In addition to what everyone already wrote, it can also happen occasionally that you are required to renew the authentification for the other PC, because Steam doesn't recognize or accept it anymore. Sometimes it happens without obvious reason, another time it happened to me that I booted my PC with an USB stick inserted (but I didn't boot from it), and apparantly Steam thought my system had changed, just because of that USB stick or something (in any case, rebooting without the stick made Family Sharing available again). It might not happen to you at all, but it's quite buggy/glitchy/silly in that regard. I had to renew my authentifications several times already.

Thanks for all the insights everybody. I will use it, but I guess Steam Family Sharing is not as great as I thought. So when my kids are a bit older and have their own PCs, there is no way they can both play different games from my library, which is intended to be the family library, at the same time? That defeats the whole purpose. Glad I have a healthy GOG library as well!

Oh, and apparently you can't block games from sharing. So I have no choice but to share totally age-inappropriate games with kids? It's hard to believe that years after this feature launched you still can't block family-unfriendly games from a feature intended for FAMILIES.

There is a thing called Steam Family View, which would allow you to filter the games you children play and lock them out with a PIN.

Except, it breaks all rules of access control. Namely you have to log onto their account to apply it.

If it is an account that they have access to its email (which is most children's account) they can raise a support case to have the pin remove.

So while you can filter out unsavoury shared games, any new games will automatically be available on kids account, so best not forget to log onto their account and update the filter.


It is my personal viw VALVe never intended to make a Family Sharing system. It was an unfortunate side effect of making the SteamMachine multiuser. Releasing there was no way around it they put a basic interface on it and rebranded it SFS.

KoreaBeat. There is another option, but its like using a No-CD ptach for a game you own (a bit legally grey). PM me if you want to details.

Rather than that I'd say that's exactly the reason they designed the system they have but people in their imaginations were hoping for something completely different (and unrealistic in my opinion).

Granted, it didn't help that they called it Family and Friends something or other initially, which, while understandable from the concept of having friends over and playing their own games or your games on your Steam machine/Console as well, comes off as confusing for a PC community who tend to have "Friends" mostly on their Steam friendslist from countries everywhere in the world.

I used to, back when I had some respect (however low it was) for the service. Nowadays, I simply let my siblings go rampant with my own account rather than making them use their own accounts. If they show a bit more interest in the games I own there, I might crack them as well, but I don't need to at the moment.

After all, via cracking these games, you get to bypass those stupid restrictions put by forth by the family sharing program. What do you mean my brother can't play this Sonic game while I play Final Fantasy?

I think Anna Sweet from VALVe is much to blame as anyone else If SFS was truly designed around those criteria then it did an awful job. VALVe, flat out refused to make any kind of discussion over this. You've seen the SFS forums, you can not honestly say VALVe cares about SFS being misused.

I believe any system that favours intercontinental sharing over sharing with someone in the same building is deeply flawed.

I do not think it is unrealistic in any way for a parent or sibling to expect to let someone else in the same house play a game whose license is not being used.

While I do agree with the statement in general I do not believe I've seen a proper solution offered to make that happen though. Most people tend to suggest limiting it to IP which is absolutely ineffective as people would just create LANs and share worldwide same as they play many games worldwide with the LAN functions these days.

Pheace, We've done this dance before. But since we have a new audience I shall play my part.

Swapping credentials or using Team viewer to abuse SFS is a one moment of stupidity and greed. Maintaining a VPN with a complete stranger requires a prolonged attention.

Using hamachi or its ilk to create an ad-hoc LAN to bypass SFS restrictions would be obvious and detectable. The rapid change of external IP addresses, specially if it crosses tectonic boundaries, would be detected by the most basic of counter-measures. This of course assumes VALVe cares about stopping abuse, a couple of visits to the SFS Forum shows they obviously don't. But if we pretend they do, such flagrant abuses could be flagged up, automatically disable the SFS link. If its legit and due to some oddness it can be set back up and abusers caught and suspended.

You could, with only minor IT knowledge, create a permanent VPN link between to homes. However the effort required would probably mean you actually know the other person. Also one of you will have the downstream limited to the others upstream. Even then a heuristic scan of the network would most likely reveal its true nature. My own home network would probably flag as a False positive, but my home is exceptional in terms of network infrastructure.

The thing is, all the above is moot. Right now with the current SFS system, as long as there are 4 or more time zone between lender and borrower, the Library Lock is highly unlikely to stop you from playing each others games.

PEople abusing the current system don't need to use VPN's to abuse the current system, because it is massively flawed.

The people most likely to be effected by the Library lock are those living in the same house. Using the existing In home streaming protocols to do a peer to peer check will not increase abuse, it will only allow legitimate users fair use.

1 person, *if* you trust that person with your real login to begin with. That's a far cry from the 'We want to be able to share any game in our library without locking it'.

And somehow I doubt it's not possible to create a LAN that mimics a real LAN. You don't get a 'rapid change of external IP's' in a LAN, that's the whole point, it makes it appear as if they're internal IP's.

Same as GOG it's not about Valve 'caring' about stopping abuse, it's about being able to sell potentially 1 person playing on off times vs potentially 5 playing at all times to the devs/publishers. (ignoring the +1 if the owner is in offline mode)

"This is why we can't have nice things" is one of those things that's in effect here. Even if the LAN to abuse SFS wouldn't exist yet, if they implemented this feature it would be created very swiftly and abuse would start piling up quickly.

People are sharing with random strangers, there's no trust, just stupidity and the belief Team Viewer will keep their account safe.

Take a little care and ensure you share with a random selection across the globe then you will not, or highly unlikely to be effected by library lock. And even if you did, its a free game, you can wait. That abuse is happening, the library lock isn't stopping that abuse. The ONLY thing it stops is legitimate use.

Yes you can set up a VPN that looks like a LAN and is near undetectable, I've done it. But what you can't do is turn it on and off, and it not be glaringly obvious to any network application that is monitoring for it.

and valve don't care, they own forum is rampent with abuse,

'Steam Family Sharing' sounds like an online swingers site.

Lets try this.
Do you agree that SFS is being abused?
Given that time zones negate its effectiveness and that its a free game, the library lock is an ineffective deterrent?
That most abusers are stopped by the far more effective deterrents in the form of loosing your account and VAC bans?

Why would a miscreant, who already risked his account, bother Pissing around with VPN's when the existing system already gives him what he wants. Its a lot more work for a reward he already has got.

Found the logger head.

Time zones, Spread the share around the globe and every one can be playing games for free between 4pm-10pm local time for free with no or little chance that the library lock will effect them.

Loose the lock only on the LAN.

Yes someone could use a VPN to get access to a game while in the same time or nearby time zone, but its more hastle and easily detected and countered.

You're trading

Easy Access to Free games for 10/12ths of the globe, but no local per game share

for

the same Easy Access to Free games for 10/12ths of the globe, but now you get local per game sharing and an easy way to find abusers.