Valve does not cease to amaze us, with the amount of ideas they come up with and later implement. The recent Steam Trading Cards, which turned out to be a more complex variety of achievements are now followed by a discovery reported by NeoGAF. Three lines of code found in the new beta build suggest that Steam may allow game sharing in the future. They read as follows:
"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."
A quick read-through allows us to assume that if Steam gets game sharing, it will be based on the real-life situations from a few years ago. Two people may use a single copy of the game, but not at the same time, corresponding to the game disc circulating between friends.
What do you think about it? An important step forward, or rather a useless gimmick? Let us know in the comments!
Posted 20-06-2013, 18:13
@Jenssen: I don't mean it's the same concern, I mean only the same arguments. People are always screaming that if everyone can get something for free, they'll never buy it. Which is entirely untrue. If it was true, there would be no industry. None. Nothing at all. There would be no money going anywhere, for any reason. But you're right, it won't be a completely unregulated affair, nor would I want it to be. I'd want some degree of security for myself, nevermind them. I want to know, for absolute certain, that sharing my game with someone else will not result in what always happens with physical media. I forgot it, it was 'stolen', I lost it and so on
Posted 20-06-2013, 14:54
This is promising. Really looking forward to this if they really implement it.
This also is a massive step in the right direction to co-operate with the European laws covering digital software.
Posted 20-06-2013, 00:02
This will be an interesting development, and how it could be implemented.
Posted 19-06-2013, 21:28
It's not really the same at all, though. Piracy is frowned upon. A lot of people want to support the developers. Playing used games is not something considered "wrong", by anyone really. People don't feel bad about buying used games, even though no money what so ever go to the developers.
There'll likely be SOME sort of restriction, I doubt you'll just be able to freely share your games with other people immediately, without paying some sort of price, or maybe having your game locked to your account for X months or something.
Posted 19-06-2013, 19:58
@Jenssen: Well, not really. Those are the same arguments people keep making about used games and piracy. Why would anyone pay for it if they can get it for free? Because some people don't want to wait that long, some don't want to have to give it up afterwards, and in the case of games with online, they want to play with their friends. If and when this happens, I guarantee the largest number of shared games will be older ones that people are no longer playing, won't care about being without for a while and mostly aren't buying anyway
Posted 19-06-2013, 18:45
it WOULD be.
Posted 19-06-2013, 18:44
I'm pretty sure it will be time limited.
Posted 19-06-2013, 18:21
This would be pretty great. But I wonder how they're gonna do it. Surely, they won't just allow us to trade all the games around, indefinitely, for free. Sales would drop dramatically.
Posted 19-06-2013, 18:20
I'm anticipating something related to the marketplace/trading system. Like, you put it into your Steam inventory, pass it to one of your friends with, for example, a time limit on. Then, for the duration, it appears in that persons Steam list and is gone from yours. Seems pretty simple in principal
Posted 19-06-2013, 18:15
I'm not honestly sure what to make of this, could be nothing, but then again, it could be something useful, although I can only see something like this having some sort of limit of use to prevent abuse of a system like this, even though we already know they'd think ahead for this.