Has the Deck turned *off* any other Steam users?
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Heroic Launcher and GOG is your friend. DRM free ftw.
But seriously Steam Family sharing is the way to go here.
Yeah I've recently started tinkering with GOG in part due to this issue. I'm using Lutris in Linux rather than Heroic. I'm not sure if there's a benefit to one over the other, but either way the size of the library of available games is quite small by comparison and of course I have lots of games trapped in Steam now.
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Yeah I've recently started tinkering with GOG in part due to this issue. I'm using Lutris in Linux rather than Heroic. I'm not sure if there's a benefit to one over the other, but either way the size of the library of available games is quite small by comparison and of course I have lots of games trapped in Steam now.
Underneath they are similar, however I was in the same boat as you. Lutris first however after installing a few apps I moved towards heroic.
Heroic is easier to manage your library requires less tinkering and as a benefit for steam deck owners, has controller support in the gui by default and native integration with epic games store.
Lutris works better for non platform games, like old PC games from CDs or EA App.
How I’ve been moving my games over is rebuying games I would be gutted to loose like Fallout 3, and Doom 2016. Then waiting on sales for the rest. Also Amazon Prime has free gog games so you maybe able to get a handful of games every month to move over
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the fact that I don’t actually own my games
It doesnt solve this in the slightest. Steam and game publishers can always take your games away without prior notice.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Fair, with steam i think most people got into it years ago before "ownership" was even a concern, back before online games were so frequently shutdown soon after release.
Its a good thing GOG and Sailing the 7 Seas are an option for preservation, not that it helps with online only games.Now i still invest in steam because of its convenience. As soon as it becomes more cumbersome to use, i am done. Tbh if 3rd party app stores/secondary drm become more common on the store i will probably stop investing in steam. Its already a big issue that stops me from buying games...(Think denuvo)
Consoles are already to the point where its near impossible to own your game.
Xbox overpriced their consoles so we dont buy them and just invest in gamepass. Not to mention their consoles dont work without online accnt.
Playstation requires online activation for a disc drive to work with their new consoles.
Nintendo doesnt even put 3rd party switch 2 games on the cartridge anymore.I feel you, but steam is definitely the lesser of the evils here letting you use it on almost any hardware you want, even if you cant avoid the (for most games)
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the fact that I don’t actually own my games
It doesnt solve this in the slightest. Steam and game publishers can always take your games away without prior notice.
wrote last edited by [email protected]You’re totally correct. The reason you’re getting downvoted is because that seems tangential to the problem you mentioned (an account can only play one thing at a time), which already has a solution (Family Sharing).
But yes, the world needs strong digital ownership laws yesterday.
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You have no idea what you are talking about. You can own and resell any physical piece of game media. If you have a gameboy cartridge, nobody can take that game away from you. Also if you have DRM free game files from gog, nobody can take that away from you.
The only case where this disgusting lincense shit is possible, is when games require being online and logging in to unlock the DRM.
Your physical media will degrade over time and you will eventually lose access to the game you bought physically. There’s no correct answer in this, unfortunately, and is fully your opinion. You can own and resell your physical media until it no longer functions and then where are you? You’re in the same boat as the person who bought digitally and lost access to their license. Even DRM free games from gog are only around until they stop hosting your download. If they stop hosting it and the hardware you own with your copy on it fails, you will again own nothing.
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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.
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.
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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.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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 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.
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Your physical media will degrade over time and you will eventually lose access to the game you bought physically. There’s no correct answer in this, unfortunately, and is fully your opinion. You can own and resell your physical media until it no longer functions and then where are you? You’re in the same boat as the person who bought digitally and lost access to their license. Even DRM free games from gog are only around until they stop hosting your download. If they stop hosting it and the hardware you own with your copy on it fails, you will again own nothing.
This argument applies to almost anything that's possible to own, though. What happens when your bike degrades to the point that it's not usable as a bike anymore?
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This argument applies to almost anything that's possible to own, though. What happens when your bike degrades to the point that it's not usable as a bike anymore?
wrote last edited by [email protected]1000% it does. But if your tires wear out you can buy new tires. If a chip wears out in your game boy color cartridge, are you going to replace it? Is there a shop you can bring your old PS2 disc to that can restore lost data?
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the fact that I don’t actually own my games
It doesnt solve this in the slightest. Steam and game publishers can always take your games away without prior notice.
You're being needlessly pedantic for the sake of outrage. It solves OP's problem of playing their library in multiple rooms simultaneously.
