Steam and Child access

So, I caught my 5 year old on my PC yesterday playing Battlefield Bad Company 2. Feeling like a pretty horrible Dad right now. He was allowed some computer time to play the Bit.Trip games (doctor's orders for his Amblyopia) and I walked away for a couple of minutes, come back and somehow he had figured out how to start it and resume the Single Player campaign. The kid is wicked sharp when it comes to using a computer and I don't want him stumbling into Killing Floor or Left 4 Dead. I was hoping to find some way to restrict what games he can access. Does anyone know of a parental lock feature in Steam? Or is there a hack where I can maybe limit what games display in Steam? Maybe as part of a different Windows login? Worried I'll have to do duplicate installs for that though.

The only solution I've found online so far is to create a separate Steam account for him and repurchase everything. I'm not going to go that far with this. Will just ban him from the PC I guess.

Assuming win7, I think you should be able to do this

a) Install steam in your son's account
b) Then put in your account details (this should give him access to your library without having to redownload or pay again for what's already on your machine*
c) Then use win7 applocker to block any games you don't want running or go to the relevant install directory for a game and change the access permissions for that directory so only your account can read it.

* I think you'd be a bit mad to allow a bright 5 year old access to an account with cc# attached.

Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a try tonight.

* I think you'd be a bit mad to allow a bright 5 year old access to an account with cc# attached.

Already have that covered. I don't store my CC# on my Steam acct. Pain in the arse to reenter it during Steam sales but it's safer that way. There were already a couple incidents with him buying Xbox Live games until I locked that down too.

I'm not a parent, so I'm sure I'm going to be laughed out of the thread, but how likely is it you can teach him those games aren't for him? What I'm thinking is that whatever barriers you put in his way, are just puzzles between him and the prize, and the more you put barriers in his way the more he will discover ways around them. You're teaching him how to hack in the most effective way possible.

Scratched wrote:

I'm not a parent, so I'm sure I'm going to be laughed out of the thread, but how likely is it you can teach him those games aren't for him? What I'm thinking is that whatever barriers you put in his way, are just puzzles between him and the prize, and the more you put barriers in his way the more he will discover ways around them. You're teaching him how to hack in the most effective way possible.

You should really do both.

DanB wrote:
Scratched wrote:

I'm not a parent, so I'm sure I'm going to be laughed out of the thread, but how likely is it you can teach him those games aren't for him? What I'm thinking is that whatever barriers you put in his way, are just puzzles between him and the prize, and the more you put barriers in his way the more he will discover ways around them. You're teaching him how to hack in the most effective way possible.

You should really do both.

You can teach him but you have two things against you... Kids are devilishly curious and they want to be "big kids" and do what their parents do. So, labeling anything as off limits just makes them want it 10x more.

For example, the other day we were at a thrift store and they had a pile of old VHS tapes. On top was an old rental store copy of "Aliens" and he grabs it up and asks me what it is. I tell him "It's my favorite movie of all time, but it's for grown ups." Double-fail... He knows its a movie I love and that he can't watch it. His next response would be "How old do I have to be for us to watch it together? Six? Eight?". I tell him thirteen and he gives me his obligatory "Aw... bummer". But now he's asked me a few times since then what the movie was about, who are the aliens, what's a space marine, etc etc etc. It's stuck in his brain now until something else takes his attention but I'll be given the evil eye by my wife every time he brings it up until that happens.

Hmmmm, I wonder if I label broccoli as "dangerous" if I could get him to eat it.

LockAndLoad wrote:

Hmmmm, I wonder if I label broccoli as "dangerous" if I could get him to eat it. :)

You might also add

* Cleaning your room
* Making your bed
* Mowing the lawn (ok, this might be pushing it)

I haven't had this problem with my kids (3 girls, age 11, 8, 5). Whenever we say that some tv show, movie, or game is "scary", they just move on and do something else. They're good at checking the rating of XBLA games and not playing anything rated Teen or higher. They don't currently have access to my Steam account, but if they did, I'd probably just set up a Category/folder for any kid-friendly games and they'd be fine limiting themselves to that.

LockAndLoad wrote:

Hmmmm, I wonder if I label broccoli as "dangerous" if I could get him to eat it. :)

Don't forget that it's your "favorite vegetable of all time".

Was he at least on top of the kill board?

I let my 6 yr old play castle crashers (which has blood and gore). I tried to tell him "it's really violent and not for kids". He looked me in the eye and calmly said "Papa, it's not real". Good enough for me, so I let him play.

Scratched is more right than he knows.

