You can lend your friends a console disc. You can not lend them a game you buy on Steam. Or at least, you havenât been able to previously. That might soon be about to change.
Some code buried in the latest Steam client beta (pictured above), first spotted by NeoGAF poster Grief.exe but which I can also see in my directory, has revealed the presence of something called a âshared game libraryâ. Here are the relevant parts:
âSteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicense_Titleâ âShared game libraryâ
âSteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_OwnerTextâ âJust so you know, your games are currently in use by %borrower%. Playing now will send %borrower% a notice that itâs time to quit.â
âSteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_BorrowerTextâ âThis shared game is currently unavailable. Please try again later or buy this game for your own library.â
For three lines of code, that seems to present a pretty clear plan: you can let other Steam users âborrowâ your games, then take them back whenever it suits.
As it stands, right now once you buy a Steam game thatâs it. Itâs yours, tied to your account, and you canât trade it in, sell it or lend it like you could a physical console game.
Letting PC gamers share their games, then, would be amazing, though how Valve is selling this to publishers I have no idea. Maybe every single full game can now be its own demo as well? Maybe Microsoftâs ten-person âfamily sharingâ plan for the Xbox One, which sounds a lot like this, is helping soften the blow for this kind of stuff?
Weâve contacted Valve for comment, and will update if we hear back.
