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How to NOT share your Steam Games

Fahdis

Member
So uh... this all concluded today with extreme drama. A bit of a rant...

I gave my cousin my username and password a year and a half ago online while he is in another country so we could do Steam Family Share and swore from his confidentiality that he won't share my credentials with anyone. Now my cousin's family's situation is not that great since he lives in the third world - South Asia... and he was going through some back surgery procedures and couldn't go to school for the term, so I felt it was the nice thing to do so. I don't have Steam Guard on due to access to GeForce Now.

Anyways, he's new to Steam and doesn't know much about how this all works since all he ever did was play a pirated version of COD 4 with his buddies on an old computer with like a GTX 1050 or something, which his friend installed for him. This is for context that Steam Family Share was now enabled on that computer.

I have more than 500+ games, all new and old and adding every few months. So I thought he can play the older games as time goes by. Either way since about a few month's he's had a full recovery and is going back to school. In between this time I noticed like 8 months back his account name changed from his name to another. I didn't bother to ask thinking he's a young kid fooling around with his buddies.

A few days ago, I was going through my account within my Family Share account and then saw that the account had a new name again, with a new PC name and now had a Twitch profile attached with like 1500 Followers on Steam at this point and had these positive comments about his amazing gaming skills and large library. And then I was mildly perplexed yet happy as well thinking positive; I messaged my cousin and asked him what's going on? When did he join Twitch to Congratulate him. And then verbatim, he's like "oh, I sold my computer to a friend for $500 months ago because we needed some things in the house and he had credentials to only my account". Instantly, I was like wtf. I was furious and asked him why he didn't tell me so because that meant my games went with that PC as well due to family share.

He apologized and didn't know how any of it worked and said I'll tell my friend to stop using the account and take off Family Share. I said, only I can do that on my end. So I'm like you knew but you still gave him my games? He was like no, I really did forget to tell you and then apologized profusely. I've known him for years since family and I know he has too much respect for me to do me dirty. Just told him, that his friend will have a nasty surprise for him tomorrow.

I immediately went into Steam Family Share and deleted whoever this person was without noting down the name out of anger. It was something like luke_twitchtv or something, I don't exactly remember, in hindsight I should have noted it down since Steam doesn't let you see who you have shared the account with only who you prior borrowed games from with them Family Sharing with you. Anyways after a day, I got a phonecall from my cousin that something odd happened.

He said that his friend called the same day in frenzy and was distraught... and said he was in trouble. He said he sold the PC further for $1500 with some mods to the hardware seeing how there were so many games and new ones were being added every few months and thought of my cousin a bit dimwitted later (in my cousin's own perception) at the time since he got a great deal after noticing the plethora of games being added a few weeks in or every few months... it was like hitting jackpot... he wanted to apologize for taking advantage and that he got a phonecall from the person he sold to 3 months prior this year that "he lied about the deal and now his Twitch career will be ruined and there will be consequences for him". He asked my cousin to help him but he hung up the phone. He said they aren't friends anymore since that talk and whatever extortion bs is happening to him is his own issue now. Sucks, but it is what it is for being a scumbag. I again asked if he was in on it and he swore on his life, god and parents. Anyways, I let it go but swore off sharing my library with anyone again. Along with setting a new password and steam guard just in case those were compromised too.

I got to thinking, how was this happening behind my back? Realized that South Asia and my timings are mostly 12 hours opposite, so as I slept, this dude sneakily worked on a schedule and I only play for a few hours in the afternoon or dusk at times. I do have a fixed schedule for gaming. Guess he figured it out. Other than that, this dude never bothered messaging me because he definitely saw who's library it was in his account for Family Share, same for my cousin's douche friend... I still haven't received an angry message even now out of entitlement. I'm still expecting one. I don't buy Day 1, but usually I buy in Bulk every 3 to 6 months due to me having access to the South Asian Regional Store or free keys here and there.

That was a fucked experience, I can't believe I was casual about it for so long. I hope nobody gets hurt. But scumbags deserved this.

Tl;dr - I had no idea my Steam account was being whored around in a different country being sold twice to different people while Family Sharing was active on the PC and I didn't notice for a year and a half. Drama ensued and now someone has lost their budding twitch career and sprawling borrowed gaming library from me while another person is being threatened for it. Steam Guard and a new password has been set since.
 
