Steam Sharing Group

[king3pj]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/02/28/steam-family-sharing-now-available-for-all-users

Steam sharing is now officially open to everyone. I thought we should make a thread for people who want to group up and share your library with other Sat Guys. You can share your library with up to 10 people but only one person can be playing from your library at a time. This means that if Yourbeliefs is playing one of my games and MeStevo tries to launch another one it will be unavailable to him. It also means that if I start a game it will kick anyone who is playing my games off my library. Apparently it will give you a few minutes to save your game and quit or give you the option to buy the game and keep playing.

If you want to take part in this post your Steam name here and add each other. Mine is the same as the one I use here.

King3pj

 

[yourbeliefs]

I'm actually not 100% sure what my name is because my account has 1 name but my user name is something else (if that makes sense.) Try my name from here, and if that doesn't work PM me and I'll send you the name because I use that particular name in other places and I don't want it open to the world.

Please refer to this page: http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/
It appears that there's 10 devices allowed, but only FIVE accounts, so I think we can only have 5 people share our libraries. Also how is this supposed to work? Do we need to share our logins/passwords with each other and log in with each other's accounts on our own computers, then authorize each others' computers for our various accounts?

 

[king3pj]

I'm actually not 100% sure what my name is because my account has 1 name but my user name is something else (if that makes sense.) Try my name from here, and if that doesn't work PM me and I'll send you the name because I use that particular name in other places and I don't want it open to the world.

Please refer to this page: http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/
It appears that there's 10 devices allowed, but only FIVE accounts, so I think we can only have 5 people share our libraries.

That might work out for the best anyways. I know I have personally used my account on 4 different PCs so I would have a max of 6 devices available. A lower number of people sharing each person's library means you will be more likely to get in. If 10 people all have access to my library it would be hard for any of them to actually use it. There doesn't seem to be a huge number of PC gamers active in this part of Sat Guys anyways but if there are too many of us we can split into smaller groups.

I will say that my library should be open most of the time. I have been putting more time into my new consoles lately so the PC hasn't been used as much.

 

[Scherrman]

So does this mean if I have purchased a game on Steam I can let someone else play it?

 

[king3pj]

So does this mean if I have purchased a game on Steam I can let someone else play it?

Yes and you can play games other people have purchased. The catch is that only one person can be playing a game from each account at a time. If you were playing one of my games and I fired up another one it would tell you that you have to get off. They give you a few minutes to save and quit or purchase the game and keep playing.

 

[Scherrman]

Yes and you can play games other people have purchased. The catch is that only one person can be playing a game from each account at a time. If you were playing one of my games and I fired up another one it would tell you that you have to get off. They give you a few minutes to save and quit or purchase the game and keep playing.

Sweet. My name on Steam is HerkyHawkeye. The only game I have right now is DayZ but someone else might as well try playing it since I'm unable to.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I'm confused by this part from the FAQ:

IS THERE A LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF DEVICES OR FRIENDS I CAN AUTHORIZE TO SHARE MY LIBRARY?
Yes. You may authorize Family Library Sharing on up to 10 devices at a given time, and for up to 5 accounts that may then use your game library on any of your authorized computers.

Any of MY authorized computers I would assume means computers that I have logged on to. I haven't logged on to any of your guys' computers and vice versa. Do we need to share passwords in order to get this to work?

 

[king3pj]

Also how is this supposed to work? Do we need to share our logins/passwords with each other and log in with each other's accounts on our own computers, then authorize each others' computers for our various accounts?

I don't think that is the case. Apparently that's how it was when the beta first started but it was changed at some point. The website you linked says you can request access from your friends list but it doesn't look like that option is there yet. The Giant Bombcast said you didn't have to do it that way in the beta anymore. They said they were able to ask for permission without giving out their information. Maybe IGN jumped the gun on this announcement and it's not actually up yet.

I'm not home yet so I can't dig around on my gaming machine and look for this option. Even if I found out how to request access to someone's library this isn't the computer I want that access on so I would have to wait for tonight. I was able to respond to Scherman's friend request so I assume I would be able to grant access to you guys if you can figure it out though.

 

[Scherrman]

To me it sounds like you have to log in with the other person's account on you computer and authorize that computer in order to play.

 

[king3pj]

To me it sounds like you have to log in with the other person's account on you computer and authorize that computer in order to play.

If that is the case it has changed since the beta. It was reported by gaming sites that I follow that you could go to your friends list and then click something to ask to be authorized. At the beginning they said you had to log in on computers you wanted to authorirze but that requirement was removed. The user you asked would then decide whether to authorize you or not.

If I go to Settings - Family I can manage which friends have access to my account. The problem is it doesn't look like I can type in a name to authorize it there. It looks like I would only be able to use that page to remove an account. I'm thinking maybe Steam announced that this was changing today but it just isn't active yet.

Edit: On this website it specifically says http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/

See a family member's installed game that you want to play? Send them a request to authorize you. Once authorized, their library of Steam games becomes available for you to access, download and play

 

[Scherrman]

OK, sounds pretty cool.

 

[Scherrman]

I think I may download some free games on Steam and see just what my system can actually handle.

 

[king3pj]

From the FAQ....

I've received a request to share my games. What do I do?

A friend's request to share will arrive as an email message. Click the link within to authorize the requesting computer to grant this Steam users access to your games.

That's great but how do you actually send the request? That is the part that isn't clear. They say you CAN send a request and they say how to accept a request but they don't say HOW to send a request.

 

[king3pj]

See a family member's installed game that you want to play? Send them a request to authorize you. Once authorized, their library of Steam games becomes available for you to access, download and play

Looks like I missed a very important word when I read this earlier. From reading the family sharing group page it looks like you do have to log in on a machine to authorize it. Once you do that you can go to Settings->Family->Authorize This Computer. Another way to do it is to log in with the other person's account and install a game from their account on to your computer. Then you can log back in with your account and click the installed game. It will ask you if you want to send an authorization request to the person who owns the game. Either way you would have to give out your credentials or physically go to their machine and log in to your account to authorize it.

It doesn't look like this is going to work for us unless people are willing to make a temporary password to let someone else log in and authorize their computer. I know my account sends me an email with a verification code every time I try to log in from another device too so that would also be needed for the authorization process. Once a friend's machine is authorized they wouldn't have to log in to your account again so your could change you steam password back. This certainly limit's the appeal of this feature.