• LwL@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Given that the original justification behind he feature was returning the ability to share a game within a household that was lost (or at least made much more inconvenient) with the move to digital only, I see no issue with this. If someone is exploiting that system (not judging, I do/did too, because why not), or even has actual family in another country, then unlucky they now have to let the other party actually use their account if they want them to be able play your games. Anyone in the actual situation the feature was meant for should be unaffected aside from some edge cases like holidays.

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        you can still try to go around it by doing the same as before, log into the other person’s machine

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    2 months ago

    The new family sharing is great. I am sad I cannot share it with family who lives 30 km away but in a different steam economic zone. I think on the whole it’s a net positive though

      • shneancy@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        as a trans person, can you not call everything that inconveniences you as a trans person transphobic? You’re devaluing the actual struggles we have to face with “i can’t play video game because of transphobia :(”. Besides, there are ways to go around the region lock, just Google the “transphobia” away

        • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzOP
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          2 months ago

          can you not call everything that inconveniences you as a trans person transphobic?

          No. Drag is sick to death of being so far away from drag’s family. Drag is sick of a society that won’t accept drag, and only being able to find partners through discord. Cishet people have it so easy, it’s not fair. And along comes Steam, “A family is a group that lives in the same home”. No! Get your heteronormative nuclear family bullshit out of drag’s video games. Drag plays games to get away from patriarchal politics, and Steam goes shoving them into their new features and deprecating the old. They should have focus tested this change. Anyone in a long distance relationship could have told them this was a bad move. This move comes from Valve employees being brainwashed by society into seeing a family as what the white patriarchy says a family is. Drag has spent drag’s entire life, as a gay person, being excluded from the white concept of family. We barely even have equal marriage rights. This is a symbolic issue of a lifelong struggle.

          • shneancy@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            drag, go touch grass. Seeing every minor inconvenience as a personal attack of the heteronormative patriarchy can’t be good for you

            and again - I’m telling you this for the third time, you can go around the region lock.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            So you realize that all you’re talking about can apply to cis-hetero people as well, right? Hell, it for sure applies to a bigger number of them than of any other group.

            Anyone can live far or close to their family. Anyone can have a hard or easy time bonding with others. Anyone can be in a long distance relationship. Gays and people of color do have traditional families (hell, if I’m not mistaken their divorce rate is lower than heteros!)

            Just because it affects you doesn’t make it anti trans or homophobic or aimed at your group.

              • shneancy@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                and how do you know that?

                you feel like a victim because society is indeed oppressive towards LGBTQ minorities, but if you see yourself as a victim all the time you’ll just end up depressed and miserable.

                no, Steam is not being biased against minorities, intentionally or otherwise, they’re just not. This feature was in beta for a long time and for most of the beta anybody could join any family from any country. The choice to make it more restricted wasn’t to fuck up people who don’t live with their families - it was to prevent the abuse of the feature that must’ve come to light during the beta.

                Steam wanted to improve their family share, and the did, greatly in fact. But they had to include limitations to prevent cases where someone gets financially abused online, or someone joins a stranger’s family and then gets kicked out immediately and needs to wait 6 months join any other family, or someone joins a game hoarder’s family and then never buys a game again.

                That limitation can still be worked around the good old way - by logging into another person’s machine and joining their family that way, but for that you need to trust the other person to not fuck up your account - and that’s enough to discourage most of the extreme cases. They’re just not going to beam that information to the public as that’d defeat the point of establishing that limitation in the first place, and even encourage people to trust random strangers that could have malicious intent.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                Maybe, it still doesn’t mean the intent is to hurt non-cis people and you can’t expect them to make an exception for people they can’t prove are part of a certain minority and you can’t expect them to make the thing free-for-all either.

      • jet@hackertalks.com
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        2 months ago

        Why do you say it’s transphobic? It is not based on sexuality at all. Simply on economic regions

        • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzOP
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          2 months ago

          Trans families are less likely to live in the same economic region. Statistically, this is taking features away from trans people moreso than cis people. Transphobia isn’t an intention, it’s a consequence.

            • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzOP
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              2 months ago

              No it doesn’t. It’s called systemic bigotry. You see it in critical race theory. The system is set up to disadvantage minorities, such that innocent decisions go on to harm minorities too.

              Now that Donald Trump is the next president, you’ll see a LOT of trans people fleeing the US who leave family behind. Steam used to offer trans people fleeing persecution the ability to share games with their family at home. It’s a horrible coincidence in timing that Steam deprecates this feature on the same day many trans people realise they have to flee the country or die.

              • jet@hackertalks.com
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                2 months ago

                It’s a creative way to live life. More power to you.

                Which gaming service will you be moving to that supports global game sharing? Actually, what other game service supports sharing at all? I think steam is alone

                Since epic doesn’t allow any game sharing, it’s epic more transphobic than steam? Or less transphobic than steam? Because they’re not taking away something they never offered

                • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzOP
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                  2 months ago

                  Probably less so

                  Drag still prefers Steam over Epic, because of Epic’s horrible record of monopolistic and anticompetitive business practices. However, drag doesn’t have to choose, because you know who does let family share games for free? Fitgirl.

          • heartfelthumburger@sopuli.xyz
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            2 months ago

            I’d say it’s a stretch to call it transphobic just because of that. Unless you can actually back it up with evidence of intent from valve.

    • calamityjanitor@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The first time I opened an invite steam said I couldn’t join, but on a whim I opened it a week later and it worked. I still live in a different city so don’t know what happened.

  • luciole (he/him)@beehaw.org
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    2 months ago

    I didn’t realize the new Steam family sharing was so detrimental to close ones away from each other. Their Guide & FAQ is clear with their intentions:

    While we know that families come in many shapes and sizes, Steam Families is intended for a household of up to 6 close family members.

    To that end, we expect the requirements for participating in a Steam Family to change over time as we monitor its usage and add requirements to keep usage in line with this intent.

    Last line is pretty brutal. Apparently even family members living in the same country & different household might be in for a surprise eventually. That’s really saddening because at first glance this overhaul sounded amazing considering a single game was locked by play instead of the whole library.

    • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Completely anecdotal but I was able to add my brother-in-law to my Steam family without any problem and he lives about 125km from me.

      The requirement is absolutely something more arcane than “same household” and Valve are keeping quiet on the actual specifics. It’s possible that the fact that I’ve been there multiple times and have logged into Steam on their wifi in the past was enough to confirm that this is a place with close relation to me. Who knows though.

      • ahal@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        It’s just like all the steaming services. They’ll look the other way for a time, but then crack down whenever it makes the most financial sense.

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nzOP
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        2 months ago

        No, that’s not it. Drag’s dragon has been to drag’s house and signed into steam on drag’s PC, but we weren’t able to get family sharing working.

    • Boomkop3@reddthat.com
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      2 months ago

      The idea is that it makes it so you don’t have to mess with save data when you can access your big brother’s pc

  • IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Tip: You can share your library with someone by giving them your account sign in information, having them download what they want to play, and then having them turn their device’s internet off. This will allow you to continue using your account as normal, and your friend will be able to play the games they downloaded at any time as long as steam is not allowed to connect to the internet. If it is connected, they can play the games as long as you are not playing something on a different device.

    *Only share your account info with someone you absolutely trust. It’s always a risk to share credentials but use your best judgement.

    • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      “*Only share your account info with someone you absolutely trust. It’s always a risk to share credentials but use your best judgement.”

      As someone who is estranged from my blood family, it’s interesting to me how this category of people who I would feel comfortable sharing my credentials with maps pretty well onto who I would consider to be my found family