Structuring Sharing for Everyone

Originally posted by My background: A little background on me for perspective, I am 28 years old, I have been on Steam for over 10 years, I have 485 games, I don't game with anyone I personally know, I live alone, I keep my gaming life and my real life separate from each other and the people I know IRL do not play games.



With things as they are I have no place in this sharing system, absolutely none. I don't want to lend out my library with the risk of being VAC banned, I don't want to authorize an entire machine so that anyone who uses it has access to it among a few other things. There are countless users out there just like me who benefit from this in no way and are not able to share with our friends without risking something.



We refuse to compromise our account security or violate the SSA when there are many ways in which this could be setup to not only include us but at the same time protect us, this is hoping that those things become a reality.

VAC protected games

Originally posted by VAC Policy: Use only trusted machines to play on VAC-Secured servers - if you are not sure whether or not the machine you are using to connect to Steam may have cheats installed, do not play on VAC-Secured servers.



Use caution when installing any game modifications, such as scripts or custom skins. Only download custom content from trusted sources. Hackers sometimes maliciously disguise their cheats to cause others to get banned.

Account authorization

Tier 1: Just as it is now, device authorization granting anyone who uses the computer regardless of account access to use your games.





Just as it is now, device authorization granting anyone who uses the computer regardless of account access to use your games. Tier 2: Account and device authorization, only one account that you specifically authorize can access your library, on top of this they can only access it from the device you authorize them to use it on, it's a two step system to further secure how your games are used.

Authorization methods

User restrictions and time locks

Parental controls

Who is currently playing and what

This is just a collection of issues and ideas I see as being the best for this to work out in the long run with the most user support. The system is close to where it should be however there are some serious things that need attention, this would better the system for everyone who actually wants to take part in it.I will be adding to this gradually as time goes on,Aside from your account being disabled this is the worst thing that can happen to you on Steam, legally speaking. There needs to be an option to exclude VAC secured games from your shared library, this is an absolute must. No matter who the person is, how much you trust them or how long you have known them doesn't negate the reality that they have the potential to get you VAC banned.They don't even have to cheat, they could modify a .dll or a .exe, they could download a malicious file without knowing it, there are many things that can happen that needlessly put you at risk of being banned, there needs to be an option to exclude the threat.This is why this is all concerning, you can make sure that YOUR own machine is completely secure and free from this ever happening, however that is impossible on the machine of others, especially a shared machine.Currently you can only authorize a device, this has no bearing on the account being used, anyone who has a Steam account has access to your library. This ties into the VAC issue as well and should have more options for authorization, there should be two optional tiers of authorization.We need the ability to directly accept sharing requests from friends and authorize them through chat, just as you do when a trade request is sent to you. This would pull up a window for this specific user that you could set flags on restricting them in the ways you personally deem fitting for them.A person should at the minimum have to be on your friends list for a period of no less than 30 - 60 days to authorize them. If they do not meet the 30 - 60 day requirement they will be met with a restriction in their chat just as Steamguard does now for trading requests that cannot be sent. This could obviously be tweaked to allow leeway for homes sharing the same Internet connection and users within.On top of this an authorized user should be locked to you for a period of 90 - 180 days, what this means is if a person requests to use your library and you accept, you will not be able to switch them out, you can deauthorize them however their slot will still be locked for a period of 3 to 6 months, no one else can fill it. Both of these things will aid in disrupting the ability to sell or rent out trading spaces almost effectively eliminating any problem as a result, even now there is no protection against this.Apparently this is already being developed, however it's still nice to keep up on it and make sure that it's being covered.Who is currently using your library and what game they are playing should be very pronounced, there are many cases of people just flat out kicking others off of their library fully unaware that someone was playing in the first place.I'm not sure how this could be done but possibly a warning popup could present itself when you pressinforming you of another person currently using your games, it could then ask you to cancel or confirm that you want to continue with kicking them off and launch your game, this would eliminate any issue with this.or