New Steam Sharing Plan

Steam are about to beta test a new idea where you can share a family/friend members library of games, download and play them for NOTHING!! The catch is, if the original owner of the library of games wants to play any of his/hers games you get kicked off for the duration.

Even so, this is still pretty good for two steam owners living half way round the world as their timings are not likely to clash anyway. I have 350 games on Steam and, when it starts, I will be up for sharing my library. I'm on GMT +3 and most of you are on GMT -5 so that's an 8hr difference from me, even better if you live in CA or something.

Even if you have NO NADA pc games but you do have a PC, go get the free steam download in preparation for this.

Steam are proposing a maximum of 10 family/friends on your list. Don't ask me how it works if two friends try to use your library at the same time because I don't work for the frigging company so I don't know!!

Sounds good to me

This is a great idea. I'm very excited about it. Since the owner always gets dibs, there's really no downside. I actually think this is going to generate a lot of sales, too. When you get kicked off of a game you like? I'm guessing a percentage of those folks will buy it.

The main critique of it is if you borrow one of my games and I want to play any of the other 349 games ....you get kicked off. But WTF you get your own cloud section for achievements and saves and all and you are not using my password.

In addition it won't work for those games that require external third party validation like Ubisoft games or MMORPGs.

Even given the above, it's still good, especially if you live half way round the world from me.

There is a current workaround and that is I go offline mode and play and you use my password credentials and play BUT you will fuck up my achievements and saves and I might not trust you enough with my password anyway. Also Steam will recognise a logon from a different IP address and send ME an email with a passcode to send to you to unlock MY account. This is a PITA so this system is better in my opinion.