Thanks for the warning.

That being said, someone who is willing to create a turkish steam account for me?
Cant get it to work with a vpn.

Hit me up in the pms!
 
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Kataploom

Gold Member
I let friend of mine get whatever he wanted and play with Family Share from my account, he wanted to play Alice Madness Return so bad so he did, I didn't play it at the time because I'm always buying and saving in the backlog whatever I know I'll play later, so when I wanted to play Alice, it asked me an email used for registering the game it whatever it was...

I used mine from stream and surprise! I cannot use that account because that's not the one I registered that game in so I asked my friend for the email he used... He didn't remember what email he used :D

I'm gonna say it's not his fault, why the heck is EA asking for additional game registration after purchase? Ffs I already got the game on steam, isn't that enough for them? I haven't play it but when I do, I'll have to repurchase it somewhere else since I can't buy it twice on steam 🤷
 

H4ze

Member
I once gave my steam account to a friend of my brother, that was like 10+ years ago. They wanted to play cs:s together, long story short, this little bitch cheated on got me VAC perma banned. That was the last time I gave an account to someone...
 

Reizo Ryuu

Member
If you do want to share, but not give out your account details, just use chrome's remote connection.
That way you can just log in and authorise the pc yourself from anywhere in the world.
 

Filben

Member
I don't give credentials out to anyone if it's high value, not even to closest friends.

Thing is, it's not that I don't trust them being honest. It's just an added potential security risk you have to nail down once things don't work the way they supposed to do.

It's hard enough to keep your credentials save with only you knowing them. Many scamers out there. I don't want to give the burden of responsibility to keep my account save to anyone else.

If I share my library I'll do it manually on their computer. Hard to do that when they live on the other side of the planet, I know, but that's the only option.

Also, I always use two factor authentication. No app or service will convince me to disable it. If some service require that in order to function I say, sorry, won't happen, and I won't use said service.

Would be different if I had like 10 games on my account, but not with 1000.

OP, you could have gotten it much much worse so you're lucky the way it worked out for you. As for the other dudes... they have to learn to ask questions. Guess they're pretty young? You never get something in life for free, you either pay with your data or morals or something else. And if I get "free games" every other week that should sound fishy to you and you gotta ask questions. They choose to be ignorant and keep taking without giving or even asking.

But that's not your problem, you can't be the pro-active FAQ explaining how things work apart from the basics. Common sense and asking questions when you're unsure in the slightest way should be expected.

Be grateful nothing bad really happened to you and you dodged a bullet there. Now get yourself a beer and enjoy your games!
 

winjer

Gold Member
That is quite the drama. But fortunately you didn't lose your account or get banned.
Truth be told, the whole drama is on another country, with your cousin and that other guy.
 

Tangerine

Member
Thanks for the warning.

That being said, someone who is willing to create a turkish steam account for me?
Cant get it to work with a vpn.

Hit me up in the pms!
I farm runes or exp, any game for only a dollar a day, 7 days a week! In 50 years time I'll have $18,250 which is what I need to achieve my dream.

To create a sanctuary for elderly Turkish Turkeys. Absolutely no non-Turkish Turkeys allowed. Female Turkeys must have a male Turkey escort at all times, while out of the coop. Take a Turkey home, for food or perhaps something more. Only Allah will judge you ultimately, not me.
 

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
What the fuck...

Th-thanks for the story. Hope you haven't earned the ire of the south Asian mob.
 

ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
Thanks for the warning.

That being said, someone who is willing to create a turkish steam account for me?
Cant get it to work with a vpn.

Hit me up in the pms!
This behavior adversely affects companies' perspective on regional pricing and makes it difficult for people to access the games in those regions. Please do not use this method in any service that uses regional pricing.
 

ManaByte

Member
I gave my cousin my username and password

Stopped reading right there.

stupid quotes GIF
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Makes me wonder what the friend and the streamer were thinking when they made the deal. Did they know about family sharing and went ahead with the deal anyway? If so did they seriously thought they could get away with it? Or did they thought the games just magically appeared on the account? Either way its dumb.

That said, your cousin has a bit of fault too. Its to avoid stuff like this one should always format your pc before selling it, hope he learned that now.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Lol fuck them
What bunch of foamily idiots. They play dumb and take advantage of you
Never share your steam account with anyone outside your house.