We've taught our son from a very young age about the concept of age appropriate media. He's 8 now and will ask if something is appropriate, and if we say know, he will ask things like when it will be appropriate or what makes it inappropriate.

We are very open about it, and he even understands that our standards are different from other parents.

We also don't watch or play media that we wouldn't allow him to consume when he's around. That's why I don't get into the L4D2 games that start before 9pm central.

I also don't let steam auto login and when he wants to switch games, he asks. At least, he used to. Since we like playing together, I built him his own pc for his 8th Christmas. Then this summer I got him his own steam acct. The few super cheap games on his account he is free to switch between at will. The appropriate games from our accounts require permission, and since he doesn't have our passwords, he'd need us anyway.

He is smart enough to install my other games, but he knows where the boundaries are, and I believe our openness about where they are and why have gone a long way to both allow us to trust him to do the right thing as well as making him feel trusted and teach him to trust us and our decisions.

I'm sure I've left out a lot, but phone typing is slow, so I lose thoughts. Happy to answer questions about hows whys and whatifs.

duckilama wrote:

...and since he doesn't have our passwords, he'd need us anyway.

It's all fun and games until he keylogs his computer.

LockAndLoad wrote:

Hmmmm, I wonder if I label broccoli as "dangerous" if I could get him to eat it. :)

I'm not a parent either but maybe a little reverse physiology? I can't remember exactly what my Dad did besides treating it like the best thing on earth since I was so young back then, but that's how he got me started on Sushi and Sashimi (Japanese raw fish) and I've been hooked since. A few years later and he did the same with wine with similar results. And they really are two of the best things on earth.
....
God I love my Dad. Pity I don't see him enough since he lives overseas.

I would say Steam's main shortfall is the lack of adequate parental controls.
But it is fairly simple under Vista, Win 7, Mac OS. I am going to assume that you use the administrator account. There are some good built in controls and tutorials. But you can go in as an administrator set time limits for how long he can use certain applications like games, a web browser. You can piecemeal grant him access to games and applications.

You may also consider getting him his own inexpensive computer and just installing the games you want him to play on it. Though 5 may be a tick young.

It's down to two things,
-The assumption that an account is a person, and not shared. Strictly speaking you're not supposed to share an account, but I think valve turn a blind eye unless there's a problem, and for minors they probably allow a fair bit of leeway.
-The design of steam is from 'back in the day' when computers, especially gaming computers, was less of a shared thing, and to think of whole levels of account controls was probably waaaay down the road. Back then, before XBL and gamertags I think the Xbox was in the same situation, with a master parental control for the whole console, and I don't remember the PS2 having anything like that.

Sure it could be better, but it would likely involve a fair bit of work, adding interfaces to manage it all and support it.

Oh, they are not alone on that. The only company I think who does a proper job is Netflix. Apple and Amazon turn a similar blind eye of either everyone has their own account, or it is the wild west though the iPod device itself offers more controls.

KingGorilla wrote:

I would say Steam's main shortfall is the lack of adequate parental controls.
.

You're not supposed to share your account anyway.... Plus.... if you are the sole user for the account and solely responsible for it then you have no need for parental controls.

I know it sucks but this is what they state :/

[edit] Tannhausered!

Tivo Kidzone is a great case study for this sort of thing. The fact that the Tivo by default goes into kidzone after X hours of inactivity is a neat Saturday sleeping in feature.

LockAndLoad wrote:

The only solution I've found online so far is to create a separate Steam account for him and repurchase everything. I'm not going to go that far with this.

Actually, I would have thought this would be the best solution. Many games are cheap enough (<$10) that 2nd copies won't break the bank. Sure, AAA titles are still pricey, but he probably isn't playing those, nor do you want particularly seem to want him playing them. (By the time he *is* old enough to play them, they'll be on sale.)

Besides, he'll want his own account at some point. As a bonus, you can play together when he's older, something you can't do if you're sharing the same account.

DanB wrote:

Assuming win7, I think you should be able to do this

How about on a Mac?

Itsatrap wrote:

Actually, I would have thought this would be the best solution. Many games are cheap enough (<$10) that 2nd copies won't break the bank.

I share most of my other media (books, movies, music, board games, console games) within the household (with age and interest related exceptions, of course). Unless I'm specifically looking for a multiplayer experience, I don't see the need to purchase multiple copies. Sharing a Steam account does mean we can't be playing two different games on two different PCs at once.

Katy wrote:

Sharing a Steam account does mean we can't be playing two different games on two different PCs at once while in online mode.

FTFY. Offline mode can solve that problem.

