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Trollstone
Founder
Founder

Sharing Sadia within family

Hi,

I have an active Stadia Pro Account, and I am wondering if I can I share this account in my family! 
I found some hints online- but if I understand those hints correctly my son would need an individual account and I can control this account in the family options in the stadia client. But the most important question is, if this would be an official account I will have to pay for, or during registration of the Stadia account if my son I simply have to offer my activation code - so this code is allowed to be shared in family. Is this correct?

Kind regards,

Thorsten 

11 Kudos
27 Replies
Chufu
Platinum Stadia Guide
Platinum Stadia Guide

Hey @Trollstone,

at the moment family sharing is not possible, because it's not available yet. All you can do is control your child's account regarding Stadia, but for the moment, each family member needs to have a separate account and an individual Stadia Pro, you can't share Stadia Pro yet.

A lot of people are waiting still for the family sharing (including me) and Google mentioned it coming for 2020, so let's just wait until then. But if you want your son to be able to play now, yes he would need a separate Stadia Pro for the moment.

Here's what Google mentioned in 2019 regarding family sharing:

How will family link integrate into stadia? Will you be able to share games with family members in order to play together? Or will I have to buy a separate copy of the game for each child?

  • ANDREY: Family Link is supported on Day 1 to provide parents the ability to manage their child’s experience on Stadia. As a parent you have controls in your Family link app on the phone and the Stadia parental dashboard.
  • Family Sharing is not supported on day 1, so you’ll have to buy games for your child’s account. But it’s a high priority feature, we’re planning to launch early next year. 
13 Kudos

"It's a high priority feature... early next year.". It is now the middle of June and still nothing. I have been an avid supporter of Stadia since before it was launched. Between lack of games and promised but undelivered features, my patience is growing thin!  Good thing Google has money to throw at this because any other company would be ranked by now. But it also lends credibility to those who say Google will drop this like they do many of their other products. 

Tags (3)
10 Kudos
SevenDos
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Hi Chufu?

Any update on family sharing? I would like to play Stadia with my kids, but I don't want to purchase seperate copies of the games for them. 

3 Kudos
Kobanchee
Founder
Founder

Hey @Trollstone 

I'm also interesting in how this will turn out. In theory, it should work the same as any other console; i.e my wife can pick up a controller, sign into her account, and she has access to the full library of games that i've purchased. I sort of think that family members should be allowed to share games that they've purchased, just like we've always been able to.

I think where this gets a bit hazy is how online would work - on my Xbox i have xbox live, but she doesnt, so would only be able to play games locally. However, all of stadia is online......this could be an opportunity for stadia to get a real edge over the competition, though i understand its a leap for a family of 2-6 people to only be paying £8.99/month. 

i dunno! interesting to see what they come up with

5 Kudos
Matt1
Founder
Founder

I guess an ‘individual’ and ‘family’ tier would make sense. So £8.99 for individual and say something like £12.99 for family of 4 or 5 accounts sharing all content...

4 Kudos
AvidFan1
Community Member

We need more then just a tier system . If I buy a game my family should be able to use.

How does google have a chance to compere with consoles if they don't do that .

2 Kudos
Matt1
Founder
Founder

It depends if you mean play it in parallel (at the same time on different screens) which is family sharing, or if you mean just to have access to play it using another profile on the same account (I,e. their own saves etc.). I think they are different but Stadia needs both - extra profiles with one accessible at any one time should be free, but parallel playing like true family sharing is something that should cost a little extra in my opinion, but not massively more.

3 Kudos
Kobra
Founder
Founder

I agree this is a high priority feature... I have four accounts that needs to be integrated into my family plan because I don't want to put my credit card into each of those separete accounts,  this has been very bad developed by Google and still no mediation for this.

Personally, I don't know what's going on with Google, everything seems to be falling apart there... Stadia barely gets any updates at the interface level.  Especially at the app level, you cant even text your friends, there's no achievements, there's no profile interface to show user profile and how you're performing. Just ugly and barebone... I am a software developer, and I can tell you some of these features are so easy to build, they can be built in one day. Truly I don't know what the f is going on inside Google but it's not pretty, look at the Pixel 4A now, where is the phone? Will it ever be released?

Please Google get your :pile_of_poo: together....

- K0BRA
4 Kudos
5tadiaLaFamilia
Community Member

Hey Stadia! 
Quit taking advantage of kids and families will ya? I mean as if 2020 wasn’t bad enough you need to charge a single parent with two kids $180USD plus Stadia monthly just to play RDR2 together? Come on.

Please get Family Sharing into Production. Done is better than perfect. The kids are counting on ya for cripe sake. 

Tags (1)
12 Kudos
D4zedG4mer
Founder
Founder

So - I've also been wanting this for some time. I saw something recently which appears to hint that this is v. close to being a reality.

On 9to5google.com, this article was posted about a week ago (on 25th Jun 2020). This site is basically some techies which take a look at android packages (.apk files) which are pushed to the play store, "decompile" the packages and try and figure out what the code is doing. In this case it's the Stadia APK they're talking about.

According to the 2nd point in their article which is entitled "Family sharing", various text prompts have been set up which reference family sharing. This is a very strong indicator that this feature will be made available soon.

Points to note:

  • This appears very plausible - I don't believe you don't even have to "decompile" these APK files to see "static text" and/or ASCII fields, I think it's just a case on "unpacking" to be able to see this, so it's not that difficult to do.
  • Google development practices are known to include "dark releases" or "feature toggles" - both of which mean that features become part of the app way before the end user sees them, but they're just not switched (or "toggled") on yet and can remain this way for some time while the features are being completed and/or tested.
  • Just because the features are in the APK, it could still be that they aren't going to be turned on for a while to come yet and in some cases they may never be turned on. All this means is that they've recently invested some time/effort in this feature and so their currently intentions are likely to be to switch on this feature.