With the "twitch career" the guy can buy himself a fucking game for sure...
 
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BlackTron

Member
Everyone in the story was a fool.

At least OP was a fool for trying to be a nice guy though. The classic blunder.

The people who got mired in drama for trying to trade in someone else's Steam account, lol good. Why would you build a "reputation" on something with a email address you don't control anyway.

How can you be that dumb and actually be good at a competitive video game. I don't get it.
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
4 of my closest friends have access to my Steam library, never had any problem.
You just need to be sure about the people you trust.
 

Shifty

Member
Cyber security 101, repeat after me:

Do
Not
Share
Your
Logins
Ever

If someone is povo enough to borrow an account from you, you can bet your bottom dollar that they're also povo enough to not care about its ongoing security in the same way that you - its owner - do (or should, at any rate).

Frankly, at that point they should be pirating if free shit is the end goal. Better to put yourself in the line of fire than take liberties with someone else's kindness.
 
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buenoblue

Member
I gave my Plex server logins to my wife's mum and sister a few years ago. Said don't give them out cause the movies steam from my server pc. A month later I I'm trying to watch a movie and Plex is slow as hell. I check and there's like 30 streams being played. Fuckers had given the logins to all there friends and family. Yeah lesson learnt.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
First of all, this should be a lesson for you to enable Steam Guard. I'm not sure what issues you were having with Geforce Now but I assure you they can be overcome with Steam Guard enabled.

Secondly, Steam has a library sharing function. It requires you to sign into Steam on their PC, but this can be done over a remote session / TeamViewer or whatever. Then, instead of your cousin signing into your account directly they just sign into their own account and have access to your games (as long as you're not playing something, and you always have priority). Then instead of your account getting highjacked, you can just log in and de-authorize that PC when you find out someone else has been using it to get Twitch famous.
 

SScorpio

Member
I gave my Plex server logins to my wife's mum and sister a few years ago. Said don't give them out cause the movies steam from my server pc. A month later I I'm trying to watch a movie and Plex is slow as hell. I check and there's like 30 streams being played. Fuckers had given the logins to all there friends and family. Yeah lesson learnt.
From your server you can enter someone's email address and select what to share with them and it will email them and prompt the creation of an account.

You can then easily disable access if needed. Never give your account for anything to anyone.
 

Fahdis

Member
Stopped reading right there.

stupid quotes GIF

So trust is stupid? And feeling empathy for a family member while they were sick is stupid as well? I guess you must have a lot of luck in life living in with your head stuck up your ass all the time concerned with just yourself. Maybe if you read the whole thing of why I did it along with the sack suckers, perhaps you'd have some context of understanding. Your written post was fine enough, but your gif confirms your own stupidity.
 

Fahdis

Member
First of all, this should be a lesson for you to enable Steam Guard. I'm not sure what issues you were having with Geforce Now but I assure you they can be overcome with Steam Guard enabled.

Secondly, Steam has a library sharing function. It requires you to sign into Steam on their PC, but this can be done over a remote session / TeamViewer or whatever. Then, instead of your cousin signing into your account directly they just sign into their own account and have access to your games (as long as you're not playing something, and you always have priority). Then instead of your account getting highjacked, you can just log in and de-authorize that PC when you find out someone else has been using it to get Twitch famous.

I think people are misunderstanding. He got into my credentials after giving him my username and pass. Enabled Family Sharing on his PC and then he deleted my username and password after signing out. As long as it was family shared, his account also had my games on it. My account wasn't compromised. His account was being used with my Family Share enabled on the PC. So it was his account and PC being sold twice with my Family Share enabled.
 
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Ailike

Member
So trust is stupid? And feeling empathy for a family member while they were sick is stupid as well? I guess you must have a lot of luck in life living in with your head stuck up your ass all the time concerned with just yourself. Maybe if you read the whole thing of why I did it along with the sack suckers, perhaps you'd have some context of understanding. Your written post was fine enough, but your gif confirms your own stupidity.
The entire point of his post was -Yes- Trust is stupid. See how it worked out for you?
 
All you had to do to avoid this was to remote into your cousin's computer, log in then enable family sharing and sign out. I did this with my nephews computers.
 

