Valve’s Steam service finally announced a new family sharing service that is HUGE! Taking a play our of the much talked about feature from Microsoft’s Xbox One digital library the Family Sharing feature allows you to borrow games from family members while the other person is not using them. This includes letting the other person have their own Steam Cloud Saves and Achievements.
Obviously Valve didn’t just steal this idea from Microsoft, it’s highly doubtful they could have negotiated a deal like this in just a few short months. However maybe all that hype Microsoft drummed up during their E3 press conference when they announced a similar Xbox One family sharing service finally put this feature over at Valve, we may never know. What we do know is that this is a great day for gamer’s and their families to remember what it’s like to share and to save a few dollars which means you’ll probably spend even more at the next Steam sale anyway. All I see is a win for me and a win for Valve so they can gladly take my money!
Source Link: Steam Announces Family Sharing
Press Release
Steam Announces Family Sharing
Coming Soon: Players who share computers can also share their Steam games
September 11, 2013 – Steam Family Sharing, a new service feature that allows close friends and family members to share their libraries of Steam games, is coming to Steam, a leading platform for the delivery and management of PC, Mac, and Linux games and software. The feature will become available next week, in limited beta on Steam.
Steam Family Sharing is designed for close friends and family members to play one another’s Steam games while each earning their own Steam achievements and storing their own saves and application data to the Steam cloud. It’s all enabled by authorizing a shared computer.
“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,” explained Anna Sweet of Valve. “Family Sharing was created in direct response to these user requests.”
Once a device is authorized, the lender’s library of Steam games becomes available for others on the machine to access, download, and play. Though simultaneous usage of an account’s library is not allowed, the lender may always access and play his games at any time. If he decides to start playing when a friend is borrowing one of his games, the friend will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing.
For more information about Steam Family Sharing and the beta program, please visit store.steampowered.com/sharing.
