
Steam Family Sharing - danso
http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/
======
zalzane
Valve often talks about trying to provide a service that is more convenient
than pirating, and this looks like another step in that direction. If I'm
playing a pirated game and want to share it with a friend, it would involve
getting them to torrent/crack it, or uploading it to a file sharing host.
Using Valve's new program, sharing a purchased game is as simple as sharing it
with them on steam.

I'm curious as to what other kinds of convenience measures they'll be able to
implement in the future - especially with hardware control via steambox on the
horizon.

~~~
darkchasma
It seems like baby steps though. We really should have a way to loan games at
the very least, and this still isn't really scratching that itch.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Why? Loaning digital bits literally makes no sense. That's nt a thing. It's
not something the laws of physics allow. Loaning digital goods is a gibberish
statement.

I obviously understand the appeal. Who doesn't like free shit? If you want to
"borrow" a game from a friend just pirate it. That at least saves the platform
holder some bandwidth costs.

~~~
robotresearcher
You are being deliberately obtuse. Everyone understands how you might lend a
game to a friend. Tokens have been around a long time [1]. Being able to lend
your games to friends makes them more valuable as your token gets more play
time per dollar. This is a good thing, and reduces the appeal of piracy a
little bit.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_(railway_signalling)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_\(railway_signalling\))

~~~
forrestthewoods
I'm really not being obtuse.

When "loaning" digital bits the only thing that could possibly be loaned is a
user license. Bits are copied, not loaned. If I "loan" you a digital game then
your computer will make a copy of bits as sent by some arbitrary server
possibly across the globe. You may even make a copy of different bits as your
copy of the content may be for a different localization, quality setting,
platform, or file format. My computer may or may not still have a copy of
those bits.

It is not reasonable to expect licenses to digital bits to be infinitely
transferable without limit. If licenses could be transfered without limit then
there is no reason for more licenses to exist than the maximum number of
concurrent users. Acquire a license when you launch a game and release the
license when you shut it down. A 3rd party middle man could trivially run this
exchange. Popular games sell millions of copies on Steam but only a small
handful can crack even 100,000 concurrent users.

Assuming that you agree there should be a limit then it's just a matter of
deciding where that line in the sand is drawn.

~~~
robotresearcher
You are not wrong, it's just that your point is pointless. We know bits can be
copied at close to zero cost. But the value of the bits can't be realized
without the token (if DRM pertains) or can't legally be realized (if a single-
user license pertains). The bits without the token have almost zero value. You
are loaning the ability to realize the value of the bits.

You said "Loaning digital goods is a gibberish statement." This is simply not
true.

~~~
forrestthewoods
I believe that the distinction between loaning digital goods and loaning a
license to legally use digital goods is meaningful and important to recognize.

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Pxtl
... on closer inspection, it seems functionally equivalent to logging into
steam on a friend's computer, except that you don't have to type in your
password on their machine and you can kick them off easily.

Considering how much trouble Steam has with phishing and accounts getting
hacked, it's obviously a good idea to minimize any use-case where users are
allowing others to get at their passwords. This kind of feature will probably
_save_ Valve money in the long-run.

Still, doesn't match what I hoped. I was hoping to see a way to share a few
games on a machine within the same house, so I could have my set-top machine
and my desktop machine divvy up the console-style and pc-style games without
constantly having to re-log-in.

~~~
chris_mahan
I have two machines with steam on it (desktop, laptop) and I get logged out of
one if I use the other. Frankly I'm getting tired of it. (that and the
"verifying installation..." window)

~~~
sliverstorm
I'm hoping they will somehow figure out how to fix this soon, given this
announcement. Obviously they can't let you have machines with your account all
over the globe logged on at the same time, but if they let you have multiple
machines logged on from the same IP address (thank you NAT) and still prevent
you from playing a game on two machines at the same time, that should do it...

Personally, I have a desktop and an HTPC, which would seem like an obvious
use-case they would want to target, given Big Picture mode! We're so close,
what with remote libraries (on my NAS).

~~~
Pxtl
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing - constrain it to a single IP and no
sharing individual games. That would go a long way. Then again, you know some
dedicated pirates will just VPN the damned thing.