A positive affirmation of this from the Stadia team would be a nice next step, though. Any chance of this soon, Stadia devs?

5 Kudos
srob3r
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Family Sharing is not supported on day 1, so you’ll have to buy games for your child’s account. But it’s a high priority feature, we’re planning to launch early next year. 

It's mid 'next year' now and still no family plan. It seems like this is a purely legal and contract based issue, not anything technically challenging. I wonder if studios are pushing back on Google's plans.

6 Kudos
Kobanchee
Founder
Founder

Tbh I would be happy to pay £13/month or whatever so that my wife can have her own account. I'm a big advocate for stadia and a lot of my mates now have it on the free trial, but they're going to let that run out and ditch it until this feature comes in.

Bit of a shame really but generally I've observed a load of improvements, such as on screen controls, wireless stadia controller support on Chrome browsers, achievements have now arrived etc so they're clearly working hard on it.

I think that srob3r is probably right and there's some sort of legal/contract dispute about the sharing aspect of the games

2 Kudos
Ironjoinke
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

My children start to beg to get the new PS, I cannot blame them, I have their accounts setup, but refuse to buy separate copies of games. Please get this family thing in working order!! We have waited long enough for this announced feature, which was reason I bought this. If not coming soon, I will leave google for both music and games... 

7 Kudos
PhantomGriffin
Community Member

This should not be a high priority. This should be the only priority. With four PlayStations in this family and about to start buying PS5s as they become available, sooner or later this experiment called Stadia is going to have to go. It's not about the money, obviously we're spending way more on physical consoles already, but the principal of it and perhaps more so the convenience. I buy a game at GameStop and the entire family can play it. I buy a game, book, or song most anywhere the entire family can enjoy it, minimal hassle. Increase the price if that's what it's takes but don't make me buy it several times and have multiple subscriptions to manage. That's stupid. I despise Sony's limiting digital copies to two consoles, setting primary and secondary consoles, and one getting automatic updates but not the other. We're done buying multiple copies of games and having multiple plus subscriptions in the family. I would love to not have a console to maintain but I'm not about to switch to Stadia only to keep buying one subscription and one game for each family member. We'll just stick to PlayStations and physical copies for now unless Google can strike a deal that works for developers and large families. Time is running out.

9 Kudos

Yep this should be a thing by now. Buy a game on a disk or even digital on other consoles and you all get to share it, not at the same time, which I'd be fine with. Also a family pro sub would be good, like what they do with YouTube Music. 

For me it comes down to the complete lack of comms from Stadia, no updates, no roadmap, nothing. But given the early 2020 date has been a long gone, it doesn't surprise me they don't like to give time frames if they can't keep to them.

1 Kudo
ErikBlues
Founder
Founder

This has been asked 1000 times and Stadia has NEVER replied. They don't care and they don't give a **bleep**. I already canceled my subscription.

You can follow the full (ignored) thread here:

https://community.stadia.com/t5/Stadia-General/Update-on-timeline-for-Family-Sharing/td-p/12093/page...

0 Kudos
jsethsanders
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Hi all,

 

Is there any update on this? We are at end of October and I don't see anythng.

Very dissapointed.

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Fun0ne
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

They sent me a free controller and Chromecast so my son and I were excited but this is quite the buzzkill. :crying_face:

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GaretJax
Founder
Founder

What is a buzz kill?

0 Kudos
RXShorty
Platinum Stadia Guide
Platinum Stadia Guide

Family is available so there shouldn't be a buzzkill on that front. :winking_face:

0 Kudos
GaretJax
Founder
Founder

Yea, that is why I ask.  I have it set up with my son and it works great.

I link the Family Link integration with the time limit option.

0 Kudos
Cms3717
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I can't seem to get it to work. My kids have accepted,  I added them to my family pay thing. I see them on. When they log into their pcs' or try the app it only gives the option to sign up a fresh account. Any ideas?

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Cms3717
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

I can't seem to get it to work. My kids have accepted,  I added them to my family pay thing. I see them on. When they log into their pcs' or try the app it only gives the option to sign up a fresh account. Any ideas?

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GaretJax
Founder
Founder

Is Chrome on the PC signed in to the same Google Account that you have listed for them in https://stadia.google.com/families?

Also, are they using a Family Link account?

0 Kudos
cybax5883
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

OK. There are family settings and you can share purchased games but I can't share my Pro account with my son. I have to take out a new free trial and most probably cancel it in 3 months time.

Netflix - can share account

Xbox Gamepass ultimate - can share account

Prime - can share 

In fact all other streaming services enable multiscreeens/sharing of the paid account. 

Come on google! Families will be vital to your success and if you intend to compete with Xbox Gamepass you need to fix this. 

3 Kudos
GaretJax
Founder
Founder

Your son may not have their own subscription but he can play any game you have claimed.  I claim all the pro games each month so as long as they are in his rating level he can play them.

Only catch is you both can't play the same game at the same time. My co-worker with the PS4 confirm that his sub account for his son works the same way. They can't play the same game unless he buys another copy.  

3 Kudos
Grovelhog
Founder
Founder

Think of it that your Stadia account is the console.

You having a Stadia account and him being in your family group doesn't get him access to the games, he needs a Stadia account as well to play them on.

Set up his account, start the free trial, then immediately go in and cancel if you have no intention of carrying it on.

Provided that the games are at or below the content rating you set for his account, he'll be able to play all purchased games from the family group that have been shared, plus any games that have been claimed by a family member who currently has an active Pro subscription.

He doesn't need a Pro account unless he wants to play in 4k/5.1.

2 Kudos