• @[email protected]
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    118 months ago

    I mean, it’s been here for beta years and yes, it is absolutely fantastic. The one year penalty keeps me from handing it out like candy to extended family and friends (plus we all have that cousin who can’t be trusted) while I can let my wife and kids play games on my account without them kicking me out of mine.

    The parental controls are good too, although I’m not using them yet since my kids are too young to really pick their games from the library themselves.

  • @[email protected]
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    58 months ago

    What is this. Because I’m pretty upset that the games I paid for can’t be played on different pc’s. My daughter wants to pay stardew valley while I’m online with family on satisfactory. I have to take the other pc and go into offline mode. This wasn’t the solution. Even with adding members I didn’t think I did it right. So does this fix it? Can my family member log into stardew online with her cousin while I’m on another lan game?

    • @[email protected]
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      8 months ago

      Yes, you can play Satisfactory while she is playing Stardew Valley, while both of you are online. You now have a number of copies of each game in the family. If 2 members own the same game, then two different members in the family can play both copies at the same time

      • @[email protected]
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        38 months ago

        Perfect. Finally. I understand needing two copies of the game to play online (one game code per user). But local split screen shouldn’t be that way and neither should playing seperate games force me into individual play sessions. Each game code should have capacity to run an individual account. Not one account to each owned game.

        This has been my gripe with steam and purchased digital games vs physical games since it’s concept. It felt like I was renting play sessions with my ID license rather than owning the games I paid for.

  • @[email protected]
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    78 months ago

    Between my wife’s enormous Steam library and Whisky/Crossover on my M2 MacBook, I’ve been playing more games than ever since the beta of this popped up. It’s actually quite impressive how many games just work - albeit with some compromises in places.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 months ago

      Can you share more about how you got steam to work that way? Right now I play some games through a VM with horrible performance.

      • @[email protected]
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        18 months ago

        If you’re using an M-series Mac, download the Windows Steam installer and Whisky. Install Steam through Whisky then simply install games through Steam as normal.

        There’s a bit of a learning curve, but /r/MacGaming on Reddit is a useful resource.

        There are some that simply won’t work because the hardware won’t run them (Red Dead 2 is the most disappointing one for me), but have a play and see what works.

  • @[email protected]
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    288 months ago

    This is a great feature! I can finally have both my kids play whatever game they want at the same time.

  • @[email protected]
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    8 months ago

    So how do I create a Steam Family? I can’t see an option to do so anywhere but I am most likely just missing it… or it hasn’t been rolled out to the UK yet

    edit: found it! For anyone else who is lost like me, go to the top right and click on your use name and then Account Details. From there, Family Management is on the left and it’s obvious

  • @[email protected]
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    288 months ago

    Finally! Now I can switch back to the “normal” Steam Beta build for other experimental features, Steam Family was on a separate beta build which didn’t allow me to try other things…

    • @[email protected]
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      8 months ago

      The family beta had weird issues on Linux (Gnome/Wayland) until recently too so I’m glad to see this getting a full release.

      • Cethin
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        8 months ago

        I’ve been on it for a while (on Garuda, no Gnome) and it’s been stable. I don’t recall any issues. Maybe I just got lucky.

        • @[email protected]
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          8 months ago

          It’s fixed now. But flatpak steam on gnome/Wayland would display a black screen on the store when opted into the family beta for a while. Stable was unaffected.

          • Cethin
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            28 months ago

            Ah, flatpak. That might be the difference.

  • MrGerrit
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    518 months ago

    Very handy. Been using it with my daughter and loves the amount of games she can choose from.

  • MrScottyTay
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    358 months ago

    This bit is a bit fucked up:

    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.

    • Cethin
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      138 months ago

      I think it’s a great rule. If you’re sharing your library with others, don’t be am asshole and cheat. If you do you’ll be a disappointment to them too. More social pressure to not cheat is only a positive in my opinion, but also I will never cheat and I only share my library with people I’m confident won’t cheat as well. I don’t associate with people who want to ruin other’s fun. If you do then that’s on you. It’s your choice to risk getting banned.

