Steam is a video game digital distribution service by Valve.
Steam News | Steam Beta Client news
Useful tools:
SteamDB
SteamCharts
Issue tracker for Linux version of Steam
Family Sharing enables you to play games from other family members' libraries, even if they are online playing another game.
This is huge! Previously it was annoying to share games become if someone was playing my game and I opened something up they would be kicked out.
If a family member gets banned for cheating while playing your copy of a game, you will also be banned in that game.
This sucks.
If a family member gets banned for cheating while playing your copy of a game, you will also be banned in that game.
This sucks.
Yeah, but I an see why as it would be easy to abuse. Only need one copy of the game and you could cycle accounts that never owned the game out of the family sharing when they get banned.
Might be other ways to limit that, but would also likely need more restrictions on the feature that might be more annoying.
Maybe they could allow me to set a game as not shareable.
Family view does this.
Oh cool I guess they thought of everything then
Do bans typically only affect the multiplayer portion of a game? I could see my nephew fucking around and finding out with one of my games. I never play competitive multiplayer, but if I got locked out of the game completely, I'd be pretty cross with him.
Even worse, a VAC ban in your game will probably transfer to your account in general. You won't only be affected in that game, but in any games that check your VAC status.
I guess don't share it with them, or have a conversation about the consequences of their actions if they happen to cheat if you can trust them. Allowing for the loophole is worse than it possibly hurting a few people though. Cheaters ruin games for everyone else, and they don't have any control over it at all.
I think it's fair. You should know if your family cheats if you share your games with them
Nah its impossible to always know if they will cheat. It could be their first time.
That's why you have that conversation with your family.
If a family member gets banned for cheating while playing your copy of a game, you will also be banned in that game.
This sucks.
On the other hand, Rust had a cheater issue at some point because they only checked the account ID when banning in EAC. Cheaters leveraged this by purchasing the game in a master account, and using secondary accounts tied with Steam Family Sharing to play.
Secondary account banned? No problem. Log out, share with another account, rinse and repeat. From what I can see they disabled Family sharing altogether.
I don't think it's horrible. First, it prevents abuse, and second it adds extra social pressure to not cheat if you're using this since you know if you get caught all your family comes with you. Sure, maybe some parent sharing with a stupid child it sucks, but I use this with my brother and we're both adults and know it isn't an issue for either of us. I don't really care if this prevents more cheaters from existing. The harm will be very minimal, with pretty good upsides for the vast majority of people.
It's stuff like this that makes me not even think about pirating games. Imagine a company that literally just improves features and makes it easier for me and my family to enjoy the media they sell. Why the fuck wouldn't I buy from their store?
Why streaming services don't understand this, I'll never know. Seems like the games industry is riding purely on Steam's usability while the film/TV industry is speedrunning enshittification.
DRM-free is even better for this, but comparing to storefronts that require logging in: absolutely.
GOG is pretty amazing, too, is what I'm saying.
Every company os speedrunning enshittification except steam. Like. Look at the other game launchers. They are all shit.
Epic didn't need any catching up tho 😎
Its better than Ubisoft connect or EA Launcher. But it sucks nontheless.
Or maybe we expect too much because of steam
Well, every one of these is a different pile of crap, but a pile of crap nonetheless.
It was supposed to be a Steam competitor, and they openly said it, but the only competition it won is the dumbest fucking ideas brought to PC gaming - and that being exclusivity. But after a few released games, I've realized it was a good thing! I could try the game for free, and wait a year when the game has those nice QoL features. For BL3, I started when the game already had tons of extra content.
What happens if my brother gets banned for cheating while playing my game?
If a family member gets banned for cheating while playing your copy of a game, you (the game owner) will also be banned in that game. Other family members are not impacted.
That kinda sucks.
I kinda hope they grant the ability to block some games from being shared. I trust my kids not to use cheats, but I can understand being a bit paranoid from being banned from a game you really enjoy and not wanting to take a chance.
Well, it never changed for years
Awesome! That would mean that family sharing finally works like I thought it would work. No more tears because I started a game while the kid was playing another one.
Ffs.....I mean, w.e, I'm sure it's fine. Just I literally only set up my brother to family share my library last month.....
Then you're set up for this already, silly.
Family Charing:
We're good, but we can be better!
Steam Families.
They're the same thing, lol.