Or at the very least give us a way to avoid keying in the password over and
over again - I already logged in here, you can lock the steam account for use-
from-elsewhere without forcing me to key in a password to unlock it. I might
be annoyed that I can't share my library between my two machines at the same
time, but at the very least I don't have to keep keying in PWs.

~~~
VLM
Perhaps the logical protocol is store the password at all times, but demand
the end user type it in 10 times. After that, if he's still not reacted by
changing the password, simply start using the memorized password without
demanding login info.

Obviously it would be stupid to actually store the password locally for
security reasons, but the actual implementation of asking the steam servers
for a token of some sort and then presenting the token in place of the
password would work just as well. May as well time limit the token and demand
you log in every six months.

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Raphmedia
"Can a friend and I share a library and both play at the same time? No, a
shared library may only be accessed by one user at a time."

So, if one of my friend play on my game, I can play none of my games? Or am I
reading this wrong?

~~~
mmanfrin
I really wish they would fix this. Why should I not be able to have two
separate games of mine running at once?

~~~
Lockyy
Because otherwise you could co-ordinate which games to buy with your friends
so you can all share a single game library for single player games.

~~~
toomuchtodo
So, just like physical titles.

~~~
Lockyy
Yeah, which I'm thinking is what they want to avoid.

I think an element of this is the part where when you get kicked off it will
prompt you to buy the game or quit. As a nice solution to lack of demos most
games have. That's the thought my friends and I immediately jumped to.

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peterarmstrong
Well, I still need 2 copies of Civ 5 to play multiplayer with my son:

    
    
      > CAN A FRIEND AND I SHARE A LIBRARY AND BOTH PLAY AT THE SAME TIME?
      >
      > No, a shared library may only be accessed by one user at a time.
    

Now, I was (and still am) fine with that since it has provided so much
entertainment, but for many games that would not be true...

~~~
DrJokepu
Or (if you use Macs) you can just buy it on the Mac App Store which doesn't
have such limitations so you would only need to pay for it once. The Mac App
Store has other shortcomings but it proves that these very restrictive
licensing terms are mostly unnecessary.

~~~
Stwerp
However, in the case of Borderlands at least, the app store version would
limit you from playing multiplayer with anyone with the Steam version.

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amelim
A brilliant move would be to offer discounts on purchasing a game if the
lender kicks you off while you are playing. "Sorry we have to kick you off
while you are playing, it looks like the owner wants to play game X right now.
Purchase the game for yourself at 10% off and keep playing immediately!"

~~~
pekk
so a 10% markup on everything, which people have to circumvent by
intentionally trying to play the game at the same time just in order to get
the 'discount'?

~~~
alanctgardner2
Because Steam sales have driven the prices of games up by 50%. Oh wait, no,
AAA games are still $60, but now Steam offers them at a reasonable discount
after a few months to undercut the used-games market.

Getting kicked out is a point of friction, where a user could either start
torrenting, or buy the game legitimately. If they can prove that a small
discount improves conversions, I don't see why they wouldn't offer it. Steam
is all about removing friction by offering discounts.

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hanifvirani
If I am not wrong, this is what Xbox One wanted to do initially.

~~~
corresation
The Xbox One was originally to have applied digital distribution restrictions
to physically distributed media. That is the problem that people had with it.

Had Microsoft simply restricted their program to their digitally distributed
games -- which they are likely to loop back on -- I doubt anyone would have
taken issue with it.

~~~
mynameisvlad
... Except that's what a lot of Steam-distributed physical games do anyway.
Quite a few games just come with a Steam Key and then you can install over the
internet or use the disks as installation media into Steam.

... Which is exactly what the Xbox One proposed.

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dylangs1030
I was really excited about this, but then I read the limitations...in
particular:

> _No, due to technical limitations, some Steam games may be unavailable for
> sharing. For example, titles that require an additional third-party key,
> account, or subscription in order to play cannot be shared between
> accounts._

Damn. Probably should have expected this.

But, all in all, seems like a positive step forward!

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JonoBB
Somehow, I ended up with 2 steam accounts, and wanted to merge them. This is
expressly prevented by Steam
(([https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1558-QYA...](https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1558-QYAX-1965)).

Now, with these changes, I at least have a way around this problem.

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hayksaakian
Sounds great for a hypothetical Steam Box

Seems similar to the way current consoles handle accounts.

