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>I'm so happy to read this it rings hollow from a company whose entire bedrock for existence is DRM procedures. does Steam still disallow accounts from playin

by serf 11mo ago

>I'm so happy to read this it rings hollow from a company whose entire bedrock for existence is DRM procedures. does Steam still disallow accounts from playing more than one independently owned game at a time without special procedures?

colordrops 11mo ago
This is my number one beef with steam. It's such a big thorn on a rose.
Prickle 11mo ago
No. That restriction has been gone for a few years now. I can run rimworld and quasimorph via steam at the same time, as an example.
- babuskov 11mo ago
  Only if you do it on the same computer. The restriction is still there if you try to, for example, run one game on your PC and another on Steam Deck.
  - Zekio 11mo ago
    technically you can easily bypass it by using two accounts and use family sharing with the extra account
akimbostrawman 11mo ago
Steam DRM is weak, non intrusive and optional so complain to the devs for enabling it. I rather take steam DRM than securerom or denuvo.
- close04 11mo ago
  The problem is for now more of principle. Any DRM means you depend on Valve/Steam to continue to legally play your purchased games. If Valve has a change of heart, or of leadership, or hits a financial rough patch they can easily become a rent seeking gatekeeper. That non-intrusive DRM is the thin line between perpetually accepting Valve's conditions or playing illegally. This isn't a Valve specific problem but they get a free pass today because of all the good things they've done and the good will they're continuously showing. If this ever runs out a lot of people will be very disappointed. I'm not judging them "by comparison" because it's hard to look bad next to Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc. Just looking objectively at the situation, even if Valve was alone on the market.
  - scrollaway 11mo ago
    “Not having drm” is also a “for now” thing. Everything is “for now”. A person being good, a corporation being bad, everything can be appended with “for now”. It’s not an argument. You look at historical actions and willingness to change. Valve has been doing business this way forever.
    - klez 11mo ago
      The difference is that "Not having DRM" means the games I bought with no DRM is still there once they enable it. For example, with GOG I download the games I buy and there's no way they can enable DRM on the copies I made. On the other hand, if the games already have DRM and it gets worse or for whatever reason Valve goes under and you can't play your games anymore, well... you can't play any DRMed game without using whatever DRM mechanism they'll choose next. In other words "No DRM -> DRM" and "DRM -> Worse DRM" have different outcomes. > Valve has been doing business this way forever. And Google's motto was "Don't be evil" and for a good chunk of their life they weren't. That worked out well, did it? I'm not saying Valve will do a 180 and squander all the good faith it acquired. I'm just saying it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
      - akimbostrawman 11mo ago
        >And Google's motto was "Don't be evil" People here like to pretend google wasn't evil from the start. https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci... But you are right there is always the possibility they turn to shit. The advantage is that compared to other DRMs it is trivial to break even by yourself and all steam games are already freely available cracked so if they do just torrent them.
      - gambiting 11mo ago
        >>For example, with GOG I download the games I buy and there's no way they can enable DRM on the copies I made. There is no way for Steam to enable DRM on a copy of a game you made after you downloaded it from Steam. It's a weird argument to use really - once you copied the data elsewhere neither platform can do anything with it.
- colordrops 11mo ago
  That has nothing to do with launching more than one steam game at once not being allowed.
WithinReason 11mo ago
Is going offline a special procedure?
- Neekerer 11mo ago
  You need to click twice
clayhacks 11mo ago
You can now have steam families and have two members play different games from the same library. Assuming you were using two machines you could just have a second account as a family member and play both. Or do you have a crazy beefy computer and are trying to run two different games on one machine?
- babuskov 11mo ago
  Not really. It still has a library level lock. What Steam Families has enabled is to play games from each other's libraries at the same time. For example, if my account has a game A, and your has a game B, I can play the game B while you play the game A. This used to be disabled before. You still cannot play a game C from my library while I play the game A from my own library. The only way to be able to play any game you want would be to create a separate account for each game.
  - gpderetta 11mo ago
    You can go offline on one of the machines (but yes, it is very annoying).
  - blarg1 11mo ago
    > You still cannot play a game C from my library while I play the game A from my own library. I just tried it, and I could.
tete 11mo ago
I agree. DRM sucks badly. I'd argue that it's a bit of a compliance thing though. Eg publisher lawyers saying DRM is needed, given that there doesn't seem to be much push from Steam for anything "draconian". At least it is for public broadcasters having online archives that also sometimes have DRM even where it isn't actually required (self-produced stuff). However, there is still a huge difference between buying hardware that literally "jails" you and force feeds you DRM and a system where even in the marketing says you can completely tear away all of that without jailbreaks, etc. and without stuff being super fiddly.
babuskov 11mo ago
> does Steam still disallow accounts from playing more than one independently owned game at a time without special procedures? Yes. I just tried launching one game on Steam Deck and another one on my desktop and it showed a message: > Error - Steam: You are logged in on another computer already playing Railbound. Launching Clutchtime™: Basketball Deckbuilder here will disconnect the other session from Steam.
- ragazzina 11mo ago
  This is outrageous.

by serf 11mo ago

colordrops 11mo ago

This is my number one beef with steam. It's such a big thorn on a rose.

