I’m not sure that would be the best solution. A cheater could still get caught cheating 6 times before requiring a repurchase, and it’s still a pretty harsh penalty for someone who didn’t cheat. You keep your game, but you can no longer share your library if your family situation changes.

‘Sorry, son, you can’t play my games on your computer because daddy made a bad decision when he was 21.’

The ultimate solution is probably an online identity when playing any game. Imagine if cheating got you banned from all online games for 5 years.

Yeah, it’s most likely to prevent someone from using the family feature to get away with cheating.

As it stands now, if you get caught cheating you must create a new account and repurchase the game. So the main deterrent is the full cost of a game.

With the steam family function you could potentially create 5 new accounts per year, and simply remove them when they get caught cheating. The only deterrent would be the wait period.

So I agree with their decision. The downside is that you must trust someone before adding them to your family. If your cheating son gets you kicked off counterstrike, then just remove him from your family. They’re never too old to drop off at the fire station.

I didn’t realize he wasn’t trying to sell his game, so I guess we need a different analogy.

Ok, imagine you and your brother are making a website where friends can post about their lives and keep up with each other during and after college. You’re pretty open with your project and then one day the one weird guy in your friend group launches your project without consulting you. The project takes off and makes billions of dollars. You sue the weirdo and he gives you some money, but you’re still pissed about it. Did you get Zucked?

Ok, so imagine that you’re hungry and you come across a sandwich shop that has your favorite sandwich for $15, but the shop next door has the exact same sandwich for free. Which sandwich are you gonna eat?

No, wait, that’s not important. Most people are gonna eat the free sandwich, so even if you eat the $15 sandwich, you’re statistically irrelevant.

Yeah, maybe some people that weren’t hungry are gonna get a free sandwich, but the people who were hungry are also getting free sandwiches, which means that the guy trying to make a living selling $15 sandwiches is gonna have to close shop unless he starts lacing his sandwiches with cocaine.