Steam – Is it possible to play two different Steam games on the same account at the same time

steam

I own a lot of games on Steam, and I'm overall a big fan of the service.

However, one thing about it really bothers me, and I'm wondering if anything can be done about it.

Let's say I have two different online, multiplayer games, both of which I legally own. If I bought these games normally, I could be playing one of them online, while my fiance could play the other one online on another computer.

However, with Steam, I can only be signed in on one computer at a time. So, despite the fact that I have bought about 40 games, if I'm playing one of them, someone else in my house is not able to play any of the others.

Is there a way to get around this? I don't think this is illegal or immoral as I own both of the games in question, and only one person is playing the game at a given time (same IP address and the same household, so it should be easy for Steam to verify that I am not sharing my games unfairly).

If I had bought simple boxed copies, this wouldn't be an issue, but since I became such a fan of Steam, I can't play any of those games at the same time as my fiance.

Is there anything that can be done?

Best Answer

As far as I know, you can't do that. If one of you wanted to play single player, then you could possibly set one computer to Offline Mode before starting the game, and then the other person should be able to log in on the other account and play multiplayer, but both of you being online at the same time should not be possible.

Keep in mind, this is technically not allowed. Steam's agreement says you're not allowed to share your account or your games, that includes your fiancee. I don't think they actually do anything about it as long as you're not talking about it on steam chat or their forums. However, you still risk losing your account and all your games when bypassing their rules.

EDIT: As of mid 2014, Steam has released Steam Family Sharing, which enables the sharing of Steam libraries. However, this system does not work on a per-title basis (only during the beta), but rather - If one title is being played, all other titles cannot be played (unless it's the same user that's using the library that is launching the second/whatever-is-after-first program).

Related Topic