You do not need the buggy Galaxy client in order to play games from GOG, but it is needed for multiplayer to work in some games. Your child(ren) of the same household may play game A while you play game B if I understood things correctly. *


*Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

It came out around the same time Steam Machines were announced, I'm fairly sure it was initially intended for that. Be able to share accounts on the same Steam machine and each have their own progress, achievements etc but still being able to play each others games (on that one machine)

The former. When I tried installing the registry entries from the installscript.vdf, it usually had me carefully reading the file bit by bit to understand what is needed to be done, and that took time.

I'm glad someone else can see that.

Every thing I've seen about how it works right down to the fact to took them 6 months to add 3 lines of code to plug the offline loop hole (A borrower can access a shared game when borrower's account was offline, therefore defeating the library lock). The fact it originally only needed the computer to be authorised, account authorisation was added later.

I think it was realised that their attempt to force their single user system into being a multi-profile system could be used to share game so they rebranded it. I think the library lock was added as simple restriction to reduce abuse.

Had it remained 10 authorised computer, the library lock makes sense.

But they then added Account authorisation, a 5 account limit and a 3 month cool down or authorising new accounts.

Once they added those is there was no longer a need for the library lock. But they never removed it, in spite of thousands on the beta testers requesting its removal.

VALVe should have redesigned the account system from scratch, allowed proper account switching (the current system used in BPM is a messy wrapper around the existing system), allowed proper parental control (no access control system in the world requires you to go in as the restricted user to set the restriction) and of course proper sharing. It could have laid for the foundation for simultaneous use of profiles like on consoles.

Instead they opted for the bare minimum and hoped no one would realise. Which to my despair not one of the many news and tech news sites never did.

I think this is the problem when you mistake technology for magic and start worshiping the company. All hail Gaben, indeed.

Yet for me here is the irony.

Had VALVe listened to those that helped test SFS, listened to the very demographic they said SFS was for, and removed the Library Lock I would not be here. Well not as much as I am. Not only that but I would have spent hundreds, if not over a thousand, pounds buying games for me and the kids.

In the last 2 years my library has gone from 30 classic games, to 130 games. I've bought what ever I can or think my children might enjoy. Had publishers made more available to GoG I would have spent more. I want to support GoG and its DRM free movement as much as I can.

But I'm not against DRM, just when its miss used. DRM works fine on our consoles.

I agree it's a fairly useless system if two people want to play at the same time, even if it's not even the same game. There is a simple solution to it too (which is doubtful they would implement), allow specific game sharing instead of whole library. That way only the game itself is locked, not the entire library.

They could game lock easily, they could game lock for machines on the same subnet while library locking for far flung friends. Using in home streaming to confirm subnet level communication, yes a router level VPN could bypass this, but you've got to be damn friendly with someone to set that up.
They could lock and lend.

If it really was to protect publishers the best thing they could do is make games unsharable for the first 3 months of release (though that fecks up the Steam machine profiles).

The community gave dozens of usable solutions that were better than the library lock during the SFS beta.

Any system that let people get 100's of free games from far flung friends (which one goit bragged about during the beta and claimed my request to let my children play different games was akin to piracy) while people living in the same house can't play different games is fundamentally flawed.

The typical response to this is that Family sharing isn't and never was designed to allow you share your library to different people while you are accessing it at the same time. It is more designed to work how something like Xbox live works, where you can have multiple profiles per account, not multiple libraries. This goes along with Steam machines. It's just that's not what everyone wants or expected when they first announced it (they were purposely vague on it initially). It's better than nothing and I have utilized it to have my daughter play one of my steam games while I'm playing something non-steam like WoW or even a GoG game. But yes I wish it was more than that.

Well here is the initial PR Shout from the first Press release by VALVe which was in bold text. Though further down it did say To me its a bit like saying
"We of the British Empire can see that the Gentle Ladyfolk should have the democratic right to vote, with that we have created Votes for Women"

then later on saying

"A husband can apply for 'Votes for Women' at which point he will be able to vote twice, once for himself and once on behalf of his wife. Women will not be allowed in the voting halls."