On PC and Laptop

My mate works away from home for several months at a time and he was wondering is it possible buy a game and install and play it on both his PC (when hes home) and on his laptop (when hes away)? or will he have to buy 2 copies, one for PC and one for Laptop?

 

He should be ok with one copy. If it is a multiplayer game, he should make sure that he is playing the game on only one computer at a time (since most of the multiplayer games require online authentication). For example, he cant have a buddy come over and play the same game on his laptop that he is playing on his desktop at the same time.

 

right okay thanx.

 

I have never seen a game you cant have on more than one computer at once. Im sure there is one out there tho, some companies have been greedy with digital authentication and stuff lately.

 

even the most evil of companies let you (theoretically) install the game on 3 PC's. that is the strictest drm currently.

 

okay i had to ask, how would this be done? using the Key-gen again?

 

The best way to handle something like this, I've found, is Steam. Steam has made running the games I own through it as painless as possible between my laptop and desktop.

 

yeah, but internet connection is VERY weak, though hes hoping upgrade. he DL speed is like 19kbps, its becuase of the area he lives.

 

With a steam account you can install the game on more then one computer. All you have to do is log into your steam account to access the game.

Some games allow you to use the cdkey with the retail copy of a game and register with steam. (not all games work) Check this out,
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=7480-WUSF-3601

Or if you are able to download any game on steam works. You can download it to more then one pc but can only have the account active one pc at a time. I have steam on both my pc and my laptop with some of the same games.

Other games you can install more then once. Fear for example was on my latop but I carried it over to my pc when I bought it.

 

oh cool, can you play online with them at the same time?

 

Not if you are using the same Steam account. You can only have 1 person per account playing an online Steam game at a time.

Now, technically you can have many people playing single player games on your account on several computers, they just can't log into a multiplayer online game at the same time or else one user will get kicked off the account.

You can even play LAN games with a single Steam account, but I'm pretty sure this is against the rules. (Titan Quest, ftw).

 

okay thanx

 

As soon as you try and sign online on the other computer the first computer that was signed on will be kicked off. I can however run an online game on one computer and run another offline on another at the same time.

If you want to play online you need two steam accounts and each one needs to "buy" the game. Say for example team fortress 2. I already have it on both my computers. My buddy wanted to play with me. So he logged in and "bought" the game. It was already downloaded on my laptop so he did not need to do that.

When he got home since his account shows he bought the game he was able to download it to his pc.

Think of it this way. Lets say you have two dvd players. If you want to watch the same movie on both at the same time you need to dvds, but you can play it in either one.

With steam you can have just one copy of the game and be able to play it in more then one place just as long as you only have one online at a time.