Valve Announces Steam 'Family Sharing'

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Valve has just announced Steam Family Sharing. The website is also taking sign-ups for the beta. It's funny how this exact same feature was cut from the Xbox One and now it is now on Steam for PC owners to enjoy. :)
 
Christ, I wish I could buy stock in Valve. A lot of it.

Just...breathtaking. Simultaneously, I dread and cannot wait for the legal battles this is going to generate.
 
You have to share your entire library. If a 'family member' is playing a game from your shared library you are unable to play ANY of your other games in your library. No Thanks!
 
"We can do this without botching the rollout or coming across as jerks! Ha ha Microsoft!"

- Valve
 
Stiletto said:
Christ, I wish I could buy stock in Valve. A lot of it.
Click to expand...

Valve is a privately held company.

I for one welcome this, and BTW, the Xbox One will have this feature at some point, just not at launch.
 
I like it! I don't get to game as much as I'd like and wouldn't mind sharing my games to friends or family allowing them to play. If I want to play all I have to do is message them to get out. No biggy!
 
DooLocsta said:
You have to share your entire library. If a 'family member' is playing a game from your shared library you are unable to play ANY of your other games in your library. No Thanks!
Click to expand...

When you want to play one of your games it overrides what anyone else may be doing with your library. It says they get "a warning" of some sort although it's not very detailed as to how much time they get or how long you have to wait. It's not like someone can hijack your games from you.
 
PSN still does it better.

While its a good idea, its not a great idea in this implementation due to the limitations.
 
At first I was interested until I saw the whole library is scared as one whole.
If I could share my library and my son or daughter played a different game while I played one from my library then I'd be loving this like crazy.
 
Also not mentioned is how this will react with offline play. Will Steam have to do some kind of hourly/daily check-in? Will the borrower have to be online for hourly checkins while he is playing the borrowed game? 'cause that's the crap that the media leapt on and caused a huge stink about, and it was that stink that made MS pull the feature.
 
Hm, if implemented well I could see this as a great boon to me and my siblings. As it is, if they want to play something off my steam account, I have to log myself off my steam so they can use it. This current system would be the same problem as only one person could play concurrently.

PSN has a great system where you can have multiple consoles accessing the same content at the same time (though it went from 5 console activation to now 2). If steam implements something like that it would definitely great.
 
shuma1044 said:
Hm, if implemented well I could see this as a great boon to me and my siblings. As it is, if they want to play something off my steam account, I have to log myself off my steam so they can use it. This current system would be the same problem as only one person could play concurrently.
Click to expand...
Yup, it's the entire library. So if your friend has borrowed CS:GO from your account, and you want to play Portal 2, they will get booted out of CS:GO. Despite the fact they're completely different games. So like the XBox One had, but about 20x worse.
 
So can I finally play Steam Big Picture in my living room, stop and move into the office to play some other game without having to continuously log in and out?
 
Anaerin said:
Yup, it's the entire library. So if your friend has borrowed CS:GO from your account, and you want to play Portal 2, they will get booted out of CS:GO. Despite the fact they're completely different games. So like the XBox One had, but about 20x worse.
Click to expand...

What's to stop you from going into offline mode to play Portal 2?
 
Anaerin said:
Yup, it's the entire library. So if your friend has borrowed CS:GO from your account, and you want to play Portal 2, they will get booted out of CS:GO. Despite the fact they're completely different games. So like the XBox One had, but about 20x worse.
Click to expand...

It's a feature that didn't exist before, which will now be spun into a huge negative and Steam will be boycotted by people who were fine with not having this functionality at all.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
It's a feature that didn't exist before, which will now be spun into a huge negative and Steam will be boycotted by people who were fine with not having this functionality at all.
Click to expand...

You left out the people who will bemoan this feature's implementation without confirmation of HL3.
 
Microsoft and Nintendo ARE the ONLY 2 of 3 console makers trying to bring real change and innovation. Sony is just sitting on it's ass again with the PS4. Oh Oh we can hardly wait to hit that share button on the PS4 controller! LOL
 
LeninGHOLA said:
I can't play co-op HL3 with my friends unless they also buy a copy?! MONEY GRUBBING BASTARDS!
Click to expand...

wtf shared mi lybrary with all mi steem frendz n now my account iz lokked STEM GIV RFUND 4 ALL GAMEZ NAOW!!!
 
Technikal said:
Microsoft and Nintendo ARE the ONLY 2 of 3 console makers trying to bring real change and innovation.
Click to expand...

Wii-U-GamePad_2238667a.jpg
 
Stiletto said:
wtf shared mi lybrary with all mi steem frendz n now my account iz lokked STEM GIV RFUND 4 ALL GAMEZ NAOW!!!
Click to expand...

that wont happen. it forces your friend off after a few minutes so they have time to save ect.
 
It seems like a good start. The way I read it, it seems like a very limited method of "sharing". It looks like little more than the equivalent of letting someone else log onto my steam account, which I had been doing in my household anyway. The only benefit to this new "family share" seems to be keeping separate achievement lists (whoopety doo!).

