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Steam Beta Update Suggests Game Sharing

Just as Microsoft decides to second-guess themselves about the whole game sharing fiasco that left the majority of the gaming world in an uproar, Steam may also be getting ready to introduce a way to share games.

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Just as Microsoft decides to second-guess themselves about the whole game sharing fiasco that left the majority of the gaming world in an uproar, Steam may also be getting ready to introduce a way to share games.

A member of NeoGAF found a few interesting lines of code in the most recent beta update for the Steam client, hidden in a file called “steamui_english”, that mentions a “shared game library” and two notifications about playing a borrowed game.

Valve’s attempt at game sharing will be very similar to how Netflix only allows a certain amount of devices to stream at once. The code even includes Netflix-like notices that will alert users when a “borrowed  game” is currently being played or in use.

Game sharing wouldn’t be the first feature that has been “leaked” by Steam beta source code. But just because it wouldn’t be the first doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see Valve implement the suggested feature anytime soon — or even at all.

It does appear, however, that Valve is working on making sure they do not delve into the PR nightmare that Microsoft has been working so desperately to get itself out of. And that is always a good thing, right?

What do you think of Steam possibly introducing game sharing? Is that something that you would like to see? Let us know in the comments below.