Shared Gaming May Be Coming to Steam
Code found in Steam points to possible game sharing with other members.
I'm a big fan of Steam. It's super easy to purchase and download games, and the community and discounts keep me coming back for more. Heck, I probably have a mountain of titles I've purchased over the last six months that I'll never get around to playing in the near future. I will even buy discounted PC games from other platforms like Amazon and GameFly just to acquire the Steam key. For PC gamers, Steam is a treasure chest.
But what's a total pain is buying games for the kids like Sonic the Hedgehog or the highly popular LEGO titles (we have them all I think). Given that purchases are locked to one specific account, they can't be loaned out to friends and family. Sure, you can log into your Steam account on any other authorized device for others to play, but there can be only one login at a time. Thus, if your son is playing LEGO Batman on the den computer, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is not an option until he's logged off.
Bummer. Sure, a separate Steam account could be used to purchase games for the kids to play separately, but that's just another account to deal with, and another account with credit card information. No thanks.
However now with all the hoopla surrounding Xbox One and games locked to a specific user, code has suddenly popped up in Steam that suggests Valve may be loosening the reigns a bit on game sharing. Although the company hasn't announced anything official, Steam may eventually feature a "shared game library" that allows other Steam users to borrow your games.
Here are the "relevant" parts of the code provided by Kotaku:
* "SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicense_Title" "Shared game library"
* "SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_OwnerText" "Just so you know, your games are currently in use by %borrower%. Playing now will send %borrower% a notice that it's time to quit."
* "SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_BorrowerText" "This shared game is currently unavailable. Please try again later or buy this game for your own library."
As the code shows, game owners can let other Steam users "borrow" their games. For instance, I could create a new account for my son without having to enter credit card information, then let him play LEGO Batman from his new account. But if I were to play LEGO Batman, he would be forced to stop. Thus, only one gamer can play LEGO Batman at a time – no simultaneous uses, or so it seems.
Of course, there's a good chance this option will never become a finalized feature. Like the Xbox One, it will be up to the publishers if they allow their titles to be borrowed from paying customers. Maybe there will be a user limit, or possibly even a time limit – who knows at this point.
For now you can have one in offline mode with the other logged in. Just disable the connection before launching Steam. Some games don't work in offline mode though (multi-player usually.)
"This shared game is unavailable because you have reached maximum shared play time. If you enjoyed this game, please buy it for your own library."
For any new purchases I consider GOG first and Steam second. Since I mostly buy older games that works ok for me, but Valve do miss sales from me.
CS:GO should never be an option...
PC was always better than console and everytime consoles take a step towards PCs to close the gap they put it in a higher gear and leave them eating dust
I have two accounts for my kids and I just buy games for them using the gift feature from my account. No cards needed on any account but mine!
Steam is awesome! I often joke with my friends about how angry I was when I bought Half-Life 2 and had to get this weird internet thing. The Xbox crowd should HOPE they kill used games because killing used games on the PC allowed Valve to create this amazing service.
"SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_OwnerText" "Just so you know, your games are currently in use by %borrower%. Playing now will send %borrower% a notice that it's time to quit."
The keyword here is "games", plural. This sounds more like you will not be able to play *any* game in your library if someone is playing *any* game from your shared library. In essence, 1 game at a time, no matter who us playing.
This is just speculation, but using games instead of game suggests this is true.
Well, one can choose not to store their credit card details in the account. That's what I do. Better going through a minute of hassle than risking my credit card details being exposed in case of a hack.