this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Steam Deck

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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.

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[–] [email protected] 143 points 1 month ago (37 children)

This is a problem that Steam Family Share exists to solve.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

Bro, seriously.

Your account is yours only. If you want to share your library with her, make her an account and add that to your famiy group. I do this with my 2 kids and everyone plays whatever they want, simultaneously.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 month ago

Put your steam deck in offline mode, problem solved for anything that doesn’t need to ping a server. That’s what I do with my kids.

I don’t disagree on digital rights and all that, but I am able to game because of my Steam Deck.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Steam Families User Guide & FAQ: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/054C-3167-DD7F-49D4

My understanding is this should fix your issue. Also, none of that is actually a Steam Deck issue.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think that its quite clear they don't have an issue with the steam deck - they're just voicing that it brought to light how they don't own their games and it turned them off from buying more licenses on Steam

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah. Only GoG nowadays allows you to actually buy and own your games.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Don't use the same account for 2 different people. Create another and use Steam Family sharing to fix your issue.

although you still won't "own" your games, but that's the life of a PC gamer. Best you can do is buy from GOG or find/run shady cracked versions.

[–] danielquinn 5 points 4 weeks ago

Thanks, I'll look into that.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Use Family Sharing, instead of sharing your account. Steam’s Family Sharing program is actually one of the most generous in the industry. It used to be the case where you’d get booted off of a game if the person who owned it opened a game. But they changed it a while back, to where you essentially have a digital bookshelf of games, and sharing members can choose from any game on the shelf. As long as you’re not trying to play the same game, everything is kosher. Or hell, you can even buy multiple copies of the same game if you want to play together, the same way you can keep multiple copies of a game on a shelf.

Switching accounts on the Steam Deck is easy too, because you simply pick which profile you want to use. You can set account restrictions, like maybe you only want your kid to be able to play E or E10+ ESRB rated games. Plus it means you’re not sharing save files, because each profile has their own saves; Anyone who has ever lost a cherished save file because of a younger sibling hitting “New Game” will be able to see the value in that. There’s very little reason to avoid setting up Family Sharing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago

Honestly, this is 100% the solution for this problem, especially for sharing with a child.

Now, the issue of having a "license" and rights to play a game, vs actually owning the game is still a valid point of contention.

[–] Subscript5676 26 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As many others have said, this is because you’re using the same account on both devices, and Steam’s DRM policies will stop you from being able to do what you described. So I won’t go into re-mentioning the many suggestions others have talked about.

What I do want to mention, however, is that this isn’t a problem that comes from having the Deck itself. Set up a separate computer in your living room and use your Steam account there, and you would have the same problem. Does that mean you should be turned off from buying a new computer that’ll run parallel to your main gaming rig?

[–] danielquinn 14 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Absolutely. This is less a criticism of the Deck (which I love) and more about my own coming up against this annoying DRM that I never even knew existed because I only had one place to play.

[–] Subscript5676 13 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Welcome to the painful world of DRM that we live in :’)

And to be fair to Steam, they did recently issue a statement and tried reflecting it in their stores to say that you don’t actually outright own all the games you “bought”, as, for some, you are merely purchasing the license to play games that the publishers have decided to put behind a DRM. This has always been the case since the dawn of DRMs, and it was implied that people should understand it, but recent events have made it clear that a lot of people aren’t even aware of it. So you’d be forgiven for not knowing.

[–] danielquinn 6 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

It's funny, I flocked to Steam because I was under the impression that I was owning the games. While other companies were trying to get me to sign onto their "play everything" subscriptions and Google had their "Stadia" (remember them?), Steam let me download the game and install it on my (Linux!) computer with no license key checks, working offline etc. etc. I feel like the assumption that I was in fact buying my games, rather than a license to play them when Steam saw fit was a reasonable one. This discovery was quite enraging.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Heroic Launcher and GOG is your friend. DRM free ftw.

But seriously Steam Family sharing is the way to go here.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Just pirate the copies of games you've already paid for if you want safety and archival.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

This is the way. For every steam game I don’t have on gog, I have a repack on my backup NAS.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Should be legal as well as backups are legal. Your lawyer would have a good time in court making you moolah by claiming: There is no way to own games anymore, and steams and other storefronts language use of "purchase" rather than "rent" is misleading.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago

They actually improved this recently however you need a second account and add it to your family, prior it would work just like this with one account, only one user can use a game attached to a library. However now as long as it's not the same game, it let's you play whatever on the second account.

[–] _spiffy 17 points 4 weeks ago

I have set up a steam family and created accounts for my kids. Other than only having one copy of some games or games not supporting family sharing it's been great. I have control over the games they can see in their libraries and we can all play different or the same game with enough licenses at the same time. We often play valheim together.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 weeks ago

Could your daughter play in offline mode? If it is not connected to the internet stream does not know you have two devices playing at a time.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

im not giving my kid access to hentai puzzle castle 7.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I know this is a joke, but with family sharing you can pick what games get shared.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago

How is this any different from not having a steam deck and having to share the one PC?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Nope. Stop sharing your steam account.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Just tested it to see what you’re talking about, I’ve never seen that before. Yeah that’s bullshit. It logs you out of the account (kind of?) and when you log back in, it logs out the other computer. What the hell.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

I agree. While Family Sharing may be an option, it really shouldn't be necessary. Why shouldn't "I" (whether it's my dad playing Cities: Skylines, or actually me playing a round of Balatro on the Deck while waiting for a DotA queue to pop) be able to play two different games that I paid for at the same time without having to jump through any hoops? Before I knew about Family Sharing, I accidentally kicked my dad off Cities: Skylines far too many times simply by waking up my Deck.

Funnily enough, now Family Sharing largely isn't necessary because I started buying a bunch of my games on GOG which means I rarely use my Steam Deck because of how difficult most GOG games are to get running.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

they aren't difficult to get running on Deck

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I agree that's not a good way for steam to handle it.
Seems to me that as long as it's on the same global IP address which indicate it's the same household, it should be considered OK.
But I do understand why they don't want to do what Netflix did originally, where people could share accounts without limit.

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