So, I'm getting my son a computer, and I was planning on setting up his own account, and using the Family Share option so he could play the games that I bought on my account for him to play (because we only had one computer)
This Family share thing sounds great except, we can't play at the same time. Even if we want to play different games, only one person can access the library and play a game, and the other person is completely locked out.
So, obviously this policy isn't going to change, and I'm not going to buy second copies..
Now, I know why people hate Steam.
Is there anyway I can play SD games that I purchased completely outside of the Steam environment?
That I do not disagree with. Once they stated that only one machine can have access to the library at a time, I knew it was only going to be useful to a small subset of users.
unless there's a fair bit of us case law precedent that forces valve to do anything... i wouldn't think much of the legally entitled bit..
He put a link in "legally entitled" for a reason.
yeah.. but the link says eu courts... in any case.. reselling is not too relevant to the family digital vs physical sharing issue.
I have to agree with the OP, it's a rubbish policy that punishes legitimate customers. If the Steam people want to limit games to 1 instance per account they have the power to do so, but the blanket policy in place today needlessly hobbles the sharing feature. I suspect that these anti-consumer limitations were put in place at the behest of publishers, as is so often the case with any sort of digital media.
Is it even a Steam issue?!?
Valve doesn't own the rights to do anything with those games.
I think the issue here is that Steam released a feature that isn't useful for the vast majority of its user base. The only reason this feature is useful is so you don't have to give the person the password to your steam account. So rather than "family sharing" it works as "stranger sharing"
If you trust the person with your account password, it is much better to let them use steam in offline mode (and disable family sharing). That is similar to what I do with my dad (we live in the same house). I login for him and download games for him to play, then he stays in offline mode after that. I have zero problems with this method, and I am grateful it is possible.
Not sure if this still works, but if someone is playing a game on your Steam Account (say, my wife is playing Civ). I used to be able to use a game's .exe on a PC not connected to the net to play another game without it conflicting. Basically, I left it as the same account, but only one person is playing. The inverse also used to be true, as my wife could be playing offline while I was online with a different game.
While this prevents both of you being online, it does kind of use offline mode in a way that wasn't really intended, but seeing as that's how we used to play PC games with physical CDs in the old days, I don't see the problem if we aren't even playing the same game.
Bottom line is, if you use steam, you can't complain. If you don't like steam, STOP using it. Steam will only continue to act as it is so long as people are willing to pay for it.
As for me, I only have 2 games on 2 separate steam accounts. This way I can play either when I want and IF steam decides to lock out one account, I don't lose my other game. However, even with all this in place, I find steam WAY too frustrating to use; forced updates, crashes, an ever changing EULA. It's really not worth my effort and I doubt I'll ever buy another game off of steam so long as they continue with their current business model.
Yes, I miss out on some gaming opportunities....but there are plenty of games out there to play.
What you can do is create a new steam account for each game you buy. It puts more record keeping on your shoulders but you get the flexibility you really want. I know it's absurd but it really does work.
backs out of the room slowly...
Would you prefer no family share? Cause thats the other option.
That is fantastically ridiculous. I salute you.
While I doubt that this will spark a mass exodus from Steam, your logic is wrong.
One option is to choose not to use the family share option. One option is to go offline as needed to allow both to play at the same time. Another option is to express dissatisfaction with Steam's service.
For what you want to do, as long as the games aren't multiplayer, there's a way around this since they're (presumably) in the same house.
Sign into Steam on both computers with the account the games are associated with.
Make sure the game(s) you want to play are installed and updated on both computers.
Go to Offline mode on one of them.
Play a different game on each computer.
???
Profit!
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