I’ve been a Steam customer for a very long time, having spent a few thousand dollars over the years with them. Like many of you, I’ve got a (small?) group of games that I bought and barely-if-ever played, and I’m cool with that. As they say, piracy is a service problem, and Steam is just… easy.
That was until I bought my Deck. Suddenly, I had two devices on which I could play my games: my proper gaming rig upstairs and my Deck plugged into the TV downstairs.
I also however, have a kid that likes video games, so sometimes I let her play a few games on the TV… and that’s where everything breaks down. If she’s playing Lego Marvel on the Deck, my copy of Dyson Sphere Program flakes out upstairs with a warning that “someone else is playing a game, so this game will have to shut off” or some nonsense like that.
I’m suddenly face to face with the fact that I don’t actually own my games and those few thousand dollars weren’t spent on what I expected. It’s… enraging to put it gently.
I can appreciate that there would be an attempt to prevent me from playing the same game on two devices (though I think that’s bullshit too), but to prevent me from playing two different games on two different machines when both are legally purchased running on my own hardware is not ok.
Any chance Steam Family sharing onto a separate account for her could help? If not already done might be worth a shot. Your current situation sounds like a pain.
Yes, two separate accounts on family share solve this issue.
Yeah I’ve not looked into that before, but I’ll check it out. I just want to keep the flexibility of the Deck: scoop it out of the TV and hop on the train. If I then have to go through a painful process of switching from family mode to “just let me play my games” mode, I’ll still probably be annoyed, but I’ll give it a try.