Thursday, September 12, 2013
Yup! You heard it right! Valve revealed a new feature of their growing digital Steam service and this time its in the game sharing bracket. This feature will be supported on PC, Mac and Linux, it will become available next week, though it's in "limited" beta and they will be choosing only 1,000 accounts that will given an access. Those that will be chosen, will be notified via email. For gamers that are interested in joining the Family Sharing beta can sign up the Family Sharing Group on the Stream community.
According to Valve, Steam Family sharing is designed to let the family and friends use and play one another's Steam games. Members can earn their individual achievements and keep their own saves and data via Steam cloud.
Here's what Anna Sweet said in her statement,
"Our customers have expressed a desire to share their digital games among friends and family members, just as current retail games, books, DVDs, and other physical media can be shared, Family Sharing was created in direct response to these user requests."
Though Family Sharing will only support most titles in gamers libraries. Steam noted that "some" games, such us those that are require third-party serial keys and Region locked games still won't be usable outside of their region.
To begin sharing games, one Steam user will send a request to another Steam user to authorize their device. When the device is authorized, it'll be counted for 10 total devices that are always allowed to that account's library of titles. Only one device can access the library at a time, the account owner always be given priority. Steam will automatically kick the borrowers off if they don't wrap up within a few minutes.
With this Valve's move about Steam Family Sharing and its announcement just before the release of new consoles from Microsoft and Sony maybe its just a little coincidence? With the Xbox One game sharing still in controversy and their obvious ambitious plans about sharing is something a lot for them to work it out. Even if gaming console doesn't pose a threat about game sharing, PC gamers has still an advantages swap games rather than bringing game disc over a friends house.
Now with Steam Family Sharing, maybe Valve will create a strong argument about PC gaming over a Console gaming.
You can check out here the frequently asked questions about this new Steam feature.
