It makes references to a ”shared game library” with dialogue prompts. It’s similar to Xbox One’s strategy, in which multiple users can’t play the same title simultaneously.
One of the dialogue prompts warn the user that a game is currently in use by %borrower%, and then if you want to play it yourself then they’ll be sent a message ‘it’s time to quit’.
It’s been a staple of buddy gaming throughout the ages: you lend your chums a disc or cartridge to a play one of your games or theirs. Then along came digital and the ever judgmental eye of Digital Rights Management - suddenly sharing wasn’t so enlightened an ideal after all. Now it seems Steam wants to correct that.
None other than NeoGAF spotted the curious code first, reports Kotaku.
”SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicense_Title” “Shared game library”
“SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_OwnerText” “Just so you know, your games are currently in use by %borrower%. Playing now will send %borrower% a notice that it’s time to quit.”
“SteamUI_JoinDialog_SharedLicenseLocked_BorrowerText” “This shared game is currently unavailable. Please try again later or buy this game for your own library.”
The mechanic of borrowing that Steam has in mind would let your friends play for as long as the original owner of the game library title was willing to lend it out. However once they want to play it themselves the borrowed copy is rescinded.
Among PC games this idea is obviously going to get huge thumbs up, but what about publishers? It’s got plenty of pro and con arguments for it, namely that demo builds rarely ‘nail’ a game experience.