Prickle 11mo ago

No. That restriction has been gone for a few years now. I can run rimworld and quasimorph via steam at the same time, as an example.

babuskov 11mo ago
Only if you do it on the same computer. The restriction is still there if you try to, for example, run one game on your PC and another on Steam Deck.
- Zekio 11mo ago
  technically you can easily bypass it by using two accounts and use family sharing with the extra account

akimbostrawman 11mo ago

Steam DRM is weak, non intrusive and optional so complain to the devs for enabling it. I rather take steam DRM than securerom or denuvo.

close04 11mo ago
The problem is for now more of principle. Any DRM means you depend on Valve/Steam to continue to legally play your purchased games. If Valve has a change of heart, or of leadership, or hits a financial rough patch they can easily become a rent seeking gatekeeper. That non-intrusive DRM is the thin line between perpetually accepting Valve's conditions or playing illegally. This isn't a Valve specific problem but they get a free pass today because of all the good things they've done and the good will they're continuously showing. If this ever runs out a lot of people will be very disappointed. I'm not judging them "by comparison" because it's hard to look bad next to Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, etc. Just looking objectively at the situation, even if Valve was alone on the market.
- scrollaway 11mo ago
  “Not having drm” is also a “for now” thing. Everything is “for now”. A person being good, a corporation being bad, everything can be appended with “for now”. It’s not an argument. You look at historical actions and willingness to change. Valve has been doing business this way forever.
  - klez 11mo ago
    The difference is that "Not having DRM" means the games I bought with no DRM is still there once they enable it. For example, with GOG I download the games I buy and there's no way they can enable DRM on the copies I made. On the other hand, if the games already have DRM and it gets worse or for whatever reason Valve goes under and you can't play your games anymore, well... you can't play any DRMed game without using whatever DRM mechanism they'll choose next. In other words "No DRM -> DRM" and "DRM -> Worse DRM" have different outcomes. > Valve has been doing business this way forever. And Google's motto was "Don't be evil" and for a good chunk of their life they weren't. That worked out well, did it? I'm not saying Valve will do a 180 and squander all the good faith it acquired. I'm just saying it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
    - akimbostrawman 11mo ago
      >And Google's motto was "Don't be evil" People here like to pretend google wasn't evil from the start. https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-cia-and-nsa-research-grants-for-mass-surveillance https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci... But you are right there is always the possibility they turn to shit. The advantage is that compared to other DRMs it is trivial to break even by yourself and all steam games are already freely available cracked so if they do just torrent them.
    - gambiting 11mo ago
      >>For example, with GOG I download the games I buy and there's no way they can enable DRM on the copies I made. There is no way for Steam to enable DRM on a copy of a game you made after you downloaded it from Steam. It's a weird argument to use really - once you copied the data elsewhere neither platform can do anything with it.
colordrops 11mo ago
That has nothing to do with launching more than one steam game at once not being allowed.

WithinReason 11mo ago

Is going offline a special procedure?

Neekerer 11mo ago
You need to click twice

clayhacks 11mo ago

You can now have steam families and have two members play different games from the same library. Assuming you were using two machines you could just have a second account as a family member and play both. Or do you have a crazy beefy computer and are trying to run two different games on one machine?

babuskov 11mo ago
Not really. It still has a library level lock. What Steam Families has enabled is to play games from each other's libraries at the same time. For example, if my account has a game A, and your has a game B, I can play the game B while you play the game A. This used to be disabled before. You still cannot play a game C from my library while I play the game A from my own library. The only way to be able to play any game you want would be to create a separate account for each game.
- gpderetta 11mo ago
  You can go offline on one of the machines (but yes, it is very annoying).
- blarg1 11mo ago
  > You still cannot play a game C from my library while I play the game A from my own library. I just tried it, and I could.

tete 11mo ago

I agree. DRM sucks badly. I'd argue that it's a bit of a compliance thing though. Eg publisher lawyers saying DRM is needed, given that there doesn't seem to be much push from Steam for anything "draconian". At least it is for public broadcasters having online archives that also sometimes have DRM even where it isn't actually required (self-produced stuff). However, there is still a huge difference between buying hardware that literally "jails" you and force feeds you DRM and a system where even in the marketing says you can completely tear away all of that without jailbreaks, etc. and without stuff being super fiddly.

babuskov 11mo ago

> does Steam still disallow accounts from playing more than one independently owned game at a time without special procedures? Yes. I just tried launching one game on Steam Deck and another one on my desktop and it showed a message: > Error - Steam: You are logged in on another computer already playing Railbound. Launching Clutchtime™: Basketball Deckbuilder here will disconnect the other session from Steam.

ragazzina 11mo ago
This is outrageous.