For REAL!! Not playing same game with one copy makes sense. But the one instance per library was harsh. This is tremendous, and honestly, I'll probably buy even more games knowing my kids can play them and I can stick to my same old same old if I don't like it.

No kidding. This solves a major issue with the Steam Deck as well, because now someone else can be playing on the Deck while you use your main PC for another game.

Yeah. Right now Family Sharing locks down an entire library instead of individual games so this wasn't possible.

Digital refunds isn't them being good, it's them getting sued by Australia.

without being forced to. We have digital refunds

Small nitpick, but it’s funny that you specifically listed their refunds first. Because they were forced into that. Some may remember how comically awful Steam’s customer support used to be. It was genuinely horrible, with resolution turnaround times measured in days and weeks instead of minutes or hours. There was no instant messaging or automated system; You had to email a sketchy email address, then wait days or weeks for them to finally respond. And chances were good that the response would basically boil down to “lul git fuckd loser, sux 2 b u”

Europe started pushing for them to be more customer friendly, because their refunds in particular were breaching some local European laws. In order to keep operating in Europe, they revamped their refund process entirely and recommitted to better customer service going forwards. But they only started the entire refund revamp in 2015 because they were going to be pushed out of European markets if they failed to comply.

Don't forget private games, it's a win-win because customers can buy games they don't want to show to their friends and Valve get more money because they get more people buying those ~~embarrassing~~ ~~awesome~~ games.

Don’t forget Steam Link! It’s one of my favourite features. You’re not even really tethered to any particular device to play your games since so many devices support the app. I play games that are single-player “console” style games in my lounge room for comfort and Steam Link means I can use my very good PC instead of buying into yet another console generation.

This stuff is great.

But ignoring all the real issues with Steam is stupid. Its people like you that require others to point out all the issues with Valve and how it won't last forever.

A monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly.

The vast majority of games you pay for on Steam can be taken from you in a couple of clicks from a Valve employee. The second there's a chance in management everything can go out the window very quickly because their position is ripe for abuse.

The company is called Valve.

My account has been locked up because my daughter has three separate BG3 games going with friends. Last week my son said we need to put a time limit on her because nobody else can play on Steam.

Isn't that exactly the same as how it worked before?

There may have been a brief moment where that didn't happen, and then people discovered they could make cheat accounts, share their own games with them and get only the cheat accounts banned, and then make new ones and repeat.

It's the only way I can see it working. Otherwise, you could just make infinite cheat accounts.

To be fair, a lot of monopolies are great in the beginning. It's the inevitable power-tripping downslide that sucks.

I still love Steam and Valve though.

It would be nice if they could someday find a better way to enforce this. What if your kid has shared custody with their other parent, and they aren't in the same household all the time? What if they're studying abroad and aren't even in the same country?

I don't have the solution, but I do hope someone eventually finds a better way to do it.

Probably less geo-location and more just shared IP block/address

No. Because it's a contract between you and Steam. These digital contracts haven't been around for long enough for society to figure out inheritance standards yet, so the companies have all the power to just force your family to repurchase.

Nothing is stopping you from just handing your login credentials to your family. If they can't figure it out then they were not worthy of your library.

We kind of dealt with that for my Dad, but it was never really an issue. My brother just assumed control of the account and that was that. We already had all the access info, so it wasn't like we had to ask them for anything. We just got it setup on this new Family thing yesterday though, so I can actually access most of his games again (for some reason on the old Family Sharing, his games got blocked out).

You can mark games as Private in your library now. It hides your ownership, play stats, etc. It doesn't specifically say it disabled Family Sharing but it'd be silly to keep that. There is also a Hidden Games section which stops it from showing up on your list.

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1150-C06F-4D62-4966

Edit: I just tested it with current Family Sharing (not this beta version). Both Hidden and Private prevent games from showing on another shared account.

You can mark a game as private and it won't show to the other family members. I verified this just now after signing up for the beta and setting up an account for my spouse. The games I marked private don't show up on their families library.