Steam Family Sharing Useless?

A Steam feature is useless? Oh, I thought you were going to tell us something new...

Lol no , just because some people lack common sense it doesn't make it useless .

Just create new account for all games and problem is solved... ;)

The intention of it to share games on a PC with others so that they can have their own set of achievements and different save data (not just different slot)... it's not for sharing with just everyone.. I guess

Yup, that's exactly what I thought.

It's to prevent renting accounts for money. If all shared devices could play at the same tme, what would stop me or anyone with big steam library from putting an offer like "I have 500 games on steam. For 1$/day you may play them all expect from the one game I will be playing at this time. Don't waste your money on buying all these games - rent them all for just 1$ a day". With this system they make sure that if you want to share a game with your friends you can do so, but ofc they will mnot have the same privilages as you do. And one account won't be able to be used by many people all the time (because that would be a really bad move - ppl would no longer buy games on steam - why buy a game if you can just find a person who already finished it and pay him 10% of it's value so he would share the game with you? He will no longer play it, as he finished it, he would play other games, you would finish a game and never buy it).

Really, a beta feature going into limited testing isn't fully awesome and usable at the start. That is definitely something to cry about.

I'm guessing that this is not the long term plan, but currently a limitation of how it's been implemented. Just like having to share your entire library and not just specific games. It will all likely be updated as they continue to develop it, and these limitations may be removed.

If it never changes then oh well just don't use it if it's useless for you. It doesn't change the Steam you've been using.

But I wonder if that's actually true. I wonder what would happen if 1 person is playing on a shared Library,
and the lender then turns on offline steam?

Even more what if you start playing with your interned turned off, well all of this considering that you don't have to have const internet connection for it to work.

"Blablablabla petition!"
I lol'd.

Honestly I don't have problem with this. The restriction is pretty reasonable.

I totally disagree that it is useless. I personally think it's a brilliant move. Do bear in mind that Steam/Valve will have to take care of their publishers as well. If all games can be shared without limitations and unlimited devices then all we need is just 1 super duper steam account user where the entire gaming world can share.

Look at this scenario which was not possible before this feature. My brother and me have our own Steam account and living in different locations. I have Bioshock Infinite which he don't and he bought Saints Row 4 which I didn't. So now both of us can play both games. In fact we can still both be online and I play his library games while he plays mine. To me that is brilliant but not so good for the game publishers of course :p

Also you don't expect people to be playing 20 hours a day right?

Wait so everyone was perfectly happy before they added this feature, and now their pissed that it doesn't let them have unlimited access to a friends library? Same with cards ignore the feature then.

For me, I think this is a fair compromise that doesn't cost developers anything, and may in fact help drive sales. I'm always logged in on Steam, but work too much to find time to play. I've got a library of several hundred games, thanks to bundles. I can let my little cousins play using the Shared Library feature without worrying about them messing up my hours. Should someone get kicked off they have the option to buy the game and support the developer.

Sounds like a petty complaint of a spoiled child. Sowwy.

I don't think it's entirely useless.
However I'm not going pro or against it since we didn't even have the chance to test it and see how it works.
There might be FAQ and official statements but as we know, many things related to Steam are often subject to change.
Remember what Steam was 10 years ago at this day. Bloatcrapmalware.

Happy GabeN day ya'll btw.

Offline mode for the win!! :D

It's useless -to me- because I'd still need access to my library. Being able to lend out individual games would have been great.

I must confess that if this work that way will be less interesting than I guest, but well, it's still interesting.
I have many games, a friend of mine want to try one while I'm on a travel or sleeping, I autorize hum to burrow it and it's done, no need to share my password or anything, he get achievments and etc, if he like the game he can even buy it to play by his own.

Let's keep in mind a simple thing. Valve don't need to give us anything of that. They already giving us something free of charge, it's not a right to share games and stuff, it's a privilege they're giving you guys. If they decide to let you share while playing, even best, but if not you're still winning something new for free, a bit of apreciation?

Haven't read all the posts but sharing will still work for me, I have a job which involves a lot of overtime and sleepovers so there's countless hours when I'm not using my account, some of my family are unemployed so they could share my account when I'm at work.

"What's the sense in that? No developer cares. No publisher cares."

You're right, no developer or publisher would care if Steam essentially allowed people to play their games for free alongside their friends who purchased it.

Thanks for your opinion though, personally my brother, cousins and I will find great use out of this feature. We all have jobs and attend school so we aren't sitting on Steam 24/7.

It's called Family Sharing for a reason. It's not share with the whole world. Just because you completely miss the point of the feature doesn't make it useless.

The goal is mostly to have more than one people in a household, often on the same computer, have access to each other libraries. With this I can give my daughter of girlfriend access to my games without either of them messing up my playtime, saved games or achievements. And they don't have to know my password either. It's like sharing a account but without the risks.

Sure, you can share it with friends too but that's not the intended purpose of the feature. Valve gives you a feature you didn't have before and all you can do is complain about how much it can't be abused in the way YOU want it to. Just be glad you have an extra option you didn't have before.

How is this fine print, it's says so right there and it only makes sense that one person at a time can access one library.
I wish people would stop taking the whole hand when offered a finger.

lol at the petiton... make it how we want it or we quit :O Whiners

That's would be dumb.. after I finished playing a said game It would simply become a free copy to anyone on my family/friend sharing list. So I could play anything but that game and let them play this game for free, meaning why the hell would people buy games their friends already own and played.

I'm happy to see that there are more than a few people happy with this feature. My brother wants to try out Alan Wake on my Library. I want to play more than a few in his Library. If we can't play one another's librarys simultaneously then it's good that we play at different hours of the day. I find this reasonable.

It makes sense, it's like sharing a console with a sibling or a friend.