's house for one specific game, and to play a game (any game in the pile) back home you have to carry the entire collection back. Don't get me wrong, micro baby steps are fabulous, but why can't it be game by game basis? Meaning, while the borrower is playing the game is disabled from your account. At any point the lender can reclaim posession of the game, booting out the borrower.

 

[Lunar Templar]

So it's essentially what the XB1 was going to have before MS acted like a spoilt child and took it out with the DRM?

Thought it was a neat idea then, still a neat one now. Hopefully if it does well, it'll put a bit of pressure for the likes of MS to put it back in.

As I recall, the XBone game share was more a glorified Demo service, this, sounds more like ye olde 'borrowing your friends disk/cartage'

Except that in this case it's more akin to carrying your entire cartridge library to your buddy's house for one specific game, and to play a game (any game in the pile) back home you have to carry the entire collection back. Don't get me wrong, micro baby steps are fabulous, but why can't it be game by game basis? Meaning, while the borrower is playing the game is disabled from your account. At any point the lender can reclaim posession of the game, booting out the borrower.

>.> you should really only have to worry about getting booted if your friend is an asshole. fortunately, my friends (the ones I'd be borrowing from) are not :3

 

[shiajun]

So it's essentially what the XB1 was going to have before MS acted like a spoilt child and took it out with the DRM?

Thought it was a neat idea then, still a neat one now. Hopefully if it does well, it'll put a bit of pressure for the likes of MS to put it back in.

As I recall, the XBone game share was more a glorified Demo service, this, sounds more like ye olde 'borrowing your friends disk/cartage'

Except that in this case it's more akin to carrying your entire cartridge library to your buddy's house for one specific game, and to play a game (any game in the pile) back home you have to carry the entire collection back. Don't get me wrong, micro baby steps are fabulous, but why can't it be game by game basis? Meaning, while the borrower is playing the game is disabled from your account. At any point the lender can reclaim posession of the game, booting out the borrower.

>.> you should really only have to worry about getting booted if your friend is an asshole. fortunately, my friends (the ones I'd be borrowing from) are not :3

Your friend doesn't have to be an asshole. He just has to want to play a game on their library while you're borrowing one. This is likely if you and your friends have similar schedules or are in the same time zone. I get that this plan is thought up mainly for people having to share the same computer (hence the "family plan" name), so they couldn't even be physically using the device at the same time. It's the right direction, just still not an analogy for physically lending out the game disc. Maybe we won't get there soon, since it could potentially cut down of games sales (10 people pool resources to build up a shared library instead of more individual sales).

 

[Tanakh]

Does it? Do you see somewhere that a shared library is allowed to go into offline mode? Because I certainly don't. And were I trying to keep multiple people from playing the same game at the same time, that would seem to be an obvious restriction to impose.

Although the point made about being able to maintain your own achievements is a decent one. As I really don't give a crap about achievements, I didn't think of this, but I suppose some people must -- otherwise they wouldn't offer them.

I see it detailing what you can and can't do, it is reasonable for me to assume any feature non listed will be granted as it goes into detail of what you can't do with DLC and Regions, and because as you said yourself it seems just to be a way to legalize having the same account on multiple computers, as such would make no sense to disallow that mode.

I don't see why you think it won't, but if it isn't will certainly make it a bit less appealing. At any rate, the answer for your question would still be yes even without offline for the moochers accounts, if only because TF2 is free.

Edit: As for the prize, you say it's just "legitimizing" sharing PC games... I don't think you realize... it was always just about that and that is a big deal itself. As a PC user I can download for free almost any game in the PC history, have been able to for more than a decade, or as you said we can bypass most restrictions on multiple installs; it has been never about being able to but being legally able to and with convenience, that last word in capital letters. Steam has always been about convenience, and this is a great step in that direction.

As for the "big deal"... you remember the xbox one fiasco? You realize it "didn't changed anything" as you could always mod or rootkit your xbox? It didn't changed legislation, it did nothing at all but slightly inconvenience users. This is the same, a big move that changes nothing but makes life a bit easier for the consumer, although it does set a bit of a legal precedent about software use i think.

 

[Bravo Company]

I feel as if some more info needs to be released first and/or we try it out. This is definitely a step in the correct direction. However, if only one person can be using your entire library at once that is quite lame. I have a plethora of games that aren't even installed on my computer because I've finished them. However I have some friends that would like to try the games out without dedicating any money to it. So, in an ideal situation games can be played by your borrowers on a game by game basis. Worst case scenario, we have to we wait a little longer for this to happen. Ohh noooeeesss

 

[Alar]

Not gonna lie, this looks pretty awesome. I look forward to friends saying, "I love this game. TRY IT NOW. T_T" and then forcing me to play. :3

 

[klaynexas3]

This is clearly a hoax. After all, it can't be done [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.819419.19752583] because the publishers would hate it.

My word, are we on Facebook? I haven't seen anything nearly this passive-aggressive since those little fights girls would have with each other, saying how much they hate it when some people act a certain way in their status updates. God I'm glad I left that site.

OT: Um, yeah, nothing left really to be said that hasn't already been said. It's a good idea, maybe they could change it to individual games instead of the whole library, but it's still good and definitely a right step in the right area. Hell, my friends are on their computers much more often than I am and plenty of times we aren't even on at the same time of the day, it'd be cool to let them try out some of the games I constantly pester them to play.

 

[Frezzato]

I may be wrong, but if memory serves, there were rumors of Valve working on this from several months before the XBone's reveal. I could easily be wrong, but I vaguely remember hearing about it.

Then again, Newel is a former Microsoft employee and both companies are based in the same city. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he, or someone else that works at Valve, had a source inside Microsoft that leaked the news early and they latched onto it.

Unfortunately, I think whoever implements it first will be forever remembered as an innovator, as opposed to whoever thought of it first. Still, I think it's possible that Microsoft could bring back a sharing option for the Xbox One, a "soft" option if you will. I predict that Microsoft will go ahead and bring back the sharing option by:

1.) Provide an "opt-in" option for participating in sharing, in which you can also send invites to friends.
2.) Require that participating Xbox One consoles connect online at a specific minimum interval.

I don't think that's unreasonable. If people want to try it, they can, otherwise they can continue playing offline and not share anything. I suspect this is the way Valve will do it as well.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Oh wow, I'd really love to try this out. What a shame that doing so will mean that if I lose my internet connection I won't be able to use my computer for anything until it is restored.

 

[Strazdas]

Not sure how this is such a huge advance. Because it's the whole library it shares, what's the difference between "sharing" your game, and just having the sharing member come up and use your computer? I mean, it's not like you can play TF2 while your friend is playing Skyrim from your account.

Hell, they could have done this simply by changing the Terms of Use code such that your account was simply restricted to one user per time, whether that user was you or someone else.

Can someone tell me what I'm missing here?

the advantage is that when the person "lends" it does not use your username/account/savefiles/achievements/ect, so you keep all those seperate for each family member, unlike if you shared the account.
It also works on different machines, meaning you can easily lend games to your family which lives in another town.

 

[9thRequiem]

So it's essentially what the XB1 was going to have before MS acted like a spoilt child and took it out with the DRM?

Thought it was a neat idea then, still a neat one now. Hopefully if it does well, it'll put a bit of pressure for the likes of MS to put it back in.

Not exactly.
The One's sharing was going to restrict on a game-by-game basis. If I'm playing game X, other people can play my copy of game Y or Z (but not X).
This restricts on a library basis. If I'm playing any game at all, my entire library is unavailable. On top of that, the

Yes, it's something. But it's not what I hoped for, and honestly, I don't think I'll get much use out of it.