Same household only? Why can’t they just allow a certain number of people in your “family” use it? I have no kids, but I’d like to allow my siblings or in-laws use my games. They live in different cities.
I really doubt they’ve got an IP lock in place; just set up a Family and invite your siblings and in-laws.
Edit: tried it with a buddy, and it is in fact IP locked; he was unable to join until I set up a VPN for him to connect through. After initial setup, you don’t need the same IP address.
They do point out that they will be monitoring how it’s used, and could adjust things later.
Sounds like corporate-speak for “if people abuse this, we’ll lock it down harder.”
Even if people are using it to share with actual family around the country, they may get caught up in future updates that remove that feature. Also note that any publisher can opt out of the sharing. If EA or Ubi or some other big company doesn’t like the lack of limits, they may be able to force Valve’s hand in changing the policy.
The idea is wonderful, but there are a ton sof ways this could end up worse than the old system.
Because people will absolutely abuse it for other means, like selling shared accounts and what not.
I don’t think they put a restriction on household Internet IP, just that you can only share with people within your region.
Region meaning country/continent? One of them lives across the country.
Region meaning country
You can likely use it from different physical locations. But just know that I’m order to set it up, you have to login with your account on their computer at some point to enable the family sharing feature. So unless you go there qnd do it, or remote into their computer to do it, or give them your password, you can’t use that feature. Some level of trust in each other is required.
That is not how the new families work. The new on all you need to do is sent an invite and they’ll be able to join the family. No need to log in their computers or authorise anything, just a simple invite.
It actually is how it worked in the beta at least. I’ve been using it for several months with my friends and the invite wouldn’t work unless I had logged into steam on their pc previously.
That is certainly not the case, either something unexpected happened or either of you didn’t have the families beta on. I have never logged in someone else’s PC and neither have someone logged on mine, I always use Steam on beta and I was able to send family invites to my friends, however only the ones in my region (country) were able to join.
I did (and do) have the families beta on. Maybe that’s the way it worked for some people? I don’t know, but it certainly is what happened in my case.
How new is it? I just set this up about 2 weeks ago and it required logging into both computers
But just know that I’m order to set it up, you have to login with your account on their computer at some point to enable the family sharing feature
I doubt it, because I think that’s literally how it used to work
Because the point of this is to force friends and adult family members to purchase extra copies of games. Do yall actually think Valve is giving away free game access?
To those who are saying it’s not IP locked: people on reddit are all saying that the newer sign-ups are locked but they didn’t clear older sharing from early beta.
So what’s actually new or different about what has already existed for quite a while now?
Sharing your games doesn’t lock your entire library when someone is playing a different game than you in the same account.
We’ve been using it since it came available to test, and is such a lovely change from before. The check out system is so much cleaner than the old locked out of account while someone in the family is playing.
Also, you can share DLC now which is nice. I believe the old system if your share partner has the same game but without the DLC, you can’t share the DLC with them. Now they can play your version with the DLC.
dlc worked fine before. that is not a new feature. but the lockout. so annoying.
Also leaving a family blocks you from joining another family for one year and the spot will also be blocked for one year
1:10 Can I also then just leave the family? haha
