Steam Family Share Disabled and no refund for skins bought in-game store

General Discussion General Discussion
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It appears that Amazon Games realized that this STEAM feature was resulting in a lot of exploiting and banned players resurfacing and had to shut this down very quickly to attempt to mitigate damage. With that said, I am not certain how much the advance notice would have helped you as you are still here four days later complaining.

I get the frustration, I really do but if you enjoyed the game, take steps to play again. Either play on the account with the game installed on it, or purchase the game for the account you want to save progress on as quite a few others have stated that they were able to resume play on the same Family Share character once the game was purchased and installed on that account.

You should have a copy of the conversation, would love to see the conversation where someone told you that the progress was deleted from your Family Share account and would not be there if you purchased the game and installed it on that account as quite a few people using Family Share have come here stating that they are still playing on that account after purchasing and installing the game on it.

I think this is the actual issue. You want to wait and see if Amazon will turn on the Family Share again so you can play on the Family Share account rather than purchase the game and install it on that account and you are frustrated with the wait. I get it but you could be waiting for something that never happens.

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Yo what are you talking about?

The Family Share Feature is not only your side. You can have it turned ON your side of Steam. But the developer of the game can turn it off their side. It won’t let you share even if you have your family share on.

Most SINGLE player games on Steam has this feature turned on. Most MULTIPLAYER games on Steam have it off. It makes a lot of sense and you don’t affect anyone playing that game if you decide to turn on cheat on SINGLE player games.

I think for an indie studio like FALL GUYS turning it on was a bad decision on their end. They had to turn it off because of rampant cheating. Again even if you have it on, it won’t allow you to share all the games you have on Steam. The DEVELOPER side has the final say whether they allow it or not. AGS ALLOWED it on a multiplayer basis which btw is insane.

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125

i don’t think is insane, the developer can ban the main account and prevent it from share, u just need to implement it
is insane that a SH ban the leaf instead of the tree
if u have 10 account u have x10 chance of getting banned, so for who talk about friends etc etc… why some1 should share the game with friends when they can get banned and he get the ban too without doing nothing?

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Policing is much more difficult than addressing the cheating issue to begin with. Prevention is much more easier to apply.

Since the changes I don’t have to deal with gold spammers flooding the chat box. I don’t need to add them on my intensive friend’s list.

Now as of botters and other nefarious things they more likely hide where they fish now. Where it is difficult to track and not out there in the open because of fear of getting banned and it will costs them $50 bucks

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u can fish in some houses too, so they are undetectable

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??? I stated nothing like this so not certain your point?

Are you confused on the fact that I stated that this feature can be used in any game that accepts it? This is exactly what you stated, if the game allows the feature, anyone accessing that library can use it. There are many games that should not allow this but do. New World is not an exception to what we see out there when a new game launches and my point is, most of these games learn their lesson months or even years in, Amazon Games saw the devastation that can result from this feature and shut it down quickly.

This is where I disagree, way too many have this feature as an option when it should not be. In fact, I think Steam actually hides whether a game has this feature or not when purchasing a game so you likely will not know until the library is shared and you look at files or attempt to access the game via Family Share. This is why I found it interesting when players have stated that they were damaged because they bought this game for Family Share and Amazon disabled it after purchase. I am pretty sure that Family Share was not something advertised or known until someone purchased the game and went in and attempted to use it.

I think Amazon Games overlooked it or did not know the infamous history of this feature but I give them credit for shutting it down in weeks rather than months or years.

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You sure make it sound like it is FAULTY. AGS decision to turn it ON was FAULTY. It only took them a month to figure that out.

Can you tell me a game that has multiplayer functionality and can be family shared? Especially MMORPG titles, I’m curious. I know there is a website to find games that have access to family sharing. I use family sharing and most MULTIPLAYER SHOOTER games with VAC can be family shared, MOST SINGLE player games I own can be shared.

On release of the any game, the developer can choose to turn it off and on. Having it off means even if you have Family Sharing ON it won’t allow you. “There is no infamous feature” again it makes sense to turn it off when dealing in a MULTIPLAYER platform.

