They actually improved this recently however you need a second account and add it to your family, prior it would work just like this with one account, only one user can use a game attached to a library. However now as long as it's not the same game, it let's you play whatever on the second account.
this post was submitted on 07 May 2025
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Steam Deck
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How is this any different from not having a steam deck and having to share the one PC?
im not giving my kid access to hentai puzzle castle 7.
I know this is a joke, but with family sharing you can pick what games get shared.
yah, i purposely share that one with my brother who wont buy games.
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 on the Deck 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.
As a privacy-valuing PC gamer, I'm afraid that's a bad idea. As great as GOG's way of doing things is/was, I need to transition away from Windows more than I need to transition away from Steam. I'm sorry, but as of 2025 Steam is less evil than Microsoft.
I've used Linux on my PC for about 7 years, now, and I've only found two or three games I had to go back to Windows for (though I don't play very many multiplayer titles, so YMMV). For whatever reason, though, I can almost never get the Steam Deck controls to work with my GOG games. GOG really need to step up - there's a MacOS version of GOG Galaxy, after all.
they aren't difficult to get running on Deck
Maybe it depends what games you want to play. Fallout NV is the only GOG game I've got working with no hitches through Heroic. Every other GOG game I've tried to get running either doesn't run at all, or the controls don't work.
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.
Honestly, this is 100% the solution for this problem, especially for sharing with a child.
Now, the issue of having a "license" and rights to play a game, vs actually owning the game is still a valid point of contention.
I was buying everything on gog before the steam deck, it's a bit more harder to use them on the deck but theyd5fit your use case. Anyway if the developers do not put drm on their games and do not use steam services you can copy their steam install folder between computers. I don't think it's really steam fault for something the game developer require themselves.
What is up with all of the upvotes for pro CORPORATE posts here and down votes for pro consumer? This community is toxic.
What is up with all of the upvotes for pro CORPORATE posts here and down votes for pro consumer? This community is toxic.
I have set up a steam family and created accounts for my kids. Other than only having one copy of some games or games not supporting family sharing it's been great. I have control over the games they can see in their libraries and we can all play different or the same game with enough licenses at the same time. We often play valheim together.
Could your daughter play in offline mode? If it is not connected to the internet stream does not know you have two devices playing at a time.
Bro, seriously.
Your account is yours only. If you want to share your library with her, make her an account and add that to your famiy group. I do this with my 2 kids and everyone plays whatever they want, simultaneously.
My child is not old enough to read, let alone login and create an account. I even think there are legal protections for her against this kind of thing in my country...
He does not need to login with a user and password. He just needs to chose his/her avatar and that's it. Every game console has this.
@thedaemon @warmaster Same issue here.
Creating Steam accounts for my kids requires creating and managing e-mail addresses for them.
E-mail and Steam are social network and terms of service do not allow people below 13 yo to have an account.
So I don't that Family share is a solution.
Create your own 2nd/3rd account, and use the same emails but with the + option. https://www.streak.com/post/gmail-plus-addressing-trick (This works with more than just Gmail) So your main account is [email protected], then your second account would be [email protected]. This way you don't have many different emails to manage, but Steam (last I checked) will see these all as different so everything can be managed by you.
My child is not old enough to read, let alone login and create an account.
"make her an account" does not mean that she should do it on her own.
Nope. Stop sharing your steam account.
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