Steam (Deck) needs local accounts / sub-accounts with seperate saves

[Maykin-99]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 20221003.100
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Steam OS 3.3.2
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Have you checked for system updates?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

I have a Steam Deck and in my family I'm the only one with a Steam Account.
When a family member wants to play a game with my Steam Account then he/she inevitably will use my saves. That's usually bad because:

• Many games only have 1 save slot
• to use the Family Sharing Feature you'll need to create a new Steam account for each family member
• Family Sharing and Family View don't work together

My suggestion:

• Allow us to create sub-accounts that don't require a new Steam account.
• Each sub-account has its own save files (achievements and time tracking would be nice too, but its secondary)
• If it can't be enabled for all games then at least for Steam-Cloud-enabled games since Steam knows where the save files are and could copy / mount them before starting the game.

The Steam Deck is an awesome device but I can't recommend it for families for this reason.

[Maykin-99]

There's a patch for exactly this ready to go forever, but its stalled for whatever reasons. ValveSoftware/Proton#4861

This is something different. It is for multiple Linux users being able to use the same game installations.
Not applicable to the Steam Deck, I guess.

[Thornskade]

A bit late to comment, but the solution to the problem would be to simply create an account for each member in the family who wants to play on the device; why was this seemingly not considered?

[Maykin-99]

why was this seemingly not considered?

It's in the description but let's list the cons:

• it takes time, an email address and a password to create an online-account
• not user-friendly
• If I'm not mistaken the other accounts have access to the complete library. If you have Family View enabled on your main account, then it doesn't affect the other accounts. You would have to configure Family View for each account manually.
• Will this work in offline-mode?

[Thornskade]

I'm mainly confused because it works the same on consoles so it's essentially saying consoles are not recommended for families. In fact, this was entirely impossible on devices like the Nintendo handhelds, and on the Switch there are cases with certain games where it's not even possible to have more than one save file despite separate accounts. I suppose it's possible you mean to say you wouldn't recommend consoles for families. Not trying to make assumptions, it's just that I'm not sure what to make of it

But no, it doesn't work offline. That is something they could indeed improve

Probably ideally developers would have the foresight to allow multiple save slots in their games, but I understand that they sometimes just do not and it's impossible to enforce

[mjevans]

This is probably a duplicate of #4820 though in a more general than just Proton gaming sense.

[mjevans]

Sorry, I had too many bug tabs open and didn't notice I was trying to cross link to a PROTON issue ValveSoftware/Proton#4820 Proton not working when multiple Linux users share a single installation path