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If it were not a faulty feature offered to every Developer for any game, the devs using it would have a way to mitigate damage from exploiters. As it stands, most companies that have tried to keep Family Share and mitigate damage from exploiters have failed and had to disable the feature months/years in when players had thousands of hours on Family Share accounts. If the feature didn’t have faults, it would work successfully with every game it is offered on, including the MMORPGS. I think the fault is so heavy on this type of game that Family Share should be excluded automatically and I blame Steam for not doing so or at the very least, put a ‘don’t place this plastic bag over your head’ warning for the developer.

Your suggestion that the feature is not faulty is equivalent to stating that a specific tire model that came out works for all automobiles but blows out within a few months when used on Ford trucks. The logic here is that the tire isn’t faulty, it just shouldn’t be used on Ford trucks even though it is being offered and sold to these owners? That tire model would be recalled quite quickly and fixed so it worked on ALL vehicles.

I have listed a few that have used it and failed which are Fallguys, rust, conan exiles ect. I have not kept up with all the games that have it or those that have disabled it but I do play mostly survival and MMORPGs and have 30 games in my library and it currently states that only two games are excluded from Family Share and one of them is New World. I don’t even show Ark as excluding Family Share but they might have gone the same route as Conan Exiles where Family Share is disabled from official servers but allowed on single player and test ect.

You can easily check this yourself through your primary account by going under your family share management and click on the link "show excluded games’. Like I said, I have two out of 30 showing excluded and one of them is New World.

I have had direct experience with Family Share for almost five years now and I am well aware of how it works and I have mentioned it numerous times on this forum. This feature (Steam’s Family Share) IS infamous, just ask all the games that had to shut it down many months or even years in when players had thousands of hours invested. There was a lot more screaming and complaining than we have here in New World and Family Share became quite infamous over these games taking the drastic action of shutting it all down months/years after launch.

Like I have stated, the Family Share feature is faulty in that it is offered for ALL games but poses a definite exploit risk for many games it is being offered to. Either the feature should not be offered to certain genres of games, or the feature needs to be fixed so that it is not an exploit vehicle for these types of games that it is being offered on. Blame it on the devs for accepting it all you want but it is similar to saying that the doctor handed someone blood pressure pills for their diabetes and the person got sick but it is that person’s fault for taking the wrong pills.

Most people trust the doctor to offer the appropriate medication just as many devs might trust Steam for offering a feature for their game.

In reality, the blame is on both sides for this fiasco. Steam for continuing to offer this faulty feature to every game which definitely facilitates exploiting in some types of games, and the developers for not looking further into how this feature works and the potential for harm.

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So, here’s my sad story with family share. I am new to the game and the MMO genre on Steam. Am an undergraduate student living in Egypt. Since steam and amazon didn’t make a specific region for Egypt in pricing so we are considered as either US store or EU store, so the prize of New World is for example 600+ EGP, and many other pricy games in that range.

I had an Argentina account in the past that I always used to buy my games on a friend made it to me and linked it to my Gmail etc. many years ago I used the family share with most of ma games to play on my main EG account which is a US store account to play with my friends and so cause the EG account has my progress for other free games that I played a lot. Played New World on the main US account with family share all the time cause couldn’t afford to buy it from the US store but afforded it from part of my extra savings on the Argentina steam account 1/5 of the US price so could afford it. And now the game is in my Argentina library and the progress on the US account is inaccessible for me :". I can’t buy the game another time from the US store as I couldn’t afford it from the beginning.

As a steam user and Family sharing user for many years* and new to the genre didn’t know that might happen :" and I hope they at least can make a character transfer option for those who can’t access their characters to the account that mainly bought the game, I have no progress on the Argentina account for many games but would like to access the progress and effort of new world once again from it and continue playing New World from the steam account that the game is purchased on it. is it impossible guys ?

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The solution is to simply dispute the credit card charges for the purchase of said items.

Simply put, if you buy it and they refuse to give you access for it when you have not violated any of the terms of service (aka no hacked, etc) then AG is literally defrauding you of your money. The credit card or bank will quickly return that money to you. Heck you can even dispute the charge for buying the game itself at the same time if you want to exit this garbage dumpster fire.

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133

OMG

The Family Feature it is offered in MOSTLY single player games. It allows the user to share their games AS IF they bought it.