DeThroned wrote:
LockAndLoad wrote:

Hmmmm, I wonder if I label broccoli as "dangerous" if I could get him to eat it. :)

You might also add

* Cleaning your room
* Making your bed
* Mowing the lawn (ok, this might be pushing it)

Pushing it indeed. Very pun-ny!

Katy wrote:
DanB wrote:

Assuming win7, I think you should be able to do this

How about on a Mac?

Method A)
Open a terminal window, cd to the to the game install directory and change the file permissions using chmod to restrict to the owner/user of that file.

Method B)
Open finder, navigate to the game install directory, right-click/ctrl-click the directory, select Get Info, click the little padlock icon in the bottom right of the info pane, supply the relevant password, then change the file permissions to prevent, everyone from reading the directory.

Yeah, before getting the duckling his own account, we just ran one pc in offline mode. Easy as pie.

DanB wrote:
Katy wrote:

How about on a Mac?

Method A)
Open a terminal window, cd to the to the game install directory and change the file permissions using chmod to restrict to the owner/user of that file.

Method B)
Open finder, navigate to the game install directory, right-click/ctrl-click the directory, select Get Info, click the little padlock icon in the bottom right of the info pane, supply the relevant password, then change the file permissions to prevent, everyone from reading the directory.

Thanks Dan. As long as there's another account with the admin password, I can't screw things up too badly, right? (When you see me posting about a dead MacBook in Tech & Help later, you'll know why...)

Why not just teach him that he can play some games and is not allowed to play others, that are
daddy's games till he is older. As long as he follows the rules, he can play games on daddy's computer. If he is caught a second time breaking the rules, then he will not be allowed to play on daddy's computer for a period of time. A third and maybe either the time is extended or he loses access to 'his' favorite game.

I'm not talking out my Ironbutt. My sons have learned, listen and follow the rules. It was really just a conversation and nothing more. It's absolutely doable without a technical solution.

Duoae wrote:

You're not supposed to share your account anyway.... Plus.... if you are the sole user for the account and solely responsible for it then you have no need for parental controls.

I know it sucks but this is what they state :/

Maybe I'm a mutant, but I don't think it's realistic to think you are going to setup a seperate account and buy a seperate user license for every minor in the same household, especially one that isn't even a tween yet. Gabe and co need to set the tone to protect themselves and the products from real abuse, but I doubt they are concerned with parents and young children under the same roof.

Irongut wrote:

Maybe I'm a mutant, but I don't think it's realistic to think you are going to setup a seperate account and buy a seperate user license for every minor in the same household, especially one that isn't even a tween yet. Gabe and co need to set the tone to protect themselves and the products from real abuse, but I doubt they are concerned with parents and young children under the same roof.

Hey, look. I completely agree. I was just stating what their official line is and why they won't take steps to accommodate this feature wish. If they set up features that "condone" that sort of thinking, they weaken their legal right to shut down people who share/sell their accounts.

Personally, i think we should have more freedom with the stuff we pay for.... but then I don't have the majority opinion about these sorts of things on here....

Duoae wrote:

Personally, i think we should have more freedom with the stuff we pay for.... but then I don't have the majority opinion about these sorts of things on here....

I think you've got far more company than you realize. The ability to sell or gift games I no longer care to have on my account is #2 on the list of things I'd like Steam to do, right after either getting rid of the friends cap or fixing the friends list to properly display large groups.

To be honest, it's probably in their interest to do it correctly than just the issues raised in this thread. I'm sure they have more problems owning to innocent account sharing, for example an account being loaned to a friend probably isn't protected by steam guard and could be stolen by malware, which is before you add in the "my brother did it" excuses where a loaned account is stolen by the ex-friend.

Katy wrote:
DanB wrote:
Katy wrote:

How about on a Mac?

Method A)
Open a terminal window, cd to the to the game install directory and change the file permissions using chmod to restrict to the owner/user of that file.

Method B)
Open finder, navigate to the game install directory, right-click/ctrl-click the directory, select Get Info, click the little padlock icon in the bottom right of the info pane, supply the relevant password, then change the file permissions to prevent, everyone from reading the directory.

Thanks Dan. As long as there's another account with the admin password, I can't screw things up too badly, right? (When you see me posting about a dead MacBook in Tech & Help later, you'll know why...)

Assuming you just change the game directory you should be good, as long as you have access to the admin account you can always change things back if something seems amiss. In fact as long as you have admin access you can always correct any mistakes short of deleting the OS.

Wait until he jumps into a game he's not supposed to, then burst into the room covered head-to-toe in blood with a knife in your hand and scream, "WHO NEEDS A TIME-OUT!?" Problem solved.

I should write a parenting book.