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If you're one of the few out there that thinks the Xbox One is great, or you're one of the larger group that aren't fans, you have to admit, the ability to share and lend games with your Xbox “family” is a pretty cool feature. Fortunately, it seems Valve did so too and it looks likely that it will let Steam users do the same before long.
A short section of code was spotted in the latest Steam beta release discussing a “shared game library,” which looks to allow other Steam users to use your games, but only when you're not playing them and only one player per game. If you attempt to play a title that your friend is playing, you'll get a message saying that it's in use, but a message is sent to them letting them know you want to play and they should quit – because it is yours after all.
Sharing is caring guys
The three lines of code that have gotten people excited are:
- “SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicense_Title” “Shared game library”
- “SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_OwnerText” “Just so you know, your games are currently in use by %borrower%. Playing now will send %borrower% a notice that it's time to quit.”
- “SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_BorrowerText” “This shared game is currently unavailable. Please try again later or buy this game for your own library.”
This would be somewhat of an interesting turnaround for Valve, as it previously announced that it would not allow trading of games, in the wake of the the EU court case last year, that saw a judge declare all digital software downloads resellable, as long as the initial copy was destroyed. This isn't going quite as far as allowing the resale of titles, but it does open up people's libraries which would allow for some impressive demoing of a game to friends.
KitGuru Says: If this is indeed going to be implemented, I bet it makes better inroads into piracy than any DRM every invented.
[Cheers Kotaku]
I have lost all respect for Valve / Steam in general. They always claimed to be about the ‘real gamer’ but instead they have turned into a smaller version of Activision. Money whoring asshats. Their customer support (valve) is a complete waste of time and ridiculously funny to try and deal with and if you do have an issue they generally end up referring you to their support pages (which is how you get to ‘contact support’ in the first place. Heck I just got banned for being in a MW3 hacked / modded lobby. How can they ban for that? Maybe if IW’s security was upto scratch on the game and they did something about the modders/modding of lobbys I wouldn’t be in one. I did close the game straight away but meh what can you do, game sucked anyways.
As for the sharing you’d think that Valve would concentrate more on what they have already. I always considered them decent for prices but lately they seem sometimes expensive to me. A few of the games I was interested in I can get from game alot cheaper. In one case I think a game I looked at was about £8 cheaper. Not a whole lot but hey for £8 I can almost get an expansion/indie title/ small budget game. Instead of focusing on that they decide to screw their clients up even more by adding a ‘share feature?’ Talk about sprinting before moderately walking. Too much isn’t always a good thing
lol, butthurt much? This has nothing to do with money whoring, in any case, they’d surely get less money from it. What do you mean concentrate more on what they have already? Their client is great imo, games are cheap (especially with the sales on), and they’re at least all in one place.
Go cry some more back to Origin or wherever else you came from.