Family sharing is not allowed on games that you make accounts with. For example Battlefield V it needs an Origin account, or any MMO games.

I don’t know if you are making stuff up but since you have not posted games that allow family sharing on a multiplayer I assume you do. Since I know I use it and share single player games with my friends and family.

The Store / Family Sharing is working as intended… AGS left the front door open and the store unsupervised. SINCE AGS have primarily controls of if they ALLOW family sharing or not.

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You lost me a bit there on why you didn’t play from the US account where you purchased it but I do not think it matters for your question.

I hope that Amazon is working on this as well for all those that purchased the game on one account, but for whatever reason, played it through Family Share on another.

This is what everyone is waiting to see/hear. Some players are reporting that transfer is not possible but I have not seen an official statement from Amazon Games on this.

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I bought it on the steam Argentina store account , shared and played on the steam US store account which is way more expensive it’s approximately 700EGP with fees and taxes for international payments :"

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It is offered on all games, it is up to the developer to select or exclude it. Unfortunately, many developers do not understand the feature being offered and the history behind it so the game launches with it, even many MMORPGS like we saw with New World.

Yes it is, New World is an example of this. Conan Exiles was another example. Maybe you need to explain ‘games you make accounts with’?

Wait, so I listed several already and you want me to go do the work and find all of them for you? lol As already stated, I have thirty games in my library mostly MMOs, MMORPGS and survival that require accounts to be made and I am showing TWO that are excluded from Family Share and you want to argue this with me with the weird statements that "Family Share is offered MOSTLY in single player games (no, it is offered to all and up to the devs) and that Family Share is not allowed on games you make accounts with when I have already listed several games that demonstrate this is not accurate including New World?

I think you are so interested in forming a rebuttal that you are not reading my responses. I explained ‘why’ I feel the Steam feature is faulty (Steam offering on ALL games as feature but the feature being an exploit vehicle for certain genre of games it is being offered on) so go back and re-read my previous response in the last thread. In fact, re-read the entire post as it addresses the argument of the dev ‘turning on the feature’ vs Steam offering the feature to be enabled on ALL games including a genre of games with a horrendous track record of the feature being exploited. Keep in mind, that tire is great for every vehicle except for Ford trucks but the tire is still faulty as it is being offered for sale to everyone. :wink:

Wait, but you also stated that:

How did the devs blow this, the feature is not ALLOWED on games you make accounts with, this wasn’t even an option for the devs to blow according to you?

^ This is one of my main points. Family Share should not even be an ‘option’ on games where it can readily be exploited just as the tire should not be sold to Ford truck owners. Either FIX the feature so that it is not an exploit vehicle for these types of games or not allow the option for the devs in these types of games to begin with.

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I fail to understand why you just didn’t play it on the account you purchased it on but I guess it doesn’t matter for your question. If you do not want to or cannot purchase the game on the account you actually played on, you will need to wait for Amazon Games to come up with a transfer solution (not even certain it is being worked on) or for them to reenable the Family Share feature which most of us are hoping does not happen unless they come up with some major solutions to the exploitation of this feature which many other games have tried and failed to do.

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Why were you playing on multiple accounts when only paying for the first? Seems sus…

I mean, maybe I missed it, but I don’t see anywhere you claim a family member of yours is on the original.

All the people doing this really got what they deserved. You had to know it seemed off that was possible. Plus, a good number are exploiters bitching and whining their exploitation engine is now dead. No sympathy, cry more.

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It doesn’t make sense to me that someone would think something like Family Share would stick around for a buy to play mmo. I immediately saw that as an oversight.

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You can always dispute the charge with your credit card company. It’s nearly 100% assured the bank will give your money back and charge back the company. It’s also nearly 100% assured the company will boot you from their game after lol

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Since you leeched the game off someone else youre not a customer. End.

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Op Is right. The family share was enabled at the Time he bought the game. This Is not the right way to deal with your customers. They should restore the toon and the skins. If this Is not possible due to technical limitations they should refund the money.

I dont understand the people that wonder why you played in your secondary account. The answer Is simple . Because he could do it and had the freedom to do it.

The problem here was Amazon ticking “enabled” on family share and now stealing 40 bucks on skins . Cmon Jeff…

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