Steam Family Sharing
Our favorite platform for indie games just announced a new feature that’s heading into limited beta in the near future. It’s a feature that we saw a version of when Microsoft talked about their system for lending games to friends and family on their new console, Xbox One. What it does is allow you to share your games with friends and family.
You can read the entire press release here:
http://store.steampowered.com/sharing
But we thought we’d list some of the most interesting highlights:
- Apply for the beta, starting mid-September, by signing up.
- You can share to a maximum of 10 devices.
- You share your entire library, not individual titles.
- Some games, e.g. those that require third-party keys or services, will not be available for sharing.
- Regions still apply.
And the most important point of all, the one that we’re hoping will be tweaked in the future:
- A borrowed library will not be available if the lender is using the library.
What this mean is that if you’re borrowing your friend’s library to play Don’t Starve, and said friend suddenly feel like playing Awesomenauts, you will be told by the system to either purchase the game yourself or stop playing (within a few minutes). So even if you’re playing different games a library can only be used on one device at a time.
So far we have no word on how offline-mode will affect this. If nothing else we’re pretty sure this won’t affect the trick where you borrow a friends login, install the game you want, then go to offline-mode to play it. We’re also pretty sure that’s against the Terms of Use somewhere, so don’t do that.
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About the Author
Nidde For 500 days, from January 1st, 2013, until May 16th, 2014, Nidde will set aside all AAA-titles and only play indie games to find out if the indie scene can replace the big budget landscape.
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