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Latest Comments by Mountain Man
Steam Families has officially launched with a big Steam Client Update
13 Sep 2024 at 11:17 pm UTC

Quoting: IrisNebula
Quoting: Mountain ManThe simple fact is that family sharing was always intended for use by people living in the same residence, primarily so that parents could share games with their kids. If your sister is living on her own, then the expectation is that she will buy her own games.

Look, don't get hung up on the name "Family Sharing". Think of it as "local sharing" for a better understanding of the use case.
See the problem is that this isn't true. The new one certainly is primarily so that parents could share games with their kids and is very obvious. But it still fails to cover all families, like Liam's where there are 2 households involved in a kid's life. It's "Houshold Sharing" with a misleading name.

But for the system we had in place for so long, people claiming, like you, that it was always intended only for close families is, I'm guessing, your assumption. Because Valve themselves wrote in their description about the feature that it's made for sharing with your family, guests and friends. That's why there were restrictions like locking an entire library when one game was open, a limit of 10 devices, and needing a local login for every machine you wanted to authorise. And a lot of us had been using it up to this point like this, you visit someone, login, share your library and can keep 2-3 siblings and 2 really good friends on it for example (specifically my use case). And that's now being taken away, so it's valid criticism that we don't like the change.

I understand of course that the changes made are fantastic for parents with 1-2 little kids living in one home, which is a lot of people, so I get why it was done. I still don't like the changes for myself and others, they are restricting a feature we've known and used for 10 years.
The short version is that Valve has finally closed an unintended loophole in the Family Sharing feature.

STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor gets Denuvo DRM removed, plus performance improvements
13 Sep 2024 at 3:19 am UTC Likes: 2

The performance improvement was literally just removing Denuvo.

Unity cancels the stupid Runtime Fee
12 Sep 2024 at 11:54 pm UTC

Quoting: mr-victoryThey hadn't cancelled that already?
That was my thought. I guess they expected things to settle down after the initial backlash, and developers would start handing them money again, but that obviously never happened.

Steam Families has officially launched with a big Steam Client Update
12 Sep 2024 at 8:46 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: Belaptir
Quoting: Mountain Man
Quoting: BelaptirIt's crap.

They restricted it so much that you must be in the same household (aka under the same roof) to invite someone. People reporting everywhere that not even if they live in the same building but different apartments works. You need to be under the same roof and, apparently, show activity that proves it.

We thought it was a downgrade because we couldn't invite people from the same region but a different country, but this is even worse.
That makes sense. Family sharing is supposed to be used for, well ,family sharing, which typically means people living under the same roof. It's not meant for sharing with your friends in a completely different residence.
Typically? My sister lives in a different house, she's not family then? What about people who move to a different country leaving parents or siblings behind? Are they not family?
What if my sister lives in my same building but we don't live in the same apartment? Are we not family?
The restriction of the year cooldown and the risk of being banned by what other family members do with your games should be more than enough to control these issues.
The simple fact is that family sharing was always intended for use by people living in the same residence, primarily so that parents could share games with their kids. If your sister is living on her own, then the expectation is that she will buy her own games.

Look, don't get hung up on the name "Family Sharing". Think of it as "local sharing" for a better understanding of the use case.

Steam Families has officially launched with a big Steam Client Update
12 Sep 2024 at 2:05 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: BelaptirIt's crap.

They restricted it so much that you must be in the same household (aka under the same roof) to invite someone. People reporting everywhere that not even if they live in the same building but different apartments works. You need to be under the same roof and, apparently, show activity that proves it.

We thought it was a downgrade because we couldn't invite people from the same region but a different country, but this is even worse.
That makes sense. Family sharing is supposed to be used for, well ,family sharing, which typically means people living under the same roof. It's not meant for sharing with your friends in a completely different residence.

Oxenfree is being completely removed from itch.io in October
9 Sep 2024 at 12:55 pm UTC Likes: 9

Quoting: Fester_Mudd
Quoting: razing32And once again i have to differ to people that use GOG.
I use Steam for convenience and proton but stories like these make me realize that when push comes to shove its best to have a backup copy of your game.
This is why torrent sites are also kind of like an internet backup archive for games you have once purchased, taken away from you, or lost and you can still get them. And why shouldn't you? You have purcahsed! It belongs to you even though these types of removes happen.

Hey, Night School Studio! You are making absolutely NO SENSE whatsoever. What is the matter with you :huh:
That is one of the ironies of media piracy. Pirates are the scourge of the industry, but in many cases, they are the only source for games, movies, television shows, and music that are no longer commercially available.

The Elecrow CrowView Note is a real useful all-in-one portable monitor and keyboard
6 Sep 2024 at 9:57 pm UTC

Quoting: Jarmer
Quoting: Mountain Man$170 seems pretty steep considering you can buy a low-end laptop for that price.
Absolutely zero $170 laptops on earth are worth paying $170 for. This is at least worth the cash if you use it for the purpose of turning the steam deck or other handheld (maybe android phones?) into proper computer.
Whether or not you think a $170 laptop is worth the cost is beside the point. There's a whole lot more hardware in even a cheap Chromebook than there is in this thing, so I'm a bit baffled why it costs so much.

Paradox are bundling four DLCs into Europa Universalis IV free for all players
6 Sep 2024 at 1:16 pm UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: AciD
Quoting: Mountain ManParadox used to be one of my favorite developers, but the huge number of DLCs for each game is just too hard to keep up with, and even just a few "essential" expansions can easily double the original purchase price of a game.
I never quite get the problem some have with Paradox DLCs.
It would be a problem if the base game was incomplete, but it's clearly not.
You have no obligation to buy any DLC to enjoy the game.
On the contrary, if I love a game, I'm very, very happy with a dev continuously developing new stuff for said game. (Think Vampire Survivors ; I'm sure y'all bought all the DLCs, without any complains!)

So, thanks Paradox for providing such on-going support for your games.

My 0.2€
Whether or not the base games are complete is debatable. The more "essential" expansions that are released, the more bare bones the base game begins to look.

The Elecrow CrowView Note is a real useful all-in-one portable monitor and keyboard
6 Sep 2024 at 1:12 pm UTC Likes: 3

$170 seems pretty steep considering you can buy a low-end laptop for that price.

Black & White (2001) open source game engine sees a first release
5 Sep 2024 at 11:42 pm UTC

There's a reason Black & White was quickly forgotten. This was the game that marked the beginning of the end for Peter Molyneux. It had some neat ideas, but it all felt rather disjointed, like it was just a prototype, and came nowhere close to fulfilling Molyneux's lofty promises which quickly earned Lionhead Studios the unfavorable nickname Lyin' Head Studios.