Question Would I need multiple copies of game to play with friends over LAN?

[Andrewbandrew05]

So I'm setting up ethernet to my rig, and since cat 8 Ethernet cabling has a transfer speed faster than most hard drives read/write, I was wondering if I could set up a storage box filled with hard drives connected to a 4 gigabyte switch. Then I'd download like 6 copies of whatever games I was playing at the time on it, and friends could hook they're computers up to an ethernet port and play the games using storage on network. Then I'd set up a lan server for us to use to play multiplayer. Would we all need to own the game to do this? Is this even possible? Could one buy game then search for files on storage so they wouldn't have to download?

 

[boju]

Steam offers family share up to five people but cant play at the same time. Obviously not what you want.

Each of you need an Steam account, or whichever else platform ie Ubisoft, Rockstar, Origin, and each game bought separately. From there you can just download/ install game on first PC and create a backup install and copy it to the storage box for others to install from.

 

[Andrewbandrew05]

Ok. Would they still be able to play it from storage box if they owned it on steam, origin, etc?

 

[boju]

They'll still need to install the game on their machine but yeah, you providing the heavy lifting (downloaded), will make it faster from your local server. This is not streaming though, just installing to their PC from your already downloaded backup..

 

[Andrewbandrew05]

Ok, I might try a proof of concept for that first, maybe a python program that facilitates the file transfer between machines. It'll be worth it if I do it though just to see the look on my friend's faces when I say a game the size of D2 will install in like 10-15 minutes.

 

[lordmogul]

Also depends a lot on the game. For most Paradox games only the host needs to own the DLCs, and everyone connecting can enjoy them as well.
For C&C 3 you only need the disc in to start the game, then you can put it in the next machine until it it is running on every system.
If it's about installing them seperately on every machine, yes that would need to be done, but most platforms (Steam, battlenet, etc) have options to check for already installed games. (Basically just put the files where they should be and start the install, the store should find existing files and only download/update the necessary files needed) Steam even has the option to backup games and reinstall from said backups.