      • @[email protected]
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        8 months ago

        It also stops people from buying a game, sharing it to themselves on an alt account and using cheats. Then just spinning up a new alt account at no cost when the first one gets banned.

      • @[email protected]
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        28 months ago

        This is about families.

        On one hand you have a responsible adult with over 500 collected Steam games and on the other hand you have a 14 year old discovering porn and cheats.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          Sounds like a great life lesson to be taught by a responsible adult to a 24 year old discovering cheats.

            • @[email protected]
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              18 months ago

              Not sure where you’re going with this - I was implying that there are consequences for cheating, like losing access to a game library even if temporary.

              • @[email protected]
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                18 months ago

                I’m not sure where you’re going with this either.

                I know it’s to make sure cheaters get punished. But that destroys the whole purpose of sharing your gaming library with your kids. They are prone to making mistakes. Should a parent be punished for that? I think the kid should.

                15+ years ago I used an aimbot on the first Call of Duty that I got as a gift and got a PunkBuster ban. I was 13 years old and found something new and wanted to try it out. I got punished, in a single game, all by myself. My parents did not get punished, but I was crying.

                I can’t even imagine if I were a kid and made my parent lose access to a lot of games. That would be absolute horror. Not only for little kid me then, but also for my parent. If I would share my cureent Steam account with my kid and they’d get a VAC ban, I would lose €700 in CS skins alone.

                • @[email protected]
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                  18 months ago

                  I can’t even imagine if I were a kid and made my parent lose access to a lot of games.

                  Well it’d be just the one game that they cheated in. That’s where you can sit the kid down and tell him that cheating has consequences. Ideally this talk would’ve happened before you share access though - I’m thinking of it as making sure the kid knows how to drive before you let them borrow the keys to your car.

        • Cethin
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          18 months ago

          Steam Families is not just used by families.

    • shmanio
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      178 months ago

      It is not different from how the previous shared libraries worked. I guess it’s there to stop cheaters from buying a single copy of the game and sharing it with throwaway accounts.

      • MrScottyTay
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        8 months ago

        That sort of behaviour should be easy to track if it happens more than once though

        • @[email protected]
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          28 months ago

          Being able to evade a ban once is already a problem. Now you need to ban every cheater twice to really ban them.

    • @[email protected]
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      108 months ago

      I mean, someone should get banned from cheating. I can see why this happen though, since the account playing does not own the game the account which has the game linked gets banned instead. If the account cheating has the game they are instead playing on their copy and that gets banned instead (i assume).

      However the ban should be linked to the account and not the copy of the game. I do not understand why this isnt the case. Maybe because someone could just make a new account and link that to play on instead, therefor never having to buy more than one copy of the game while cheating.

      • @[email protected]
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        118 months ago

        Yeah, it’s most likely to prevent someone from using the family feature to get away with cheating.

        As it stands now, if you get caught cheating you must create a new account and repurchase the game. So the main deterrent is the full cost of a game.

        With the steam family function you could potentially create 5 new accounts per year, and simply remove them when they get caught cheating. The only deterrent would be the wait period.

        So I agree with their decision. The downside is that you must trust someone before adding them to your family. If your cheating son gets you kicked off counterstrike, then just remove him from your family. They’re never too old to drop off at the fire station.

        • @[email protected]
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          38 months ago

          This is indeed the appropriate reaction to being banned on counter strike. Joke aside you could just lock the entire functionality of adding an account to your family if someone got caught cheating though.

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            I’m not sure that would be the best solution. A cheater could still get caught cheating 6 times before requiring a repurchase, and it’s still a pretty harsh penalty for someone who didn’t cheat. You keep your game, but you can no longer share your library if your family situation changes.

            ‘Sorry, son, you can’t play my games on your computer because daddy made a bad decision when he was 21.’

            The ultimate solution is probably an online identity when playing any game. Imagine if cheating got you banned from all online games for 5 years.

