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Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Steam Families
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2024 15:08:49 -0700
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 3/20/2024 11:06 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> 
> So, Valve is introducing "Steam Families", which seems to be an
> updated version of Steam's previous "Family Sharing" plan.* In
> essence, it allows gamers to share their library of games with other
> family members, rather than requiring everybody to have their own copy
> of the game (although, if more than one person wants to play the same
> game at the same time, you'll still need multiple copies).
> 
> The earlier "Family Sharing" feature was similar, except it was more
> restricted; for instance, with the older version, if I shared my
> library with Donna, she could play my games... unless I was already
> playing something. It didn't matter if she wanted to play "Half Life"
> and I was playing "Call of Duty"; only one game per library could be
> played at a time. Weirdly, even if Donna and I both owned "Half Life",
> if we were sharing libraries, only one person could play "Half Life"
> at the same time. The new "Steam Families" will do away with these
> limitation.
> 
> Other features include an ability to restrict which games you make
> accessible (good if you don't want your kids to access your M-rated
> titles). Also, kids can request that the 'host' library can purchase
> specific games; a better alternative than giving the kids your credit
> card to buy for their own accounts.
> 
> Still, as good as all this may be, it doesn't solve the one issue I
> really have with the whole thing, and that is that each person (or
> computer) needs to have a separate Steam account. You can't just buy
> little Donnie his own PC, log-on to Steam with your account, and let
> him use that.
> 
> (Well, you can, but you yourself won't be able to play your games
> until lil' Donnie stops playing). 

That's what I ended up doing for my son, He doesn't have much he wants 
to play on Steam, and as long as both of us weren't playing a game 
online I could put his or mine offline and play Whater we wanted at the 
same time.  If I was playing something that was online, I'd either go 
offline if that was viable or play something on another platform, like 
GOG or check out the freebies on Epic and Amazon.  He wanted to try 
fallout 4 and fortunately that was free on Epic so I set him up on that.

I also always check GOG first when buying games before Steam as they 
don't have that issue for the whole platform, as long as playing doesn't 
require logging into something specific to the game.  I'll happily pay a 
few dollars more for that, especially if my son is interested in a 
particular game.

The only thing I really don't like is very few games are set up for 
local multiplayer on PC and even then those are usually console ports. 
There's games I would try to co-op with him, but I have to buy another 
copy and have another account, which previously would mean he'd have to 
keep logging in and out of that account and my account with my help (I 
don't give him my password) depending on which game he wanted to play.

At least this eliminates that issue if I buy another copy, I just don't 
think that's fair considering all the console co-op games.

Heck some console games have split screen co-op but their PC ports don't 
(I'm especially looking at you EDF World Brothers! which I think my 
daughter would've liked to play with me.)

> And the idea of having to create
> accounts for each kid seems sort of creepy. There is enough
> data-harvesting done on kids already.

I had to do that with Roblox for them.

> 
> Just let me use the same account on multiple computers, and lock it so
> only one instance of each game can be used at the same time. That's
> what I really want, Valve. Maybe give parental controls to lock down
> access to certain Steam features per computer. It can all be done
> without requiring kids to sign away their privacy. Is that really too
> much to ask?

This seems like a better solution as they can share all the games I've 
bought, AND I can buy an extra copy for them if they want to co-op, and 
I don't have to fiddle with offline mode.  Still not my favorite 
solution, which is what GOG does, where I don't have to worry about any 
of that.

-- 
-Justisaur

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