Valve need to take note from Apple?

Halfmad said:
Slightly different types of sharing, games (some of them 20Gb+) compared to music etc which are locked down in airtight contracts.
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File size is not relevant.

They have no problem with another person leeching from your account with the aforementioned service.

And even if it was a concern which it is not, they could use existing Steam clients in the house as a P2P distribution service in the house to assist with installing alongside your internet pipe.
 
File size is relevant, we're talking about systems here, not theory. You'd also potentially have to check the licensing agreement Valve have with every publisher, I doubt very much that they're anywhere near as savvy as Apple have been since they've been a very lawyer loving company for years.

I agree P2P would make sense, but I doubt that's the issue, it'll more likely be contacts and whether there's the demand. you also have situations where the game may not be suitable as it requires an origin/uplay or simply a game account i.e. Eve Online, that's not something you'll see as often with Apple movies/music etc. Valve have come a long way since they started Steam, something like this is only a matter off time, but as I said some games probably won't be suitable for it.
 
There must be some limitations or more expense I can't imagine paid app devs or music industry is going to be too happy about it.

Good idea though.
 
Halfmad said:
File size is relevant, we're talking about systems here, not theory. You'd also potentially have to check the licensing agreement Valve have with every publisher, I doubt very much that they're anywhere near as savvy as Apple have been since they've been a very lawyer loving company for years.

I agree P2P would make sense, but I doubt that's the issue, it'll more likely be contacts and whether there's the demand. you also have situations where the game may not be suitable as it requires an origin/uplay or simply a game account i.e. Eve Online, that's not something you'll see as often with Apple movies/music etc. Valve have come a long way since they started Steam, something like this is only a matter off time, but as I said some games probably won't be suitable for it.
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You are aware that Family Sharing already exists with Steam?
 
Gimpymoo said:
You are aware that Family Sharing already exists with Steam?
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Yes, but as you've said it's nothing compared to what Apple are offering for their services, so you have to wonder why when Valve are a pretty tech savvy company, which is why I think it's probably more down to legal issues than anything else.
 
Halfmad said:
Yes, but as you've said it's nothing compared to what Apple are offering for their services, so you have to wonder why when Valve are a pretty tech savvy company, which is why I think it's probably more down to legal issues than anything else.
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Not disputing that but I do disagree it is down to file size as a anyone else in my house could potentially, already have free reign to install the majority of my library if they choose with the current service.

The key point for of the Apple service over the Steam one is that anyone who is nominated on your account can use content from your account (No different to the Steam service) BUT, your entire purchased content is not locked when in use.

For example, if someone is listening to Slade, someone else can still listen to Shakin Stevens :)

If that was Steam, if someone was listening to Slade, EVERYTHING else is locked to everyone, unless the original purchaser wants to listen to Mariah Carey, in which case, everyone gets kicked in the nuts and disconnected.

That is what I think stinks.

Also, Steam released it as a service nearly a year ago and to be honest, nothing has happened with it. Still has bugs and out right failures.

The Apple service surprisingly appears to hand control to the purchaser.
 
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In that scenario there's little reason for Steam to deny access tbh, it's an artificial barrier. I'd only used it with one other PC so didn't realise if there were say 3 PCs, one borrowing, one owner and one "other". When the borrowing PC is running a game, the "other" can't do anything?

That does seem a little daft especially if they're wanting to play an entirely different game.
 
I would have thought a lot of this is purely down to financial reasons?

There's a huge difference between sharing a £8 album and a £30 game, not to mention the fact you're far more likely to want to play the same game as another member of your family at the same time if it's multiplayer.

My 2 brothers and I have probably 50-60% the same games on our steam libraries (you're talking maybe 20-30 of the same game bought 3 times). If we were able to share these games from one account, you're talking almost £1.2k loss (40 games x £30 not bought).

I could see it sort of working if it allowed you to play different games, but even then, why would you spend £30-40 on a single player game, when you could chip in with a few mates and each spend £8 on it instead and take it in turns playing?
 
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Haggisman said:
I would have thought a lot of this is purely down to financial reasons?

why would you spend £30-40 on a single player game, when you could chip in with a few mates and each spend £8 on it instead and take it in turns playing?
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That is what you can already do with "Family Sharing"?
 
There's a massive difference between sharing games and sharing music/apps.

Steam aren't just going to allow everyone to buy a game, share it with 4 friends and all play at the same time as the amount of money lost to developers and publisher would be enormous.

Family sharing is about as far as I can see Steam taking it, allowing you share games individually, whilst only 1 person is playing. This seems fair, as then the above can still be achieved albeit slowly as you can't use your steam game's yourself, but isn't then exploited.

People can now with Apple just buy whatever and share it between friends who don't have to spend a penny = less sales for music artists/apps/whatever?
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
There's a massive difference between sharing games and sharing music/apps.

Steam aren't just going to allow everyone to buy a game, share it with 4 friends and all play at the same time as the amount of money lost to developers and publisher would be enormous.
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You can anyway just stick Steam into offline mode and you can play on as many machines as you want, so it makes little to no sense why they don't just allow you to do it on your home network. If you really need to play online on the offline machine just use Tunngle or w/e it is called. So money they lose is null as we all do it in offline mode.
 
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