Valve Announces Steam Family Sharing, Goes Into Beta Next Week

Post by Eorl @ 09:14am 12/09/13 | 27 Comments

Valve has unveiled a new feature to their ever-growing digital Steam service, this time in the sharing games bracket. Titled Steam Family Sharing, this new service will allow close friends and family members to share their libraries of Steam games without the need for using the same account, instead using their own separate account.

Steam Family Sharing is designed for close friends and family members to play one another's Steam games while each earning their own Steam achievements and storing their own saves and application data to the Steam cloud. It's all enabled by authorizing a shared computer.

Once a device is authorized, the lender's library of Steam games becomes available for others on the machine to access, download, and play. Though simultaneous usage of an account’s library is not allowed, the lender may always access and play his games at any time. If he decides to start playing when a friend is borrowing one of his games, the friend will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing.

Anna Sweet of Valve commented on the new service, stating that "Family Sharing was created in direct response to these user requests.”

“Our customers have expressed a desire to share their digital games among friends and family members, just as current retail games, books, DVDs, and other physical media can be shared."

The service has a few understandable limitations, most notably that it won't support every game on Steam, and "any region restrictions will remain in place when lending or borrowing content":

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.

The new service will launch with a closed beta trial next week, though expect this to expand quite rapidly as it gears up toward launching globally across Steam. As usual Valve has also set up a handy page to answer all frequently asked questions so head over there for the full brief.

steam family sharing game sharing pc

Latest Comments

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greazy
Posted 09:31am 12/9/13

Anna sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

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TiT
Posted 09:40am 12/9/13

yeah thats awesome, sick of having to get out of steam because my dad wants to play a silly game :)

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Keen
Posted 09:49am 12/9/13

This seems like a pretty sweet thing.

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 10:01am 12/9/13

Yeah, I welcome this.

Sony/Microsoft This is how you run a business and online-service.

Cheers.

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d^
Posted 10:18am 12/9/13

It's really well thought out, hope the execution is as good.

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Khel
Posted 10:35am 12/9/13

This is what Microsoft was originally offering with the XBox One though and everyone shot it down?

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Dan
Posted 11:00am 12/9/13

Nobody shot down family sharing, people shot down always on DRM as a mandatory requirement. No good reason why family sharing couldn't still be applied to digitally-purchased games on Xbox One (or X360, PS3, PS4, PSV etc for that matter).

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ravn0s
Posted 04:46pm 12/9/13

pretty cool feature to announce on steam's 10th birthday.

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Khel
Posted 05:00pm 12/9/13

Nobody shot down family sharing, people shot down always on DRM as a mandatory requirement.

Sounds like always online is a mandatory requirement for this too though? I don't imagine you'd have access to anybody's shared library if you were using Steam in offline mode, cos of all the checks it needs to do to see if anyone else is currently playing the games, etc.

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copuis
Posted 05:03pm 12/9/13

Sounds like always online is a mandatory requirement for this too though? I don't imagine you'd have access to anybody's shared library if you were using Steam in offline mode, cos of all the checks it needs to do to see if anyone else is currently playing the games, etc.

there is a big difference between needing to be always on in order to play your games (like MS's offering) and family been able to access your games while you are offline

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Whoop
Posted 06:02pm 12/9/13

Though simultaneous usage of an account’s library is not allowed

So let's say I share my library with my imaginary friend (because I don't have any real ones), let's call him Max Power. Max can then log into his steam account and access my library and if he's playing a game in my library, I can't access ANY games?

Hahahah, no. What a load of s***. I might as well just let him use my account because it would end up in the same result of me not being able to play any of my games anyway.

For anyone who says offline mode, you ever tried to play an online steam enabled FPS in offline mode? Yeah, thought not.

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Daniel Reisbeck
Posted 06:22pm 12/9/13

it won't be quite that bad whoop, if your friend is playing your library and you want to play a game all you have to do is launch the game, it'll give him 5 minutes to either buy the game or save and quit, the primary library holder of the game has all the control. more likely to annoy friends unless they know the explicit caveat that once you decide you want to play a game they won't be playing anymore, good for overseas relationships though.

still it could be better but I bet the legal team would be blocking it and so would distributrorz

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Whoop
Posted 06:46pm 12/9/13

That's still a load of s***. Most games these days don't even allow you to save, you have to wait for a checkpoint. So your mate will potentially lose a good deal of their progress.