What I would love to see is being able to purchase one copy of a game to play with other members of my household. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. I look at it like buying one copy of a board game, instead of having to go out and buy four different Monopoly sets each at full price if I want to sit around and play with the family.
 
Super-D said:
It seems like a good start. The way I read it, it seems like a very limited method of "sharing". It looks like little more than the equivalent of letting someone else log onto my steam account, which I had been doing in my household anyway. The only benefit to this new "family share" seems to be keeping separate achievement lists (whoopety doo!).

What I would love to see is being able to purchase one copy of a game to play with other members of my household. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. I look at it like buying one copy of a board game, instead of having to go out and buy four different Monopoly sets each at full price if I want to sit around and play with the family.
Click to expand...

No publisher would let Valve do that. Sadly, we are past the days of Starcraft, Diablo and Quake, where that was an option.
 
Super-D said:
It seems like a good start. The way I read it, it seems like a very limited method of "sharing". It looks like little more than the equivalent of letting someone else log onto my steam account, which I had been doing in my household anyway. The only benefit to this new "family share" seems to be keeping separate achievement lists (whoopety doo!).

What I would love to see is being able to purchase one copy of a game to play with other members of my household. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. I look at it like buying one copy of a board game, instead of having to go out and buy four different Monopoly sets each at full price if I want to sit around and play with the family.
Click to expand...

At the very least, Valve should allow me to access the other games at the same time. I want to play Civ5 at the same time my kid sister is playing Torchlight 2!
 
Stiletto said:
What's to stop you from going into offline mode to play Portal 2?
Click to expand...
At the moment, Valve have (deliberately) not said how this interacts with offline mode. Chances are, the sharer going into offline mode will get the sharee booted out.
 
Well, the fact you can still play in offline mode is a good touch, though I don't think the devs will like it much...
 
Anaerin said:
At the moment, Valve have (deliberately) not said how this interacts with offline mode. Chances are, the sharer going into offline mode will get the sharee booted out.
Click to expand...

I doubt it. You do not need to be online for someone to share your library.
 
Anaerin said:
At the moment, Valve have (deliberately) not said how this interacts with offline mode. Chances are, the sharer going into offline mode will get the sharee booted out.
Click to expand...

How would that even work? How would Valve be able to tell the difference between someone who went into offline mode and someone who just shut down Steam?
 
Stiletto said:
How would that even work? How would Valve be able to tell the difference between someone who went into offline mode and someone who just shut down Steam?
Click to expand...
They wouldn't. Which, of course, leads immediately to "You have to be online to share your library with someone". Which, of course, Valve don't want to even hint at right now, 'cause of the shitstorm that Microsoft got in over the same thing with the XBox One.
 
i cant believe people will fuss about this. This is actually a decent thing, and gives a better value on the already rediculous low prices and deals you can fine on steam.
 
Anaerin said:
They wouldn't. Which, of course, leads immediately to "You have to be online to share your library with someone". Which, of course, Valve don't want to even hint at right now, 'cause of the shitstorm that Microsoft got in over the same thing with the XBox One.
Click to expand...

Why would there be a shitstorm? You can, at no time, share your Steam library with anyone right now. If people freak out that Valve is adding a new sharing feature, which is limited in scope, that they do not have now... they are probably not terribly smart.

You're jumping to conclusions.
 
Anaerin said:
They wouldn't. Which, of course, leads immediately to "You have to be online to share your library with someone". Which, of course, Valve don't want to even hint at right now, 'cause of the shitstorm that Microsoft got in over the same thing with the XBox One.
Click to expand...

I thought the big issue there is no matter what, the xbox had to check in atleast once online no matter what. Didnt matter if you only play box games offline.
 
I think this is a step in the right direction but I'd rather see only the game(s) being played by others blocked than the entire library. As it is now I highly doubt I'd use it.
 
so the original owner of the game has to logoff for the user who borrows the copy to play?! did I understand this correctly? :confused:
 
valve should ABSOLUTELY not let you play multiple games on multiple computers on the same account at once. all this does is let people get around having to share their password and coordinate with friends. for example, i used to let my brother play dirt 2 on my steam account. he'd just message me and ask if he could play and id say sure. valve knows people do this so they are making it legal and convenient to do, because they love us and are benevolent. they are still a business though, and thinking theyre gonna let 10 people play 10 different games at the same time on one account is ridiculous. you can't do that now, and it would cost them and their game developers a lot of money in the long run. i'm not sure how they're getting around offline mode, but i think it's completely fair to require you to be online if you're going to use this feature and let you go offline as long as you are not family sharing.
 
Sickb0y said:
so the original owner of the game has to logoff for the user who borrows the copy to play?! did I understand this correctly? :confused:
Click to expand...

yes being able to share your ENTIRE library of FULL games for FREE with ANYONE and letting them SAVE THEIR GAME is such a dick move by valve. i say boycott!
 
I like the idea, but Valve need to make it more granular:
1) If the account owner is playing game A, friend/sibling should be able to play game B
2) Only share games you want to share, so kid sister can play Princess Dress-Up but not Metro 2033.

I told my coworker about it, and he liked the idea--he hasn't played HL2 yet, and doesn't want to shell out for the Orange Box.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top