Multiple Steam accounts on the same computer?

[CurseTheSky]

Hi guys,

I'm working on setting up a secondary computer for guests (mostly my girlfriend and her son). Both have their own Steam account (thanks to me 😉) and I'm considering installing the games from both, possibly all three, of our accounts on the computer. That way, we could actively switch between accounts depending on who's playing.

Is there any problem with doing this? Will Steam simply give a list of install games based on the account that's logged in? I'm assuming they'll all be installed into the same Steam directory (regardless of the different account names) and I want to make sure it won't cause any conflicts. Finally, is this against Steam's TOS in any way?

Thanks.

 

[Lonyo]

Log out and in and you will be in a different account.
You can use as many accounts on a computer as you want, you just can only use one at a time.
The list of games available will be the games that account has (although other games may show up as "preinstalled" or "demo available" but won't actually be the full playable game, it just picks up that the files are present).

I've only used multiple accounts on the same computer with different games, never tried the same game on one PC with two accounts, but I would assume that they are set up to play nicely with each other (or you would hope so...)

 

[Mo0o]

Yes the same game works just fine. A lot of LAN cafes have this. They have a lot of games preinstalled on the computers and you can either log into one of their accounts or your own.

 

[Sureshot324]

If you have the same game installed under 2 different accounts, will it be installed twice, taking double the space? In my steamapps folder I see a common folder where most 3rd party games are, and a folder with my username where most Valve games are, including Team Fortress 2. So if there was another account with TF2, would it be installed twice?

 

[JTsyo]

Yes the same game works just fine. A lot of LAN cafes have this. They have a lot of games preinstalled on the computers and you can either log into one of their accounts or your own.

People actually have faith to use passwords in cafes?

 

[Rebel44]

If you have the same game installed under 2 different accounts, will it be installed twice, taking double the space? In my steamapps folder I see a common folder where most 3rd party games are, and a folder with my username where most Valve games are, including Team Fortress 2. So if there was another account with TF2, would it be installed twice?

It will be installed on your HDD only once.

 

[micaturbo]

If you have the same game installed under 2 different accounts, will it be installed twice, taking double the space? In my steamapps folder I see a common folder where most 3rd party games are, and a folder with my username where most Valve games are, including Team Fortress 2. So if there was another account with TF2, would it be installed twice?

For Valve games, the folder with your username only holds settings and custom content while the game data itself is stored in .gcf files in the steamapps directory. So the game is only really installed once.