It should have been some sort of 24h sharing thing where you can share a game with someone for 24h, they can play it as much as they want during that time, during which you're unable to use just that particular game, but you can still play all your other games without affecting them.

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Viper119
Posted 07:06pm 12/9/13

there is a big difference between needing to be always on in order to play your games (like MS's offering) and family been able to access your games while you are offline

Maybe? My existence is pretty internet pervasive, so always being online just doesn't seem like an issue to me. I'd prefer it tbh, no physical or offline hassle.

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HERMITech
Posted 07:58pm 12/9/13

Great Idea!

Wonder if this will work with those four license game packs you can buy and whether you could share those at the same time?

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Daniel Reisbeck
Posted 07:59pm 12/9/13

its definetly not perfect whoop, your idea is pretty good but I just figure the suits and corps like ea/act/etc would want to restrict that as much as possible

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 08:15pm 12/9/13

Oh? I thought your family could play your library game while you played some other game from your library? If that isn't the case, then Pah! this policy is bogus.

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TiT
Posted 10:04pm 12/9/13

no i am pretty sure you can play different game to the game the person you are sharing with because if this isnt the case you could just give your family the password (which i did for my dad) . I believe you cant play the same game at the same time

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ravn0s
Posted 10:49pm 12/9/13

Oh? I thought your family could play your library game while you played some other game from your library? If that isn't the case, then Pah! this policy is bogus.

it's right there in the FAQ

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.

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TiT
Posted 10:54pm 12/9/13

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.

I see i read that as 2 people wanting to play shared library which isnt theirs. eg 3 perosn scenario. My bro shares his library and dad and i wanna play that library :S

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copuis
Posted 03:42am 13/9/13

yeah, i read it the same as tit

also, if a mate is playing say tropico, and I want to play the same game, I am able to, and my mate will be given the option to buy it, or quit in a token amount of time

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Khel
Posted 08:33am 13/9/13

Nah, its just 1 person full stop, cos it says if someone else is playing your games, and the owner goes to play one, it kicks the other person out.

Its not per game, it shares your whole library, so even if your mate is playing your copy of Left For Dead 2, and you want to play Dota 2, it'll kick your mate out of your library.

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TiT
Posted 08:42am 13/9/13

Nah, its just 1 person full stop, cos it says if someone else is playing your games, and the owner goes to play one, it kicks the other person out.Its not per game, it shares your whole library, so even if your mate is playing your copy of Left For Dead 2, and you want to play Dota 2, it'll kick your mate out of your library.

mmm can you please show me where it actually says that. Because that doesnt make sense as really why i dont just give my family the password to my account or do what i do and make it so it automatically saves the password?

It will let you play a different game just not the same game. If you do play the same game it will tell them to buy it or quit.

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ravn0s
Posted 08:50am 13/9/13

the FAQ spells it all out...

Can I share specific games, or do I have to share my whole library?

Libraries are shared and borrowed in their entirety.

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.

When I authorize a device to lend my library to others, do I limit my own ability to access and play my games?

As the lender, you may always access and play your games at any time. If you decide to start playing when a friend is already playing one of your games, he/she will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing.

Sometimes the games I’ve borrowed are unavailable for me to play. Why?

Borrowed games are only available on devices that have been authorized by the lender. Borrowed games will be unavailable on even an authorized device when the lender’s library is currently in use on another computer.

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trillion
Posted 10:38am 13/9/13

why is Steam not easily transferable in an SSD migration?

i don't want to have to take this in to get some genius to fix for an idiot :P

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Mantorok
Posted 10:46am 13/9/13

why is Steam not easily transferable in an SSD migration?

Not sure what you mean. Copy Steam.exe and the steamapps and userdata folders. Run Steam.exe as Administrator and you're done.

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carson
Posted 10:53am 13/9/13

why is Steam not easily transferable in an SSD migration?

i don't want to have to take this in to get some genius to fix for an idiot :P

It's pretty easy. You could just uninstall steam, then reinstall it on SSD and then copy over the games folders to the SSD.

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