~~~
kevingadd
Yeah, it's very similar to how XBox Live accounts and digital games work
(though, interestingly, it is dramatically inferior to the model Microsoft had
proposed for XBox One before everyone got angry and forced them to backpedal -
that model had dramatically superior sharing features)

~~~
onli
How so? The plan for xbox one was to have up to 10 family members be able to
play the same game on any console. Steams plan now enables up to 10 family
members to play a game on any computer. In both cases, not on the same time. I
don't see the difference.

Edit: Ah, it seems steam only shares the whole library, not single games. A
pity, and that might very well be a difference.

~~~
VLM
"Steams plan now enables up to 10 family members to play a game on any
computer."

I've been thinking a better system would be number of shares = number of owned
games. Or number of shares per game = retail cost of game divided by total
retail value of all games on the entire account. Then I could share out "FTL"
dozens of times, but some goofball who opened a fake account containing only
one copy of "XYZ" could only share it out precisely once.

This follows the obvious customer service goal of making your best paying
customers the happiest.

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twodayslate
So my brother and I can't play the same game together if we share a steam
account? Am I reading that right? Not much changes for me then…

~~~
GhotiFish
exactly. This doesn't solve any of my problems with steam as it is.

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iam
This isn't any different from sharing the password with your family members
(who you should trust anyway, right?). Why not make it more useful and allow
the person you share with to play games from your library at the same time
you're playing?

(but different games. if I want to play TF2 and the family member wants to
play Dragon Age, I don't see why that shouldn't be possible!)

Heck, you can already play single/multi player games simultaneously just by
sharing passwords and using offline mode. Color me unexcited.

Here's even a quick config file change you can make so that your Steam always
starts in offline mode and doesn't force-logout the other person already
logged in.
[http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25474...](http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2547404)
(tried this with my dad and it works great as long as he doesn't need to
patch).

------
TheCraiggers
There's much lamenting about how people can't play the same game together on a
shared account.

The much bigger issue to me is that a shared device can't play _any_ of your
games if you're playing a game. So if you're playing Borderlands 2, your
brother can't play Borderlands 1. This seems nearly useless, if true.

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richardlblair
Some people see this as pointless because "lending" digital goods is
impossible.

Really, it's about ease of use. If a person can "borrow" a game easily, and
get their fulfillment from it they are less likely to download it illegally or
even try to steal it from valve by exploiting the "borrowing" system.

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seniorsassycat
I hope this leads to more game sharing. I think letting people play a
multiplayer game together when only one person owns the game would be great
for the consumer, and lead to higher sales of the game.

I have skipped some co-op games because I knew my friends wouldn't buy it, but
they would have played with me if they could.

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sliverstorm
Ok, _this_ much closer to allowing me to have my desktop and my HTPC logged in
to Steam at the same time...

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math0ne
This has been a rumored coming feature forever but I can't for the life of me
figure out how this benefits steam, or even how they convinced publishers to
take part in this.

Whats their motivation? Did they go over the publishers heads with this? I'm
curious to see how this pans out.

~~~
cdash
Probably the part where when your friend decides to play the game you are
borrowing from him you get a notice to buy the game or be forced to quit
within a few minutes.

Edit: It actually looks even more restrictive in that if your friend decides
to play any game on their steam library then you will be booted.

~~~
duskwuff
I don't think it'd work that way around - the owner of the library can kick
out friends who are borrowing their games, but not vice versa.

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kreek
Attn: Spotify, plz implement this too, thx

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Sarien
You could always share steam accounts by giving somebody your password! The
only thing this does is allow you to gain your own achievements which is just
Valve's way of getting you addicted to your steam account. Stop treating this
like a good thing or even a service it only benefits Valve.

~~~
chaostheory
<s>Yes, sharing your password is really secure</s>; not to mention that you
can only login to one Steam client with the same account. While it's not
perfect, Steam Sharing is a step up.