    • @[email protected]
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      68 months ago

      My question is, when there are 5 people with 5 copies of a multiplayer game in the pool, and the 6th member without a copy gets banned, which of the other 5 members gets banned?

      • @[email protected]
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        38 months ago

        when you play a game that multiple people have, you can choose which copy is being used. The owner of that copy and the one playing get banned

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          Thanks, that explains it. So there is a pop-up when you try to play a game from the common pool and you have to choose who you are borrowing from?

      • hand
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        18 months ago

        Best guess? Whichever account gave account 6 permission to play their game.

        Either account 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 will be the user that gives 6 the permission to play their game, so it follows they’re the one that (I’m assuming) will get banned also. It’s a good question you raise and I’d be interested to know for sure myself.

        • @[email protected]
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          18 months ago

          Nobody is giving anybody permission any more than anyone else though. Account 6 creates a family and 5 accounts with a game join the family. There are now 5 copies of the game in the family pool. Account 6 can play and get banned. In this situation nobody even invited account 6 to the family.

    • hand
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      468 months ago

      Not sure I agree, how else are they meant to prevent the ocean of “It wasn’t me, it was my brother” excuses from hackers smurfing accounts?

      I’d recommend (to everyone) that if you’re unsure -or have even the slightest doubt about the person you’re going to give access to your Steam account- to politely decline and play it safe.

      • MrScottyTay
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        They should know the account it is that’s currently using it. They’re not using your account when playing your games

        • arefx
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          Bro you can just make a fake account and say it was your little brother , they literally have no idea who signed up or if they lied about account details 🙄

        • hand
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          188 months ago

          Unless I’ve misunderstood; that’s exactly why I asked the question in my original comment. I’ll explain my / the reasoning:

          I own a game on a Steam account (A) and want to hack (and evade bans) using another Steam account (B).

          I share my library/game from account (A) to account (B) then hack on account B and only account B gets banned… What’s to then stop me from making Steam account C, D, E, F… etc? Absolutely nothing. Hence the double ban.

          I stress that if you do share a game / your Steam library with others you trust them explicitly.

          • @[email protected]
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            18 months ago

            Restrict the number of accounts that can join that family group. And/or remove the ability to share the library from the main account for repeated offenses.

            Or require multiple family members accounts to have to cheat before the owner account is banned.

  • @[email protected]
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    808 months ago

    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

    Hm… so if you don’t trust your kids to not do dumb things in games you also play then don’t share them

    • @[email protected]
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      488 months ago

      As much as i don’t really like this there would have been a loophole where you use fake temporary family members to continue cheating.

      Back in the day some games also banned your homes external ip address which would have a similar effect.

      • JackbyDev
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        168 months ago

        Imagine moving to a new place and being banned because the last person who lived there cheated in the specific game you play lol.

        • @[email protected]
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          58 months ago

          I tried to sign up for a Facebook account (hate it, but market place seemed like my only option for something I was after) and had my account automatically banned on creation. Twice. They demanded photos of my face, which I begrudgingly gave them, and still never approved my account.

          I signed up for a new one with the exact same information from my mobile data plan instead and it worked fine, and I never got banned

        • fatalicus
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          268 months ago

          Ip address isn’t tied to the house, but the subscriber.

          But most ISP don’t have static Ip for private customers, so you experience just suddenly being banned because you received an Ip address someone got banned.

      • @[email protected]
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        68 months ago

        My guess is this, which is way at the bottom of the support FAQ page (which can be found at the bottom of the posted FAQ section):

        “I cannot join a Steam Family”

        If you cannot join a Steam Family, it is likely for one of three reasons:

        • Your account activity does not show that you are part of the same household as the existing members.
      • @[email protected]
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        28 months ago

        I cannot invite my gf to the Families, while we could do Library share before just fine.

  • @[email protected]
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    158 months ago

    This is fantastic! I was just trying to set up my kid on a computer and the old way was seeming too clunky and slow, and she wanted to do something else so we never finished it.