ManaByte

Member
Does family share show hidden games? You should've hid your entire library and bought a bunch of hentai games. So the next time the guy streamed on Twitch to show off his impressive library, all they'd see is Sakura Succubus 4.
 

Fahdis

Member
The entire point of his post was -Yes- Trust is stupid. See how it worked out for you?

I still believe my cousin didn't do it on purpose obviously. I don't think you understand South Asian culture with respect to elders. But yes, the overall idea is to be careful with who you share information with or not do it at all. However, I have done steam sharing before with 3 friends in North America for a few years and nothing bad came out of it.
 

Ailike

Member
I still believe my cousin didn't do it on purpose obviously. I don't think you understand South Asian culture with respect to elders. But yes, the overall idea is to be careful with who you share information with or not do it at all. However, I have done steam sharing before with 3 friends in North America for a few years and nothing bad came out of it.
Yup. It sure does work out great. Until it doesn't. Why are you not getting that point? It's not about intent, or malice, or negligence. Its about the fact it can happen. And for you it did.
 

Redneckerz

Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
Since this is about drama OP, i can respond in equally dramatic verses. But beware, you may not like those who stare.
So uh... this all concluded today with extreme drama. A bit of a rant...

I gave my cousin my username and password a year and a half ago online while he is in another country so we could do Steam Family Share and swore from his confidentiality that he won't share my credentials with anyone.
This was an immediate red flag to me. You don't lend out your own credentials to anyone, especially when they swear they will never share it with anyone - They will.

Even more so, you knew he was using the PC pre-Steam to play COD4, pirated - So obviously, the legal land of the law was a shady one. But luckily he swore his confidentiality that he would never do a thing with your credentials. Besides, he obviously does not know much about Steam..

None of that is relevant - The biggest red flag here is entrusting someone you knew with your confidentials, apparently a young kid. People get scammed all the time for similar schemes but here you are actively contributing to the statistic why this works.

He apologized and didn't know how any of it worked
Ofcourse he doesn't, he is a young kid. Perhaps the rammifications of any of this should have been explained in advanced (If you were to consider this in the first place..) It doesn't matter how on good terms you are with this young kid - You are dealing with someone who has zero comprehension of what you just agreed to give access to him to.

He said that his friend called the same day in frenzy and was distraught... and said he was in trouble. He said he sold the PC further for $1500
This is the part where i went wtf. So you told your young kid how silly he was and he told his friend, but then young kid's friend sold the PC further? And you are somewhat still in agreement that young kid has a modicum of respect to you after having to apologize twice to you for his stupidity?
he got a phonecall from the person he sold to 3 months prior this year that "he lied about the deal and now his Twitch career will be ruined and there will be consequences for him".
Oh dear, yes how dire the consequences are about this friend of a friend whose friend see his Twitch carreer ruined. You know what i did when i was young? I played outside, played Pokemon, hide and seek and played Unreal Tourney 99. I blame social media for making Twitch even a consideration by young kids (and washed up parents) to think they get it big.
I still believe my cousin didn't do it on purpose obviously.
Except well, he did. But i guess you still think he respects you. No fam - You were gullible to share your account and he took note.
I don't think you understand South Asian culture with respect to elders.
This has literally fuck all to do with culture and all to do with your cousin being entitled and you being way too casual about your own good.

But yes, the overall idea is to be careful with who you share information with or not do it at all. However, I have done steam sharing before with 3 friends in North America for a few years and nothing bad came out of it.
Still sounds like you are minimizing the issue here. Given how gleefully you were to happily lend your youngkid cousin allow access all this time, i feel a gong should be set in place every time you think this.

I am sorry for the cold shoulder but the whole story reads like so many flags were ignored under the guise of ''My youngkid cousin wouldn't do that, he is too silly for that..'' when in fact, even silly cousins do reckless shit and don't tell you things.

Having said that, nice games you have.

jk
 

Kagey K

Banned
What a world are we living in when someone cares about a "twitch career".
Here's the thing, If it's going to be your "career" and want to be making money off it, you should be investing your own money into it, not using someone else's credentials.

This would be like a person getting mad that they were taking materials from their boss and using it to make money on the side, and then crying when they get caught and the boss takes away access to those materials.
 

GreenAlien

Member
That's why you use teamviewer to log in on your friends pc without giving away the password to your account..
 
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