How to gameshare on Steam: Share your Steam Library games with a friend

We’re all in uncertain times right now, and it’s important that we check up on others. Gamesharing on Steam is one way to show that you care... right?

Steam has been gaining very useful features over the last few years, with Big Picture mode and being able to work with a variety of wireless controllers, but sharing a game on Steam is one to highlight.

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If you want to share your Steam library with a friend, then, you've come to the right place.

With that, here’s a quick guide as to what gamesharing on Steam is, and how it could help you, family and friends during these times..

How to gameshare on Steam

It really is this simple: log out of your account on one computer, and log in to another, especially if you have a couple of computers in different places. This way, you can select which game you want to install, and simply sign out when you’re done.

So if you want to lend a mate your Steam collection, just log out on your computer and give them your login details to use on their computer.

You could also try ‘Family Sharing’ on Steam, which allows multiple users to play games on one computer. From the menu bar, go to Steam, then Settings, and select Family. Make sure that ‘Authorise Library Sharing on this Computer’ is ticked. This way, any other user can simply go to Steam on their user-area, log-in, and they can play games as normal.

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Share games using Steam Guard

But to share the library with someone else who may be five hundred miles away, there is another way, although a difficult one. Make sure that ‘Steam Guard’ is enabled on your account first, otherwise this process will refuse to work.

Log in to the account on another computer, and it will recognise that it is on a different PC. When you choose a game to play, you can then ‘request access’, and this will be sent to the owner’s e-mail address.

Once approved, it can be played. But remember, there is a limit of ten computers that this can be used with, and a library can only be used at one time, so it can be a pass-the-parcel game with this method.

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Sharing is caring

As Steam goes for now, the ‘Family Sharing’ is useful, if not confusing at times. People want to be able to use an account with other people, especially if there are justified uses for this.

A family, an e-sports team, even a group of developers or streamers would benefit hugely from being able to use the same account multiple times at once.

Of course, Steam Remote Play allows a player to stream a multiplayer game, and up to four players can them remotely join in, as if they’re sitting next to one another. Perfect for these times, but it could also work so well for a future version of ‘Family Sharing’.

All in all, Steam is making it easier for those who want to share games in innovative ways, but there’s plenty of potential to go even further here, but ‘Family Sharing‘ and ‘Remote Play’ are great features to start off from.

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