4 ms·

Steam actually has a family share feature, and while you "can't" play games if your library is being used by someone else, you can just go into offline mode to

Steam actually has a family share feature, and while you "can't" play games if your library is being used by someone else, you can just go into offline mode to bypass that. So if you want to play single-player games, that works pretty well.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago
I'm aware and that's a bug, not a feature. If you are online and go Offline with the explicit button (instead of unplug the cable) and actually keep the cable connected (not sure if LAN or internet at this point) and start a second Steam client and use the library (not sure if online or offline for the second one), the offline one will not be able to use the library because already in use. The workaround is, indeed, pull the cable or firewall steam, go offline, plug the cable. So the concern becomes "what if the protection becomes stronger".
swiley 5y ago
I used to live somewhere with terrible internet. Offline mode seems to work about 10% of the time and your better off pretending it doesn't exist.
jandrese 5y ago
This is my #1 complaint with Steam. I have 3 kids in the house on the family share thing, and if any one of them plays a game it locks everybody else out the entire library. I don't think Valve understands what a family is. I think Valve's definition of a family is one guy who owns a whole bunch of different computers that he wants to flit between. Maybe this is what family is to a Valve employee? I don't know. Most streaming services allow a small but reasonable number of concurrent connections. Usually around 5. Why does Valve insist on locking out my library of games that I paid for when one person has a game open? It makes no sense. I wouldn't complain if the rule was you couldn't have more than one copy of a particular game open (maybe have an option to buy multiple copies for the library?), but if someone is playing L4D2 they shouldn't lock someone else out of playing HalfLife 2.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 5y ago

I'm aware and that's a bug, not a feature. If you are online and go Offline with the explicit button (instead of unplug the cable) and actually keep the cable connected (not sure if LAN or internet at this point) and start a second Steam client and use the library (not sure if online or offline for the second one), the offline one will not be able to use the library because already in use. The workaround is, indeed, pull the cable or firewall steam, go offline, plug the cable. So the concern becomes "what if the protection becomes stronger".

swiley 5y ago

I used to live somewhere with terrible internet. Offline mode seems to work about 10% of the time and your better off pretending it doesn't exist.

jandrese 5y ago

This is my #1 complaint with Steam. I have 3 kids in the house on the family share thing, and if any one of them plays a game it locks everybody else out the entire library. I don't think Valve understands what a family is. I think Valve's definition of a family is one guy who owns a whole bunch of different computers that he wants to flit between. Maybe this is what family is to a Valve employee? I don't know. Most streaming services allow a small but reasonable number of concurrent connections. Usually around 5. Why does Valve insist on locking out my library of games that I paid for when one person has a game open? It makes no sense. I wouldn't complain if the rule was you couldn't have more than one copy of a particular game open (maybe have an option to buy multiple copies for the library?), but if someone is playing L4D2 they shouldn't lock someone else out of playing HalfLife 2.